The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood

by Nadine M. Rosin

What can you do when your book marketing budget is $0?

Lots, it turns out.

In 2008 Nadine M. Rosin published The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood, a true story about the human-animal bond, healing cancer holistically, senior canine care, and an empowering new take on the grieving process when a beloved animal passes away.

Since its release, this Wheatmark-published book has sold hundreds of copies and its sales continue to grow—without the author having spent a single penny on marketing. Here are some of the most effective no-cost marketing strategies that Nadine used:

• She started following a targeted audience on Twitter—one that included pet parents, pet-sitting businesses, animal nonprofits, shelters and rescues, book lovers, cancer survivors, veterinarians, and the holistic community.

• She built relationships with these tweeters, which not only led to book sales, but also to numerous radio, podcast, and online interviews all over the U.S., England, and Australia. One natural pet food distributor she connected with on Twitter has copies of the book shipped to Nadine directly from Amazon. Whenever the pet of one of the distributor’s customers passes away, the distributor emails Nadine a printable FedEx shipping label so she can personally inscribe and send a copy to the customer at no expense to her.

• She created profiles on pet social media sites, including Dogster.com and Doggyspace.com.

• She commented, commented, and commented again on other people’s blogs and pet profiles. Engaging with people in this way, offering to help with pet, health, and grief issues related to her book and experience, has led to strong online relationships with readers, bloggers, and social media pros. This has resulted in even more interviews, sales, speaking engagements, and book signings; a fan base of reposters and retweeters; and valuable personal correspondence, support, and endorsement from such fellow tweeters as Guy Kawasaki (Apple & Alltop) and Yvonne DiVita (blogger for Purina and LipSticking).

• She wrote blog posts for other pet businesses’ blogs.

• She wrote blog posts about other pet businesses for her own blog.

• She volunteered to write magazine articles, always including her book’s purchasing information and URL in her signature/credentials.

Nadine is passionately committed to marketing her book, and no ingredient (not even a big budget) is more important than that!