Promoting a self published book

Hey,

i just self published on amazon and i was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for how i could promote it? i would appreciate any advice that you could give me.

Regards kate

Be a person. Talk about you, your life, and your writing habits.

Create a blog. Share the blog on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (Not at Librarything)
Create a twitter feed specifically for your writing. Share it on your blog, Facebook, and Instagram. (Not at Librarything)
Create an Instagram specific to your writing. Share it on your blog, Facebook, and Twitter. (Not at Librarything)
Create a Facebook community for your writing. Share on your blog, Twitter, and Instagram. (Not at Librarything)
Talk to book review blogs about getting interviewed. Find a way to do a Blog Tour, or join an existing one.

Read through Writer Beware(tm) website to see what contests might be worth entering for you book to become an award winner.

I just published my first book in January, so I'm in the same boat. Gilroy mentioned a lot of good places to start. I know that I have learned through trial and error. As an unknown author it is an uphill battle and a lot of work. I'm not an expert, but feel free to contact me. I can share what I've learned so far.

Leon

I don't have a lot of advice, but I'm pretty sure running around the web posting book blurbs everywhere you are allowed to post book blurbs and then never returning to those sites again until you are ready to post another book blurb is a waste of time. I see people doing that, and they don't have any readers. They come back after the next book and do it again, and they still don't have any readers.

Likewise, free book giveaways, once thought to be the most marvelous promotion gimmick ever, should be approached with caution. If the people who are getting the books are just there to get free books, it probably isn't worth the effort. I think if you can find a book giveaway where the participants are there for some other (relatable to your book) reason and the book giveaway is just a bonus activity for them, then the giveaway is more likely to be worth your while.

What has worked for me is having a reviewer with some 'reach' post a review somewhere other than Amazon. Authors always seem to think reviews posted on Amazon are the thing to chase after... and for certain, if they are positive reviews they don't hurt you. But people don't usually FIND books to read via amazon reviews. A reviewer with an established audience will do that for you.

So, how did I get those helpful reviews? I make online friends who love books and who talk about books and to other people who love books and word gets passed along and... voila! (If I tried to approach reviewers on purpose maybe I might get more reviews? I don't know.)

It also helps to have more than one book out. I started out by publishing an entire trilogy in one go, and soon realized that I was getting twice as many sales from any serendipitous word of mouth than I would have if I only had one book out. So I always recommend focusing on writing the next book rather than on promoting the first book.

All good advice. I would recommend having your own website, having bookmarks featuring your books and joining sites like Goodreads where you will find a multitude of information and advice. Good luck.

It takes a lot of time and work to gain readers. There are so many sites out there, and as LS said, you can't just join, post disappear. You have to be active (but not to the point of being a pest). I sometimes forget where I have been...

I have signed up for a few free webinars through www.thecreativepenn.com. She collaborates with other writers to sell her books and services (there's always an up-sell pitch at the end), but the hour long webinars have been quite helpful.

As a new author, reviews are key. Readers need to have a reason to take a chance on you. Getting them is a whole other challenge as LS mentioned.

I think I mentioned this before, but writing turned out to be the easy part.

My theory is that you probably want to only belong to, at most, three communities of writers/readers. Then you depend on your friends/fans in those three communities to do outreach for you to their other communities, the participants of which will hopefully say nice things about your stories in their other communities, and so forth.

No writer can possibly keep up with all the communities out there by themselves--they would never have time to write.

I also think that banding together with a bunch of writers of the same genre in your area and doing group promotions, like readings and contests and so forth is probably a useful idea. If each of you on your own could attract only five people, then five authors together attract 25 people, and ten would attract 50. It adds up.

Here's my tupp'orth. I fully agreed with comments above that joining platforms just to push your book is counterproductive (and annoying to everyone else).

Assuming you have a well-written book with a fair-sized target population (as opposed to a niche interest*), your first challenge will be discoverability. How and where are potential readers going to find you? Where might you show yourself that they could see you?

Turning your question around, what do *you* feel you could do that would be sustainable (and that you would enjoy, or at least not begrudge the time spent)? Everyone's answers will vary. I've met writers who take on board "You must post weekly on your blog" and force themselves into posting for the sake of it. And it shows. Others enjoy sharing stuff with their readers, and that shows too.

