Derek Bailey asked Joseph R. Lallo:

When you finished your first book, what were a couple of things that you did to help get the word out about it? I'm in such a situation myself and having a rocky time of it.

Joseph R. Lallo It was indeed pretty tricky to get the word out about my first title. This was back in 2010, so the landscape was fairly different. Back then I found some bloggers in the genre and emailed them, offering a review copy. You can also hit kboards.com or other indie author forums, find the area where self-promotion is allowed, and offer some review copies in exchange for honest reviews there. Assuming your book is decent, you should get at least one or two reviews out of that, which will help build reader confidence. If you get enough good reviews, you can try getting your book picked up by Bookbub or Booksends, which should give you a nice bump.

All of that said, the biggest success I ever had in getting the word out about my book was doing a free promotion, but that's most effective if you've got a few books out, so that you can get buy-through on the followup books.

Hope that helps!

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