Self-Publishing has been made so convenient that today anyone who can write a book can publish it. They even have outlets like Amazon to distribute it. This has not always been true.
Self-publishing used to be an expensive alternative because you needed to be able to pay for a run of books to be printed. Now books can be printed on demand and sent directly to the customer. You may still need a publishing contract to get your book distributed in bookstores, but with online shopping becoming more popular you don’t necessarily need your book in bookstores to sell a considerable amount of copies and have a successful title. You don’t have to have an advertising job to come up with ways to promote your book. Some types of promotion can cost a lot of money, such as advertising in a periodical or a newspaper. One cost effective way to promote your book is to reach out into your social network. It is free (except perhaps for the cost of copies of your book to send out) and its potential is only limited by the amount of energy you have to put into it and the size of your social network.
Various Sources of Networking
Today with online social networking tools such as Facebook or Linkedin you are able to keep track of your various family members, friends, and work contacts fairly easily. You can also use these sites to promote your work. Make sure when you have finished your title you send out a message letting people know about it. If they enjoy your work ask them to post a review somewhere online about it so that other people can find out about it. Just by taking this one simple step you could be potentially letting a huge amount of people know about your work. If your book is good then people that you tell will tell other people about it, who will tell several people and so on. Word of mouth is one of the most efficient sales tools even today.
Good luck with the advertising marketing job of promoting your self-published title!
