Before the availability of self-publishing, you needed a publisher who was willing to get behind your book. Now, you don't need a publisher, but you do have to accept the first part of the term "self-publishing": SELF. A self-publishing author is responsible for everything, including internet book marketing. You may have daydreams of selling a millions copies because one influential person absolutely loved your book and spread the word, thus saving you from having to become a marketer. Unfortunately, this particular daydream will probably never become reality. So, you're back to being an author AND a marketer.

So, how do you market your publication?

First, you need to use social media. Seriously. Create an account on Goodreads, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram. Share with your friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances that you have  a book available. Spend time every single day growing your audience. Ask people to be your reviewers as well as ambassadors and share. Offer to promote other authors in the same way.

Create a good bio about yourself.  And don't limit yourself to one-size-fits-all bio, either. Create one in first-person, one in third-person, one that's 2-3 sentences and one that's longer. Why? Because different websites have different requirements and different "vibes" (formal vs. informal). Also, consider having another writer interview you and write your bio for you. Why? Because for most of us, it's tough to be both objective and complimentary.

Create Author Pages on websites like Smashwords, Goodreads, Amazon, Payhip, etc. You want to have your name and your book listed in several places for people to be able to find you.

Join groups on LinkedIn and Facebook that cater to writers, or to people who might be interested in your book's topic or genre. Or both. You'll learn from other authors, and you may find people who are willing to write reviews for you (which is huge!).

Ask for reviews. This may be scary, but it's necessary. Books that don't have reviews on Amazon, etc., don't get bought.

Create a website. It doesn't have to be fancy; you can use WordPress.com to create a website presence for yourself. The blog format of WordPress makes it easy for you to give updates about what you're up to, where you're listed, why you wrote the book, etc. Some authors write short blog posts to keep their websites active and give visitors something current to read from them.

If you'd like some advice about self-published marketing and web design, talk to us! We love helping authors get published.