Selling Self-Published Books

When and why should you, the author, take care of your own book marketing and promotion?

Has your "child" been born? Is your book printed or your e-book created in PDF? It's beautiful, of course, isn't it? Now what do you do to bring it to people, to let them read and enjoy it? In other words, 5% of work - writing - is behind you, but 95% of work - book marketing - is still ahead.

What's the most common mistake new authors make? They start thinking of selling their book only after it's printed. There are a lot of activities that could and should be done prior to publication date, but we'll talk here now about book marketing and promotion after publication.

Marketing and promotion go hand-by-hand; sometimes it's difficult to distinguish which is which. We can put it this way: marketing concentrates on bringing your book to places where people buy books, and promotion concentrates on making people become interested in buying your book.

And you, the author, are the one who is in charge of book marketing and promotion, as a responsible parent of your brain child, your work.

If you were published by a big publishing company, the company takes care that your book appears in big bookstores, and that's the end most of the time. It's mostly your own problem from then on, as little promotion is often done for new authors by big publishing companies.

The shelf life of a book in a store is often very short - typically about half a year. After that it'll be "remaindered." No more promotion. No sales. That's how your book can breathe its last breath in silence on a store shelf.

If you are self-published, you have much more control of marketing and promotion, and you can sell your book happily for years if you yourself are able to create the demand. Then the issue of getting your book to bookstores becomes subsidiary or even unimportant at this stage.

So, your need-to-do-list in book marketing and promotion will include the following:

-selecting right markets for your book;

-finding ways of reaching them with an offer;

-listing your book in all book industry sources available;

-making your book available through online and offline stores;

-letting the buying public know about your book through published online and offline press releases, reviews, articles, interviews, advertising, etc. etc. etc.;

-getting your book reviewed, yourself interviewed, articles about yourself and your book written, sales copies prepared, etc. etc. etc.;

-creating your book online presence - that's last, but not least - it's getting more and more important as more and more people get information and make purchases online.

The exact course of action depends on your book, its topic and aiming, of course.

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