Here is a list of effective, popular, proven-to-work, and low-cost ways to market your book. I personally use every one of them, so I know for a fact that they are an effective way to build up your audience and sell more books. The steps to marketing your book, and deciding which avenues are good for you to utilize for this, might take you a few months to figure out. But all of the ways on this list are very easy to set-up, and most of them are low or no-cost to you.
1. Blog Your Book: Post articles from your book, as well as articles on related topics, on your blog. This is a great way to prove to your audience that you know what you are talking about. Writing on your blog is also a practical way to create the content that eventually might go into your book. The best website for blogging is WordPress.
2. Write Guest Posts: This is a very effective way to get your name in front of the readers on other blogs. You should only post useful content on other blogs that let you include a link back to your blog. If they don’t allow this, don’t waste your time on them
3. Get Published In The Print Media: Do your best to get your articles printed in magazines and newspapers. This will get you a lot of credibility with your audience – and this credibility will eventually help you sell more books. The very big mass-media publications are very difficult to get published in – especially for beginners. Start with the smaller industry specific publications. These little publications are always in need of high quality content from someone that they can trust.
4. Post Your Profile: Post your profile on blog listing websites. This is a great no-cost way of getting very wide exposure on the internet – and, most importantly, in Google searches. A few good websites for you to look at are Bloggers and AboutUs.
5. Connect Your Blog: Some blog listing companies will also connect your blog to your profile page on their website. This means that every time you post to your own blog, it will also show up on the blog listing website – automatically. A good website for you to look at is PaperBlog.
6. Create A Google+ Account: This is very quickly becoming a very important and popular way to connect with others. It takes a while to figure out how to use all of its features. But because it involves Google, you must learn how use it and take advantage of all of its features.
7. Use LinkedIn To Develop Your Professional Network: This is the best way to show the world what you have accomplished. It is also an amazing way to connect with people all over the world with similar professional qualifications and interests. Some of these people will become part of the audience for your book, as well as a pool of people to ask to write testimonials and endorsements for your book.
8. Use Everything Amazon Has To Offer: Amazon is just about the most amazing tool for marketing your book as well as yourself. It has several tools that are very effective and easy to use. Its best feature is the Author’s Page, where you can add lots of information about yourself and your publications, as well as add a video. This Author’s Page is like having an additional website devoted to you. Amazon has several other ways for you to connect with your audience. One such tool is Listmania, where you can help guide readers by listing your favorite books for a particular subject.
9. Article Marketing: This is a way for you to post your articles (blog postings) on an “article listing website”. On these websites, readers can search their database by typing in particular search terms and find articles that contain the appropriate article tags. The best website on the internet for this is EzineArticles.
10. Post Videos On YouTube: At the very least, you should post at least one video about your book. This is your chance to show yourself to your audience, let them see you talk about your book, and see how confident you are about your topic and your book. It only needs to be a short video, anywhere from five to eight minutes long.
This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com