There was a ton of information in this panel. Most of the folks were actively taking notes while someone else was speaking, and I finally (too late) realized I should be recording it.

I missed too much good stuff, mostly the "free" ways of marketing.

Maintaining your mailing list of readers is the top idea.

Jonathon (who writes military fiction) pushed joining Romance Writer's of America. They really understand marketing.

Much as you might like to disparage romance, the writers know what their readers want, and the readers get what they're looking for.

For paid marketing:

BookBub gets good reviews, but it's hard to get your book into them.

Getting a good cover is important. It needs to scale as well as look cool on a book cover.

Jonathon has had good luck with AMS Amazon click-through ads. You need to watch them, and tweak it carefully or you'll pay more for ads than you see in revenue.

Getting into "bulk" giveaways is good. It puts your book in with some other better known author, so you get some eyes that you might not otherwise get.

Jonathon suggested watching Michael Cooper as an author who understands Facebook marketing. Twenty books to 50K - if you've written twenty books you can earn $50,000.

Book Trailers "kind of work". Depends on how much you're willing to pay or if you've got friends who can do the work for you (or if you're a multimedia guru) or even stock photos and a sound track.

Jonathon recommends doing a collaboration with an established author. It gets you some extra eyeballs, reviews from folks who only follow the established author.

There are two different styles of doing this:

• Write with author, and you get a byline "Joe BigAuthor and SomeOtherGuy"
• Write a book in someone else's world. You need to get permission and you pay them a percentage, but it gets you onto the shelf next to Jane BigAuthor, maybe as "A New Adventure in the HugeFantasyWorld Series"

He also suggested tuckerization as a way to get folks invested in your book.

Anthologies are another option - again if you can get into an anthology with a big name like John Ringo or Stephen King, so much the better. If you can team up with a big seller, that's better than a good writer that doesn't sell as much.

They also noted that sometimes the one/two star reviews can be the best. "Too much sex and violence" is a fast way to sell it.

Don't ignore your local library, small-town newspaper, radio station, etc. These folks are actively looking for content and a "local author" is always good copy.