In my last post I wrote about why I decided to go the self-publishing route. Since then I received a lot of positive feedback from other writers about why they self-published and the experiences they had. One gentleman said he liked the control that self-publishing gave him, even though he has published through traditional publishers like Doubleday. A lady said she self-published her first book and because of it she was able to find a publisher for her second one.

These are true reports that self-publishing can work, but you have to be prepared to do all that it takes (and then some) to get your book before the masses. The key to that is effective marketing. This begins before your book is even published. Do you have a web presence? Do you own a website or blog? Do you tweet, link, face or get involved in the many social networking opportunities available?

I have to confess that because of my work and other writing commitments I didn’t do as much as I should have done to market Women For All Seasons before it was released. However, I am plugging at it steadily. Someone said that in order to market your book effectively you should do at least one thing every day.  So far I have notified all of my groups about my book and I keep posting messages about it to Twitter and Facebook. I have gotten reviews posted on Amazon and uploaded a PDF version so visitors can look inside the book before buying. Book Buzzer is making use of this technology on its site as well, and once you have enabled this feature on your Book Buzzer page, you can share it on your website and other social media.

Effective book marketing takes a lot of effort, but I plan to have fun with this marketing campaign. I’m not going at it in a desperate attempt to make money, although that would be nice. But for right now I’m going to have fun and learn as much as I can, so next time around, self-published or not, I will have a very effective campaign and sell a lot of books.

Between now and Christmas, I’m giving away a copy of my book to someone who subscribes to this blog, so don’t miss out.

Related articles

• Christian Self Publishing Association Launched to Serve Authors and Raise the Quality of Self-Published Books (prweb.com)
• Why I Chose to Self-publish (suzanneanderson.net)