Marketing for self-published authors.

Here are some avenues to go about promoting your book if you're a self-published author:

1) Blogs/Website makers:
*You're reading this aren't you? Therefore blogs are a definite avenue to use in marketing your book.  I found Blogger (blogspot) to be the easiest one to use, but there are others out there like Wordpress and Weebly.  And through your blog page you can upload gadgets from Amazon Associates, Goodreads, Bookbuzzr, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth, to help make your page look great, plus to assist in selling your books.

Also, with your blog page you can write about your book, possibly doing a series of posts that different people may find interesting.  For example, I have tied music and art into my posts, and relating them to my book.

Blog posts are also useful to help other authors out.  You can post articles on their books.  You may say that this doesn't promote your book, but it does.  Why? Because in return you can ask those authors to do the same for you on their blog sites, thus getting your book seen by more people.

2) Facebook:
I didn't  realise how important Facebook was until I looked at my blog's statistics.  I always assumed Twitter was the way to go, but the large majority of my traffic to my blog site was from Facebook.  Also, with Facebook you can create a fan page for your book, as I have just done today.  Then "like" it and ask your friends to "like" it too, so that more people see it.  You can also pay Facebook to do ads for you from as little as $1 a day (at the moment I haven't done this).  Additionally, click on the Facebook links on Amazon and Smashwords to get your book seen on Facebook.

3) Twitter:
A fun place that you can promote your book and blog site  through, but be careful as it is addictive and can suck up way too much time.  You can also use other sites in combination with Twitter.  For example, Bookbuzzr will do tweets for you, promoting your book.  People will also retweet your tweets so that more people can see them.

4) Bookbuzzr:
This is a site where your book is promoted through games.  Your book cover is seen in memory games and hangman.  The people who play these games accumulate points so that they can bid to get free books.  You can just have your book cover seen and not do the giveaway, but if you have an ebook published via Smashwords then you can have a giveaway of your book without any cost.  This is because Smashwords have a coupon system where they give you a number and you can pass this onto the winner, who then goes and downloads your book from the site.

However, you do not have access to this site for free, with the exception of the first month.  After your trial period it costs either $9 a month or $14.  I've just started with Bookbuzzr, so will see whether it's worth continuing after my month's up.

5) Goodreads: An excellent site where you have your book uploaded once it's published.  It was done automatically, and since I already had a reader's page on there I just linked it with my book.

This is a site where you can connect with other readers and authors with a "friend" system similar to Facebook.  All your friends on here will see what books you're reading as well as your reviews.  And if someone does a review for you or ticks your book as something that they want to read, all of their friends will see it too via the site and their emails.

You can also do giveaways on this site to promote your book, plus send messages.  I have sent a message once, that was directed to all my friends' emails, telling them about my new book because at that point I was waiting for it to be linked to my name.  It was to let them know that I was the author of "Behind the Hood."

In my next marketing post I will continue with different avenues to market your book.