Indie Publishing Secrets Revealed Step #6 People sell your books, duh!

Step #6

 

All right. It's time we had a heart to heart.

 

Have you thought about how you are going to market your book? Do you realize that marketing is HUGE. If you only remember one thing about marketing, you should remember this, 
                                      people sell your books.

 

What does this really mean? You need to get to know a lot of people before you even consider self-publishing-at least if you want to sell a lot of books. Here are a few things to help you do that.

 

1. You should have a blog that you post regularly on.
2. You should follow lots of blogs- ones that you like and actually read AND comment on because you like them. Use google.com/reader to make this a breeze. 
3. Join writers' groups and participate regularly.
4. Go to other author signings and talk to them about their books.
5. Start using twitter.com
6. Tell everyone you meet that your book is coming out soon. 
7. Get in touch with bookstores and talk to them about signings.
8. Get on Goodreads.com
9. While you're at writers' conferences, talk to a lot of people and get their information. Make yourself known. Talk to the authors that are there. Be genuine with people-be yourself and make friends.

Your biggest obstacle in indie-publishing is getting the word out about your book.(and honestly, traditionally published authors have the same challenge.)You need to have a lot of people who care about your success in order to accomplish this. These initial people spread the word.

 

People sell your books through word of mouth. The more mouths you have telling people about your books the better.  Get on this right away. You do not have time to delay.

 

I hope you are already doing a lot of the things I listed and only need to up your participation in those activities. If not, pick one thing on the list and start doing it, today. Add something new each week and create habits that help make author-socializing easy and not burdensome.

 

For example, I spend 15-30 minutes in the morning going through emails, twitter, goodreads, google reader, etc. At noon, I spend another 10-15 mins catching anything new and before bed I give it another 10-15 min. If I don't, it gets overwhelming.

 

Some days, depending on what's going on, I could only spend 20 mins on social media, other days I need the full hour. Help yourself by being consistent and don't ever let yourself get sucked in to spending all your time reaching out and making friends and no time writing. Find your balance.

Happy networking!