Self-Publishing: Promoting Yourself - Part One

[Cheryl Bradshaw]

There are plenty of options out there to promote yourself, which is great because most new authors don't have tons of extra money to shell out to advertise and get themselves out there. You are essentially your own publicist. It is a little daunting at first and takes away from your time as a writer, but gaining readers is a good thing.

For part one, I'm going to touch on the basics. These are things you can do before your book even comes out (and you should).

1. Website

Every writer should a website, and there are plenty of sites out there right now that are free. I would recommend going with one that allows you a little more freedom than a free site though - for around $5 a month you can create a site that looks just as professional as the high-end sites, and there are several options out there that take you through the process and create it for you with a template, etc. You don't have to be an expert to create a site that looks like a million bucks.

Once your website is in place, it's time to advertise it. You can go directly to the various search engines and add it so that it will be put as high on the list as possible.

Here's a list of the top search engines to promote it to:

Dogpile
Ask.com
The Internet Archive
Yippy
Yahoo
Bing
Mahalo
Dogpile
Google

2. Blog

A blog is a great thing to have because when you list your book, a lot of sites now will link your author page to your blog directly. This is terrific and good advertising for you. I love to blog because it gives me an outlet to say things that aren't in my books. And blogs are free, so there's no reason why you shouldn't have one. I would suggest once you get your blog up and running that you keep it fairly active. I try for about 3 posts a week or more if I can. They don't have to be long, but it allows you to touch base with your readers.

When choosing a blog, you will need to decide what you want to talk about. Maybe a bit of everything, maybe you want to make it a page for fans where you post announcements, or maybe you want to gear it towards a specific topic - mine is obviously written for aspiring writers, but I also add things here and there for the readers about my books and what's going on with them.

3. Connect with fans

There are a lot of sites out there where you can gather fans and promote yourself at the same time. Facebook is a must in my opinion and you only need 25 friends on your author page for it to exist, which isn't hard to get. Places like Red Room, CrimeSpace, Goodreads, and Shelfari are excellent because they are filled with people who love to read.

Facebook
Twitter
Red Room
CrimeSpace
Goodreads
LinkedIn
MySpace
Shelfari