How to Promote Your Book

So your book has been accepted by a publisher. You've already had your celebration party with all your friends and buckets of champagne. Now what? Sit back and wait until your book prints? Not if you want to earn any sales!

1. Build a website. 

In this grand age of technology, this is your least expensive and most powerful marketing tool. Even a free Angelfire page can gain thousands of hits from potential readers. If you want to look more professional, shell out the few bucks a month to purchase your own domain name. Make sure your site contains, at the least, a description of your book, its publisher, its release date, and your biography. Create an updates page or a blog where you can easily post news about your book as it nears publication. Plaster your website address everywhere - starting with your signature in each and every single outgoing email message you send.

2. Join writer's groups.

Online message boards are a new author's information cornucopia. You can rub elbows with well-known and not-so-well-known authors alike, gleaning tips and tools for getting your book out there even as you get your name out there. Other authors can suggest unique self-promotion ideas, publications and staff members to hit up for reviews and interviews, and even where to go for celebrity endorsements. All you have to do is play nice and be helpful to those less experienced than you are, and the world of published author information is yours. Oh, and most message boards let you attach a signature to all your posts. Put your website address in there, too.

3. Get reviews.