I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have found some very interesting ways to market books and authors since my last post and I am going to share them here in this continued post of That dirty nine letter word.
Now that ebooks, POD, and self-publishing have become popular, getting published is very quick and easy, however, marketing and promoting one’s self can be seem time consuming and overwhelming to someone just starting out in the writing world. The great part about promoting yourself is that it really isn’t hard and can even be fun– if you like to socialize that is. Now, what do I mean by socializing? Well, there are a lot of places on the net that will let you do just that while allowing you to promote yourself and your website.
If you have a website already, great! If not, let’s go into a bit of detail about setting one up for yourself. Try starting one up on a free hosting site like Homestead or even your own internet service provider. They will have a few templates for you to start out with if you aren’t very tech savvy. These sites are great practice for you to get your feet wet. You could also pay someone to set up a site for you, but you would be better off knowing a bit of the basics, yourself, so you can update your site often. Most places that charge you fees to set up a website will only update your site a few times a year, if at all, and some will even expect you to maintain it yourself.
Now that you have a site, promote it through social networking. Social networking is just a fancy word for socializing on the net. There are many places to socialize, like groups. Groups are a great way to get to know other writers and readers. There are countless numbers of sites dedicated to writers and a few are AuthorsDen, Writing.com, 8hop, Conscious Artistry, and Poetry Soup to name a few.
There are also specific sites geared towards perfecting your craft in writing like mikeswritingworkshop (found on Yahoo!), Accentuate Writers Forum, and even the groups that I have founded called Writers With Chronic Disease (found on Yahoo!) and Coping With Fibro (found on Lulu).
Another great avenue to look into when socializing is to go where the readers go. Writers are readers, yes, but there is a whole new area to explore when you find sites that are specifically geared to readers. You can find a lot of them on sites like The Library Thing and Nothing Binding.
There are also a few others sites that you can try when promoting yourself in the big internet world and we’ll talk about sites geared toward independents now. If you are a self-publisher, you have probably heard of a few of these sites already, but even if you are not a self-publisher, these sites are definitely worth looking into. Self Publisher’s Place and indie coffee house are great places to start. They not only provide a place for you to promote yourself, but their sites also have some great info for marketing and some freebies for the writers out there.
The last place I’ll discuss in this blog is another great form of advertising, but it can take a bit of time to research. And that would be other sites that might relate to your particular book(s). A lot of sites love to exchange links because it can help in search rankings, but they also like to link for a more important reason, and that’s to build a site with a great wealth of knowledge. If you wrote a book on a particular syndrome like Fibromyalgia, as I did, you’d want to seek out sites that relate to that topic. Some sites might be informational sites on the particular subject, some might be fellow writers talking about it on a blog, and others might be in the form of a journal. You can advertise by one of two ways, either leave them a comment on their site, or email them and ask if you can add their link to your site. Most people are more willing to help you out if you help them and a nice comment here and there about someone’s else’s ideas or blogs can go a long way. Plus, it just feels good when you do it. I have had a lot of success with added links and advertising this way that not only help me with advertising, but help me to build a beautiful site that has a wealth of information for writers of poetry and self-help, as well as, people who suffer from the debilitating disease known as Fibromyalgia.
Well, these are just a few of the ways that I’ve found that can help with advertising and promoting your book. I’ll be back with more, as well as, some other fun topics for writers. I need to refill my cup, so take care for now and I’ll chat with you all soon!
Kimberley
