Finding ways to promote as an Indie Author.

So, you have written the book, gotten through the editing and formatting, and finally have a published e-book.  The hard part is over, right?

Wrong!  If you think your book is going to magically tout itself, think again!
Now the "hard" part comes.  Marketing.  Marketing and advertising can be overwhelming to a new Indie Author.  Heck, I have over twenty years of advertising experience and I am still learning new ways to market my first book! Let me share just a little bit of what I have learned.

First of all, social media is now your best amie, sigh...I mean friend (Gastien, go away.  I am "talking" now).  Build an author page on facebook.  Or, build a character/book page.  You can also try to do both.  Personally, I am just doing a Gastien fanpage, because there will be at least four books in his series.  You can see my page at http://www.facebook.com/Gastien.Beauchamp for an example (and a bit of shameless self promotion.  Gastien, make sure you look your best.  I know how much you want to impress the ladies.) Once you get 25 people as fans, you can have a unique link to it and start promoting the page with it.

Tweet.  A twitter account is important.  Make sure you tweet at different times of the day.  You need followers, so at first you will be tweeting to nobody.  Start following.  You can follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/Caddyorpims. Enter keywords in the search, like readers, authors, romance, mysteries, etc to find people to follow.  Lots of people will follow back.  There is a lot more to building a successful twitter acount, and I am still learning. I need to build a lot more followers.

Start a blog, and blog almost every day.  Make sure that you use hyperlinks to graduallay increase your visability to search engines.  Again, you will be talking to very few at first.  But it will grow.  Mine is still fairly new.  I don't have many members, but many more read the blog.  After I write a new blog, I facebook, tweet and send it to linkedin.  We will talk about this more in another blog.

Seach out reviewers and book bloggers and ask them politely and professionally if they would review your book.  Some are months out before they will get to yours, but be patient. We will talk more about this aspect of marketing soon. Just a word of warning:  Do NOT pay for reviews.  What good is a paid review? Here is an example of a book blogger that I found on facebook.  Although the review of Gastien Part 1 is not done yet, look what she has done for me underneath the weekly Try Me: http://romancenoveljunkies.com/  Cost? Free. Be sure to ask how YOU can help THEM! Pay it forward.

Join kindleboards  and be active in their Writers' Cafe.  Haunt it and contribute your input.  Be friendly and polite.  Take criticism with grace, if you ask a question about your book or writing and you get some.  The authors there are awesome and will help you, unless you are obnoxious.  You will find many marketing opportunites there, too.  Here is the latest Gastien got from there: http://networkedblogs.com/pAuks. It is a full length interivew with me from Kindle Authors.  Awesome!  Cost?  Free!

Because promotion is such an important part of self publishing, we will talk about this more this week.  As important as it is, though, it is NOT as important as getting that second book out there!  Remember, this is not a quick way to make money.  I have heard over and over that it takes at least three books to see the first book really take off.  This is even more true about a series, because people are afraid you might not write the second book and they will be left hanging.  Yet, series are very, very popular and they can sell very well. A series might be a great way for you to increase your readership, if it makes sense for your book.

Don't spend a bunch of money to promote your book.  You don't need to.  There are a myriad of free opportunities out there.  You just have to do the work to find them.  Oh, and guess what?  Even if you had chosen to find a publisher and finally landed one, you would have to do this.  They expect new authors to do that.  Publishers spend very little mone on new authors.  Not promoting on your own almost guarantees your book by a publishing house ends up on bargain racks.  That means zero (or close to it) royalties to you.  Take a deep breath and get ready to self promote.  It is scary, it is frustrating...and it is hugely fun and rewarding to see things start to happen.

Join me tomorrow for more thoughts on marketing your self published book.