My approach: I hang out on Twitter, which I quite enjoy. I chat a little (mainly with other writers) about writing craft and day to day stuff. I play a Twitter game called #vss365 where you post a tweet-sized story based around that day's prompt. About once a week (or when someone asks for book recommendations) I might say, "If you like my #vss365, you might like my novels" and post a link. Once a month or so, I reuse a few of those #vss365 in a blog post. My other blog posts are usually reviews of eg operas or plays I attend. My most visited post so far has been an interview with Stephen Briggs *basks in reflected glory* :D

So, I fit promotional activities around stuff already I do rather than turning them into yet another job. Hope that makes sense.

*My niche interest is eye pathology. I'm considering writing a textbook, maybe to self-publish if the academic publishers don't want it. My promotion for that would be totally different - I'd offer review copies to eye pathology sites. I'd ask (politely, and once!) my contacts in learned societies to let their members know. I'd mention the book (briefly!) when I lecture. And so on...

The one benefit of joining multiple platforms is the wealth of information, as long as you are able to process it all. Every site I've joined has given me something to take away. That being said, if you join a site, to promote only, it will backfire.

On blogging, I blog about ones a week, but sometimes a thought will come to me and it gets written down. I repost my blog on Goodreads, and I enjoy when others comment on it - Usually it is on a humorous one. I think of blogging as short stories, they need to be either entertaining, helpful, or topical ( or tropical, like a whole post on pineapple/rum drinks.)

I tweet once a week, and again I like for it to be more entertaining then promotional, but in the end it is geared to gain readers.

Instagram: I created a cartoon called "The Miniscules" as an outlet for my odd humor and lack of cartoon drawing talent. My main goal is to entertain a different set of users and hopefully turn them into fans/readers.

It's a lot of work, more work that writing at times...

Er...
I administrate a Writer themed group on LibraryThing?

I wasn't trying to do marketing, mind you, I just like this site, and like talking about writing, so I was trying to combine the two likes.
But I have been told it definitely helps. My publisher says 'random purchases' went down to nothing when I was forced offline.

But I can only afford one of that kind of time commitment.

I envy anyone who can think of blogging as writing a very short story a week, and not have that thought send them running away screaming. I find writing short stories very difficult. Short just isn't my thing.

Also, a long acquaintance with myself has led me to believe that any sort of time based commitment, such as "weekly" is a bad idea. :(

But... I have web-development skills, and I can tat?

>10 LShelby: I have the opposite problem in that I don't think that I am capable of writing a long story (or just don't want to). I'll come up with an idea and when I start writing, I just want to get to the point :)

>11 LeonStevens:
Since we are veering off topic for this thread. I will respond to this in a new thread the Hobnob Group. Hope that's okay. :)

Cya there!

Thank you Leon. I would like to hear more since I just published on Amazon and would like to get my book out to as many people in need. It's a non-fiction self-help/motivational book. I would love to hear of what you have learned... what is effective, has been enlightening, and overall exposed your book to readers.

Mike

>14 M.J.Schwer:
Since Hobnob With Authors is the more active group, I don't suppose you would be willing to go over and join the brand new thread on the same subject that someone started over there?

Here's a link:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/320857

I'll post my reply there as well.

If you intend not to spend money on promoting your book, my experience as a self pubished Christian Author is to promote your book on various groups available on FaceBook.
Furthermore I also use Twitter which I find also good.
From my end, I also have various social networks, such as websites, to promote my books and also I use a monthly newsletter.
Hope this is of help. Good luck

There are review blogs. There are lists of book review blogs online, like this one: http://www.theindieview.com/indie-reviewers/ Just FYI, reviewers sometimes have months of reading in their inboxes, so it can take a while to get reviews.

I've said this before in some threads: I thought writing a book was the hard part. It's not, it's the marketing. Especially as a new/unknown author because there is a lot of competition out there.

It is overwhelming at times, researching all the different avenues and trying to decide what will work best for you. I went through lots of trial and error.

I'm slowly gaining subscribers to my newsletter. I only wish that each of them would purchase my books. Some of them received review copies, while others downloaded sample books. If I added my followers on all my various platforms and 10% bought a book, I'd be happy.

I do enjoy writing my weekly newsletter and blog, and many subscribers still open them, so they must be entertaining.

A newer place that I have been trying is https://storyoriginapp.com/ which is a site geared to getting your review copies and reader magnets to new readers.


The other thread here has ideas as well
https://www.librarything.com/topic/320857

>20 hanque99: But marketing books in LibraryThing is not the answer, as it is not allowed, and you get flagged.