A word to new authors about promotion (can apply to everyone though)

I am the worst ever at updating this blog. I am just not a good blogger I guess. Today I want to talk about promotion and getting your books noticed as well as yourself as an author.

I get quite a few people asking me for advice on how to promote their books. I take the time to give advice and try to help as best I can because I know what its like to be new and need some help getting out there. So, now, if I give you advice on how to promote and market and then I see you out there bitching about how your book isn’t selling but not once have I seen you do any of the things I suggested, then it peeves me off and makes me not want to help.

Now that that is out of the way, I am going to give a few of the most basic pointers that will help with promotion.

1. New authors, no one knows who you are and you have to work harder at getting yourself recognized. The best way to do this is to get out there and engage in conversations online. Like, comment, share, retweet, whatever it takes. You must get out there or no one will know who you are and they sure as hell wont know about your books.

2. You MUST self promote. Sorry folks, none of us like having to pimp ourselves out, but it has to be done because if you don’t, no one knows about your books and they wont sell. I know it feels weird and spammy to promo your own books. Just don’t BE spammy and it should be fine. Stick to the rules of engagement. Don’t friend someone and immediately ask them to promote you. Don’t send messages to people asking them to promote you and don’t send out mass emails to people asking them to promote you or advertising your book unless it is a newsletter that they have subscribed to.

3. Blog a lot. (I know, I know, I suck at this one) It’s proven that blogs bring in traffic. Blog often and find interesting stuff to talk about in your blog posts. (I am assuming that you have a website and blog. If you don’t then make that a priority.)

4. It takes money to make money. All right. Used to be that you could find all kinds of things to do to promote your book for free, but book marketing has changed a bit since I first published in 2010. You need to get some advertising. You can advertise SOME places for free still, but it’s pretty rare. The awesome thing is that if you look around, some of these places are very reasonably priced. Advertising your book means exposure, which means more people see it which means more people buy it. Sucks, but has to be done to sell books.

5. People are visual. If you don’t know how to make a simple graphic, I suggest you learn. People are visual creatures and are more likely to notice a picture. Make graphics with your books and small quotes. I’m sure you have seen them floating around Facebook and other social media networks. These work. I know, I know, I’ve heard it all, you aren’t good with graphics, you don’t have time, blah blah blah. Well folks, neither do I. I have five kids, a husband, a house, a business and then I have to write too. So suck it up and figure it out.

6. Write, write, write.

These are just a few of the things you can do to get started. My last word of advice is not to ask people to take time to do something for you and then bitch and moan about how your work isn’t selling. If you want to be an author who sells books you have to WORK at it. Rarely ever does success just fall into your lap. Most people work hard at achieving that and that means that they do a hell of a lot more than writing the books.

Thank you for your time. Good luck out there!