Thursday, August 14, 2014

Okay - I wrote my book, now what


If you are new to this Indie book publishing business like me, then you have been busy spending your valuable writing time searching for ways to promote your book.  I have to admit –self-publishing is harder than I realized, especially in the area of marketing and promotion.  With a very limited marketing budget – you have to find way to get the word out about your new book without breaking the bank.
 
I spent a bunch of time collecting some excellent resource links and I wanted to share them with my fellow Indie book authors.  A saying from one of my favorite authors is, “Karma is a boomerang”,  so here is a list of places to get reviews and promote your books that are inexpensive or even FREE.  If you know of any other places that work well – please share the love and leave them in the comments below.  We can all help each other along this book publishing journey.


















 

8 comments:

  1. Great resource here. I'm am definitely learning of this challenge as well. I'll have a better idea of how successful or unsuccessful I've been so far when my ebook sales for July post which I don't think will be until the last day of August. I need to check some of these out.

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  2. Thanks so much for your post and for being willing to share your discoveries. Marketing is a challenge when your skills/passion is writing. Guest blogging seems like it could be good, but I'm not really sure how to tap into that with people who do not know me.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Tim, I have done a few guest blogs, mostly its just a matter of building a relationship and just asking.

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  3. Another resource is www.thebookshelfcafe.com to promote a book signing or meet-the-author event. It's free, easy to use, and helps fill a room for book signings.

    Hope it helps, trying to be part of the community to put authors and readers together.

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  4. So you've got an eBook published in Amazon's Kindle store, but it isn't racking up reviews yet, or even making any sales? What do you do? That's where Amazon's KDP Select program comes in.

    You may already know what this is, but for those that don't, the KDP Select program allows you to pocket some extra money by allowing buyers to "lend" your book to other people they know for a period of 14 days. It also allows you to promote your book by giving it away for free for 5 days.

    Now some people think that you should never give away your book for free because that decreases the perceived value of it. You know who those people are? Big name publishers with thousands of dollars at their disposal to promote their books. Not us normal people. These big name publishers are able to pay book critics from big media publications to read and review the books. We aren't. So we go to the people for book reviews. We can't afford to pay them, so we give them the book for free.

    But you can't just schedule the 5-day free promotion and say, "Oh, well. That's that." You've got to promote your 5 day free-giveaway and tell people about that. So here are 17 websites where you can promote your KDP select promotions for your Kindle books so that you can get more downloads during your free promotions, and in the end, more reviews on those books, so they'll continue to sell once the promotion is over.

    Awesome Gang - http://awesomegang.com/submit-your-book/

    Free Books Only - http://freebooksonly.com/author-submi...
    Needs reviews first.

    Book Goodies Kids
    a. http://bookgoodieskids.com/submit-you...
    b. http://bookgoodieskids.com/contact-us...

    Book Goodies
    http://bookgoodies.com/contact-us/aut...

    Free Book Dude
    http://www.freebookdude.com/p/list-yo...

    Want On Reads Book
    http://wantonreads.com/tell-us-about-...

    Pixel of Ink

    a. If free, go to http://www.pixelofink.com/sfkb/
    b. If your book will be on sale for .99 or less, go to http://www.pixelofink.com/sskb/

    Bargain Book Hunter
    http://bargainebookhunter.com/free-bo...
    Has a daily limit.

    Ereader News Today - http://ereadernewstoday.com/ent-free-...
    Must submit 3 days in advance.

    Author Marketing Club
    http://authormarketingclub.com/member...
    Submits your book to 24 different free sites

    Free and Discounted Books -
    http://freediscountedbooks.com/submit/
    Requires a free registration

    Book Hitch (free sign up required) -
    http://www.bookhitch.com/addbook.aspx...

    Authors and Experts
    http://www.authorsandexperts.com/cale...

    Published.com
    https://www.published.com/join1.aspx?...
    Requires a free registration

    BookTalk
    This one is a forum.
    a. Non Fiction - http://www.booktalk.org/non-fiction-b...
    b. Fiction - http://www.booktalk.org/fiction-book-...

    Pretty-Hot -- Only for Romance Novels
    http://pretty-hot.com/submit-your-book/

    Free Booksy
    http://freebooksy.com/editorial-submi...

    FK Books and Tips
    http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/for-aut...

    Music by Dan O, at http://www.danosongs.com.

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    Replies
    1. Wow - thanks for all those resources, I will check them out!

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