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In his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes, “A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.”

Caesar had plenty to worry about in March. But us? We have much to look forward to.

As we end the first quarter of the year, those of us in the northern hemisphere can start thinking about winter slowly fading away. There’s March Madness, the annual multi-week college basketball tournament in the U.S. And let’s not forget about St. Patrick’s Day, when people pretend they have Irish ancestry.

March also offers a rich list of unexpected, whimsical, and quirky occasions you can use to bring attention to your book.

How to capitalize on crazy March occasions

The crazy March occasions list below offers so many fun book promotion possibilities.

If you’re not sure how to go about pairing your book with any of them, use these examples for inspiration:

• Jen Ruiz, author of The Solo Female Travel Book: Tips and Inspiration for Women Who Want to See the World on Their Own Terms, can link her book to March 1, Plan a Solo Vacation Day, by writing and distributing a tip sheet with advice for staying safe on a solo vacation or a similar topic.
• Do you write children’s books? Create interactive website content for March 3, If Pets Had Thumbs Day. Write a fun short story or design a downloadable word search or coloring page. Promote it widely on social media.
• I don’t know about you, but the resurgence of fanny packs caught me by surprise. A trend-aware fashion pro with a book – say, Laurie Brucker Amerikaner, author of You Are the Style! An Every Girl’s Guide to Getting Dressed, Building Confidence, and Shining from the Inside Out – can create a series of Instagram images or a reel showing how to wear them now. Help the rest of us avoid looking like Melissa McCarthy in “Tammy,” please!

Whimsical March occasions you can use

Here’s a partial list of the fun March marketing opportunities you can add to next month’s book promotion calendar. Get the full list on the recently redesigned Holiday Insights site.

• March 1 Plan a Solo Vacation Day
• March 1 World Compliment Day
• March 3 I Want You to be Happy Day
• March 3 If Pets Had Thumbs Day
• March 7 National Cereal Day
• March 8 Be Nasty Day
• March 9 Get Over It Day
• March 9 Popcorn Lover’s Day
• March 10 International Day of Awesomeness
• March 11 International Fanny Pack Day
• March 11 Worship of Tools Day
• March 14 Learn about Butterflies Day
• March 15 Everything You Think is Wrong Day
• March 15 Ides of March
• March 16 Everything You Do is Right Day
• March 18 Awkward Moments Day
• March 18 Supreme Sacrifice Day
• March 19 Let’s Laugh Day
• March 20 Extraterrestrial Abductions Day
• March 20 International Day of Happiness
• March 21 Tea for Two Tuesday
• March 22 As Young as You Feel Day
• March 29 Smoke and Mirrors Day
• March 30 I Am in Control Day

Be sure to check out the list of book-related occasions during March in our 2023 literary calendar, too.

Which of these crazy March occasions speak to you? How will you use next month to help generate conversation and call attention to your book in a lighthearted way?

It’s time to have a little fun with your book promotion, isn’t it?

In addition to several literary holidays, June brings a fun selection of quirky, off-beat occasions you can use to call attention to your book online.

Some opportunities on the June calendar will jump right out at you like a grasshopper in new field grass. You might have to look a little harder for others.

Whether your opportunities are obvious or harder to see, looking for them and linking them to your book can be a nice change from what you’ve been dealing with in recent weeks.

How to take advantage of jazzin’ June holidays

Not sure how to go about pairing your book with any of these fun holidays below? Here are a few examples to get you started.

• June 2 is National Bubba Day, an occasion you can take advantage of if your book is about best friends, or if you’d like to blog about your bubba and what that person means to you. It’s a perfect match for an early readers book that releases June 1, The Adventures of Bubba Jones.

• I can see Kris Bordesa using June 10, Herbs and Spices Day, to call attention to her popular new book, Attainable Sustainable: The Lost Art of Self-Reliant Living (I just love that cover!).

• What about International Panic Day on June 18? There’s nothing like a heart-stopping thriller to generate a little reader panic. It’s also an opportunity for the author of a book on anxiety, including the memoir Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life.

After you matched your book with the right occasions, create and schedule blog posts, tip sheets, or social media images.

Which can you add to your book promotion calendar?

Here’s a partial list of the quirky June holidays you can add to next month’s book promotion calendar. Get the full list on the Holiday Insights site.

• June 1 Dare Day
• June 2 National Bubba Day
• June 4 Hug Your Cat Day
• June 5 National Doughnut Day
• June 6 National Gardening Exercise Day
• June 7 VCR Day
• June 8 Best Friends Day
• June 10 Herb and Spices Day
• June 12 Red Rose Day
• June 13 Sewing Machine Day
• June 15 Smile Power Day
• June 17 Eat Your Vegetables Day
• June 18 International Panic Day
• June 19 Take a Road Trip Day
• June 18 National Bald Eagle Day
• June 18 National Hollerin’ Contest Day
• June 21 National Sea Shell Day
• June 23 International Widows Day
• June 24 International Fairy (or Faery) Day
• June 26 Beautician’s Day
• June 26 Forgiveness Day
• June 27 Sun Glasses Day
• June 28 International Body Piercing Day
• June 29 Camera Day

Which of these holidays can you use next month to help spark conversation and fun?

Avril learned how to create and distribute a tip sheet, a type of press release that offers tips or advice, in my Book Marketing 101: How to Build Book Buzz for Fiction E-course.

Using the prescribed format for this powerful publicity tool, Avril offered parents  advice for selecting just the right Communion gift for little girls. She made that bridge between fiction — her book — and nonfiction — the advice she could offer as a result of her book’s research — to create a tip sheet that offered the media useful information they could use immediately.

Article shows you how to write one

I’ve shared the steps Avril and others students in the course use with success in a magazine article, “Tip Sheets: An Author’s Best Publicity Tool” (see pages 24-25). It explains the concept, how you will use it, how to write one, and mistakes to avoid.

Save yourself a lot of time, and enjoy the resulting exposure, by mastering the tip sheet writing process outlined in the article. (Or, if you prefer the fill-in-the-blanks approach that a template offers, check out Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates. It includes a fill-in-the-blanks form with a sample.)

I know from experience that tip sheets are incredibly hard-working tools that help authors, especially novelists, get media exposure their books might not otherwise enjoy. But tell me, what book publicity tool do you use with success? What’s working for you? Please comment here!