Well, we all know the saying, you gotta spend money to make money.  So there comes a point in develping a marketing plan for your book that you need to decide if you will pay for advertising.  If so, how much??  And where??

One place to order advertisements to appear on other sites is BLOGADS - an ad broker of sorts - one account for as many blogs that you want to advertise on (versus dealing with each one individually).  Ads can run for various time spans and the cost varies by site and size of your ad.  Basically, the more traffic a site has, the higher the cost.  When you search sites on Blogads, it will tell you each sites traffic, the ad options available and the cost.  When I was researching on Blogads I checked out some pricing on mini ads to run for two weeks, and below is a list of what I found.

Bookshelves of Doom $20

The Leaky Cauldron $20

Modoration $20

CurvyGirlGuide (Just Jared) $20

Crabby Go Lightly $20-30

Bookslut  $100

Chicklitbooks $155    

Celebrity Smack $70              

Hollywood Rag $40

Womanist Musings $37         

Made of Awesome $40

EricandSookie.com $24

Book Blog's own http://momsfocusonline.com also accepts Blogads.

So if I chose a $100 budget for blogads, I could do the first five sites for two weeks and see how it goes.  They provide you with stats of your ad's activity you can analyze.  If this paid effort appears successful, you could continue advertising with them for another length of time of your choosing.  Now, I will point out that some Blogads run in the thousands - many are not cheap!  I just kept searching for some lower cost options (I'll admit, even the $155 one made my mouth drop!)

Besides Blogads, there are many sites that provide advertising where you need to contact that site and set something up.  What are these sites you ask?  Well, I researched that as well!  Below is a list of what I found - the site, number of followers or hits per month, and cost.  Most are a per month cost. (Keep in mind I was researching advertising to an audience for a contemporary YA romantic fantasy....)

As noted on the YABooksCentral information, you will need to book your ad early with them.  Other sites may also need to book months in advance, so my suggestion would be to email each site and ask for advertising information and timeline.  You should keep a chart of each site you contact and then input the information you receive back into that chart. I tried to keep track of emails I received by creating a separate folder for them, but it got too confusing and I found that a chart worked much, MUCH better. 

Please let us know if you have found any other sites you would recommend to advertise on!

There are some sites that have 'click through' advertising where you pay based on the number of people who click through your ad post to your site, book, post, etc.  I am a bit leary of this because you can't tell how much bang for your buck it will get you.  On facebook, you can set a daily or lifetime budget, so that is helpful, but I haven't tried it, and I don't know how many hits say a lifetime budget of $100 will get you.   If anyone has any experience with this, please share how this went for you! 

Well, that's it for today.  Another piece of the marketing plan attacked.  Good luck!!!!  : )  Jan