Tips on Marketing a Self-Published Book

I got the following tips from my BookSurge Publishing Consultant to help me develop a habit of self-marketing (particularly online). The thing to remember is that it takes approximately 21 days of repetition to form a habit, so it's important to take the following 7 steps every day for 21 days:

1. Give one book away to a charity, friend, or organization (the book should be signed by you and include all your online contact information, as well as a handwritten invitation to review the book on Amazon).

2. Write an entry for your blog (if you don't yet have a blog set up, then you should certainly get one going).

3. Follow 10 people on Twitter (if you haven't yet signed up for Twitter, then you should do so).

4. Find 1 person to send a Facebook Friend request to (yes, you need to be on Facebook too).

5. Update your Twitter and Facebook accounts with a link to your new blog entry.

6. Find a blog on http://www.blogcatalog.com that is relevant to your book's genre or subject matter and place their link on your blog and try to contact the blog owner.

7. Reach out to another author and offer them the opportunity to write about their book for your blog.


Now, while I am on Facebook and have a blog (in fact, I have too many blogs...I need to consolidate), I haven't yet signed up for Twitter so that I can begin this 21-day experiment. My other problem is that I refuse to do any of this on Sundays, so I'm not sure how that will affect the experiment. In any case, I plan on signing up for Twitter and getting my blog consolidation issue taken care of over the next few days so that I can begin this self-marketing strategy on Monday. After all, I plan on sharing these tips in a panel discussion on self-publishing at an upcoming writers conference, and how can I recommend something I have not tried myself?

I'll do my best to track my progress here for the benefit of any readers.