So you’ve just finished your book and after dozens of rejections you’ve said screw it and made the decision to self publish it. Well self-publishing is a great way to get your work out there provided you know how. I personally believe the future of not only literature but music as well will be more self published artist and writers then those who go through it the traditional way. Unlike independent filmmaking self-publishing is much cheaper, even free by publishing exclusively for online.
Now the thing you need to know if you’re going to self publish your work is how to market. Some publishers offer marketing options to assist you. Some of them are worth it, like if you’re trying to reach certain audiences that you don’t have the connections to. Others are things you can do yourself for free, like setting up a presences in social media. The first time I self-published my book back 2005 I didn’t know anything about marketing or even how important it was to having a successful product. Now after years of schooling, a Bachelors in Film and Media production and a Master’s in Entertainment business I not only understand the value of marketing but how to do it successfully; some of which I will be sharing in this article.
For starters, I’ve just mentioned social media. Social media websites such as Facebook and twitter are a great place to start your marketing. Create facebook pages for your book and set up your twitter to shadows your work. Your updates and tweets should be the thing that keeps your readers in the loop about your book and future books you have coming out. This is where you advertise, I also suggest making sure your personal Facebook profile professionally reflects your work. Another thing you should do is create a blog, unlike your facebook and twitter your blog post should go more in-depth about your work and your book. Your blog isn’t for advertising like your facebook and twitter, it’s for connecting with your audience. It’s for then to get to know the real you and interact through comments and queastions.
You’re presence on social media is what keeps you close to your audience but of course you’ll need to get people over to your sites and profiles. This is when the long and tedious work begins. First of all it’s okay that you tell your friends and family on your social sites and keep them up to date, but unless one of them is a valuable asset that will drive traffic to your product I don’t suggest advertising to them too much unless you want to waste time. First identify your target audience then build a presence in their domains. Sign up to discussion forums and blogs relating to the content of your work or genre. Post a bit on the forums and reply to other post. This is will allow them to get to know you building your presences as a writer. These discussion forums are a great place to advertise but tread softly. Some sites don’t like for people to advertise and if they catch it you’ll ban you. For those sites I suggest building up a familiarity with the people there it’ll reduce your chances on getting banned.
Now here’s a little trick I picked up from one of grad school instructors Kimberly Craft. She’s a successful author whose book “Infamous Lady: The True Story of Elizabeth Bathory” sold hundreds of thousands of copies. All of which was self published and self marketed. One very good method of marketing that she did was to research other authors more in her genre who were more established then her. She done her research on the authors read their blogs then reached out. Now she didn’t immediately ask for their help but she offer to help them. For starters she always said, “The first step of winning their favor is to give a gift.” For example she read the blog of another author who also wrote a book on countess Bathory and she noticed that he kept mentioning how he wished he could get his hands on the original notes that were brought up in the actual court case of countess Bathory. Well luckily when Kim was writing her book had got her hands on all of the original documents and translated them so she was able to send him PDFs of it. After that he wanted to help her out so he posted information about her book and where to get it on his site, which brought in traffic of thousands of loyal readers. So network with other authors and always bring a gift.
Of course I have dozens of more suggestions and ways to easily market without sending a dime so if you’d like to know more about this subject or other subjects relating to writing or self-publishing just follow my blog at my website. http://www.phantomuniverse.com and don’t hesitate to ask questions that you may have, just fill out and contact form on the site with your question and I’ll send you the answer at my earliest convinces or I may just post a blog about it.