A few weeks ago, I asked my buddy Raymond Bean, author of both the School Is a Nightmare and Sweet Farts series, to share his thoughts on what it takes to write a children's book. This week, I asked him for some tips on marketing a children's book. Here's what he had to say:

Do you have kids? Check out Raymond's fun books!

Call me old fashioned, but I believe the best marketing tool for a children's book is the children's book. Sure you can blog and tweet until your fingers fall off, but kids don't read blogs, and they don't care about your tweets because they're reading Justin Bieber's.

At the end of the day, your book is going to have to do most of the heavy lifting on its own. However, to increase the chances for success in an increasingly crowded market, here are some things you can do:

1. Know your genre: Before choosing a title and cover for your book, follow the Amazon rankings daily, if not hourly. Will your book's title and cover pop next to the best-selling titles or blend into the background? If it pops, young readers and parents will discover it and give it a try.
2. Give away free copies: Get your book out there! Give it away to friends with kids, mail it to bloggers, or gift it to schools and libraries. Giving away a hundred books once or twice a year can go a long way. Each of those copies will go out in the world and promote your work for years to come.
3. Write multiple books: Don't write one book and expect it to shoot to the top and change your life forever. The best support for your books is more of your books! The more content you create, the more selection you provide your readers. Your ultimate goal is to build a reader base of people that appreciate your writing and want more. Give it to them!

I write contemporary fiction, but Raymond's smart advice applies to my genre too. So even if you're not a children's book author, I highly recommend following his practical suggestions to help promote your work. For more information about his books, visit www.raymondbean.com.

Maria

Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, Honey on Your Mind, and Chocolate for Two. She also provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2013 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.