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How To Promote Your Book? Help? Tips, Advice, Thoughts!

Meadow337

Meadow337

Former Moderator
There is tons and tons of advice out there on the net on how to promote your book. I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread for any one to offer their own tips and advice on how to do it. Or comment, or just venture an opinion :)

My first tip is #2 on this list (http://www.writersstore.com/15-do-it-yourself-tools-to-promote-your-book/ ) and I thought it particularly appropriate advice for this section of the forum.

2. Contribute to Web Forums

Every field has at least one or two forums that people interested in your subject know and read. Find and join these forums.

Contribute to them freely. Give advice and reach out. Offer to help others. Put a link to your blog or website in your signature line. When you have a book title, add the title to your signature line.
​

If you have any other tips, advice, or thoughts please contribute them here.
 
I have a 'social media' issue, but yeah, same thing applies though - participation is key. You don't build interest without followers and you don't have followers unless you participate. Ditto for forums or blogging.
 
Most articles /publishers advise authors to be active on the social media and build up 'followers' to improve visibility. Maybe it works because we have people writing books, maintaining websites, blogging, updating FB/ twitter and also having a full calender of social engagements.
I don't know how they do it because all this ought to be distracting them from their creative pursuits, unless it is all 'outsourced' and managed by professionals. Whatever way it is done, it is difficult to sustain and not really every writer's cup of tea.
 
The best person to promote a book is the author. Yes, you can spend lots of money hiring a publicist, but readers want to hear from the author. When you read a good book, you make a connection with that author. While it may not be every writer's cup of tea, it is an obligation for every serious writer.
 
Take advantage of all free sites that will allow you to share who you are and about your book. The more you are willing to put yourself out there and be accessible to people.
 
Write a book in series, book 1,2,3, or more of a series is one of the best promotional techniques going today. Once you have book 2 of the series online, make book 1 perma-free. Naturally, readers will go after the first book because its free and nothing works better to get your name out in front of the readers than the first free one. After reading book 1, they will buy the rest of the series if the book series is a great read.

Many Authors are now using that perma-free and book series to do well in Indie Self Publishing. They are also having some success with BookBub.

BM
 
You could think outside of the box by maybe creating a t-shirt with your book cover and site details on it
or you could create all sorts of designs on mugs,bags,etc and give them as gifts to people who you think
might be interested in reading your book.
 
If self promotion is now the way to go with writing how does one protect oneself from theft?
Surely the work has to be copywritten before it can be placed on the internet?
 
Before, sending email was easy, you can attach your eBook links and send it to people. Now you have to be very careful, first of all, build rapport, or make sure you have made contact with all those email address in your list already. So when you're sending your promotional email to them, you can send them it without going to their spam folder.
Second, is while you're writing your book, befriend already many people, because when you're trying to befriend someone when you were just promoting your book, case is, they will not pay attention to it at all. But having a long time friends with strangers will make them want to check your books.
Third social media, is where you can find friends, and also groups and forums.
Fourth, if you can, you may host your own book on you website.
Sample:
Http://tagtd.com
(If not allowed, Admin please disable link)
I host my own site for my book Life of Ton Paliin
Because when you're on Amazon and other book store, they have this fee thing that they deduct to you and your buyers.

But of course, you still have to register on Amazon and, Nook, Barnes, Smashwords, though Sony Store is now discontinued :(
And many things...

_________________
Ton Paliin
Author of Life of Ton Paliin
Wall of Shame
 
Roxbrough said:
If self promotion is now the way to go with writing how does one protect oneself from theft?
Surely the work has to be copywritten before it can be placed on the internet?
Click to expand...

You can DRM the book, which annoys the living daylights out of people, or you can just hope sales stay ahead of the copy curve.
 
darrenwhite said:
You basically have to join Amazon KDP then give it away for free to get up the rankings, find an audience, get reviews and most importantly, get the 'others viewed / bought' mentions.
Click to expand...

I published my book on KDP, and I was giving it away for free for a while ( but I guess I'm only allowed to do that for 5 days?) I would like to give it away for free for a year or so, since I'm not a well known author (i just like reading a lot, and was hoping to publish something...) How can I do this? I have three five star reviews (from when it was free), and I would like to continue to make it free. Is there a tutorial on how to do this?
 
It's really hard to get word out. I've been promoting through Facebook and various other social media sites, but it's very time consuming and I feel like I'm working hard to get every sale. The paperback comes out in two weeks, so I will be giving copies away through local newspapers, and my work magazine (with a 30,000 circulation) is doing a feature on me, so hopefully that will generate some sales. My blog is building up a bit of traffic, too, and I also gave copies to a couple of radio personalities who have said they will promote the book. If they like it :)
 
Gita V.Reddy said:
Most articles /publishers advise authors to be active on the social media and build up 'followers' to improve visibility. Maybe it works because we have people writing books, maintaining websites, blogging, updating FB/ twitter and also having a full calender of social engagements.
I don't know how they do it because all this ought to be distracting them from their creative pursuits, unless it is all 'outsourced' and managed by professionals. Whatever way it is done, it is difficult to sustain and not really every writer's cup of tea.
Click to expand...

I agree that it is time consuming. It takes away from writing time and studies show that for the majority of "unknown" authors, this doesn't really work. The best promotion is word of mouth for your novel, so make it stellar. (There was a study done by a company that focused on Romance authors. Not sure if the study was done by Harlequin or an independent group.)
 
Eric Auth said:
I published my book on KDP, and I was giving it away for free for a while ( but I guess I'm only allowed to do that for 5 days?) I would like to give it away for free for a year or so, since I'm not a well known author (i just like reading a lot, and was hoping to publish something...) How can I do this? I have three five star reviews (from when it was free), and I would like to continue to make it free. Is there a tutorial on how to do this?
Click to expand...


Once it's not enrolled on KDP, you can adjust the price on a different publisher website. If enough people submit "price change" on Amazon, they will change the price for you. You just have to get a bunch of people to do it. Amazon will NOT make your book free if you are an Indie author.
 
Facebook and social media only works when you already have an audience. If unknown you have to get good feedback from those who read your work. Try http://reviews-easy.com/. It’s a friend’s project (build exactly as a result of frustration for not receiving any feedback for a book), a small site where you can find professional reviewers to endorse your work. No mandatory fee, just log in and search for the domain you’re interested in finding reviewers. Contact them and hope that what you write is quality :)
 
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