Dee Stewart is the owner of DeeGospel PR, a Christian entertainment PR boutique located in Atlanta, GA. Visit her Christian Fiction Blog, which turns 5 years old in July at http://christianfiction.blogspot.com, keep up with her current projects at http://www.deestewart.com, talk to in real-time on Twitter at @deegospel, or register for her 6 Week Marketing Mastermind Session. Christian Fiction Online Magazine readers get a special discount. Check the graphic for details.

This year—so far—I’ve been honored to have serviced seven Christian book publicity campaigns. In each campaign my mission was to build a publicity strategy that complemented the author’s personality, his or her writer’s voice, personal parameters, wallet, and most important, their crowds—their readers.

Crowd sourcing is a tool I use to study the psychographics (what people like) of a particular reader to learn the best way to tap into that group and galvanize them into converting more members of the group to read my client’s book. You can use crowd sourcing to tap into the power of your ideal book club.

1. Recruit a book club to be your Reader’s Advisory Panel.

If you want to know if you’re book is reaching the heart of readers in your genre, recruit a book club to be your Reader’s Advisory Panel. When best-selling author C. (Chet) Kelly Robinson converted to Christianity, he could not continue writing the books he once did. With his publisher’s help, he retired his old name and began writing as Xavier Knight, Christian fiction author. His debut Christian fiction novel released almost unnoticed. Why? Because no one knew who Xavier Knight was, not even his old readers. His pen name had become a challenge. Therefore, with his second novel, God Only Knows, he needed to leverage his platform. He needed to go back to his old book club buddies. We created The Knight’s Round Table to do just that. Past book club presidents who were fans of C. Kelly Robinson comprised The Knight’s Round Table. We invited them to join the panel, sent Xavier’s book to those who accepted the invitation, and began a conversation about the book and how to promote it to other book clubs. The results from this strategy is still ongoing, with book clubs featuring Xavier Knight as their Book of the Month. God Only Knows has received favorable reviews on Amazon from Christian readers who don’t fit Chet’s core demographic but have been introduced to his book by other Christian book clubs.

2. Build an online hub that will become the center for offline action.

Jordan Rogers, the author of Angels Watching over Me, is a minister on a mission, literally. One weekend Jordan will be in Dallas, Texas, and the next week he’s in Sacramento, California. He is mobile and fast, but his ministry needs an online hub where all those who have been impacted by his message can mobilize and prepare for his next coming. We implemented The Real Men Project, a membership site, to keep other ministers in the loop about Jordan. Ministries are often concerned about spam and safety while online. Membership sites are private and bring value to members who have the code to enter the site. This membership also offers discounts to book buyers, private telechats with Jordan, and many other goodies. But most important, it makes his crowd happy.

3. Build opportunities for the crowd to meet.

What do your book fans expect from you? It is the question you should ask nine to twelve months before your next book release. If you don’t have fans, then you know what your focal question is nine to twelve months before your book release: Where is my crowd and how do I reach them?

Please understand that the race isn’t given to the swift but to those who endure. Public relations is not a guaranteed book sale. It is an opportunity to present why you are valuable to those who need what you can provide. You will try many things to tap into your readership. Some will be successes and some will be (depending on your mind-set) failures; therefore, you must apply this no-fail crowd sourcing approach in your publicity strategy.

4. Galvanize the ultimate crowd of Christian readers.

This past weekend I attended a Church literacy read-in celebration with my write-or-die-chicks (clients) in a town none of us had ever been. A handful of church members showed up to hear us read. We knew that this congregation and this town had a little zeal for reading. Our mission was to begin a conversation about literacy and good reading. Little did we know that those handful of people consisted of the pastor, who knows the city cultural arts council, who knows the chief moderator . . . In a nutshell, we have an invitation to return to present our read-in again on Sunday (where most of the congregation [crowd] will be in attendance) in lieu of the pastor’s sermon. We’ve also been invited for more and bigger opportunities to reach others who are associated with this crowd but live in other cities in the state. The events organizer tapped into the power of the body of Christ, the ultimate crowd not just to introduce literacy in Madison, Georgia, but to show the authors who were with me that God always makes a way out of no way. Kudos to my friend Shawneda Marks for teaching me that lesson.

Be encouraged in your Christian marketing efforts.