Sorting the Self-Publishing Advice

One article says an author needs reviews before they offer their book for free. Another says you offer your book for free to get reviews. Then, you hear you need reviews in order to get reviews. What kind of sense does that make?!

So, what advice is right?

None of them and all of them.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many hard and fast rules when it comes to book promotion. Sucks, doesn’t it? Trial and error is the name of the game. In one my grad school classes, publishing professionals said a book could get reviewed by the big guys like The New York Times and still not become a bestseller.

Many successful authors have given book marketing and promotion advice to us newbs. But, don’t take every advice as an absolute rule.

I do a lot of research. If more than one person says the same thing worked for them then, that’s what I try. For instance, I’ve read many articles and had many publishing professionals say Goodreads Giveaways work and that you should run said giveaway about 3 months before the book’s release. Since my book is coming out in March, I will be running my first giveaway soon!

You guys know I love Evernote. When I find a good article on book marketing and promotion, I save it in my Book Promotion Notebook. Evernote has a Web Clipper that takes content from a website and saves it in one of your Notebooks- not just the link, the entire article.

Here are my go to articles.

Creative Indie: Everything you wanted to know about advertising your book (book promotion through Google, Facebook and More)
Jane Friedman: The 7-Step Business Plan for Writers
Jane Friedman: 3 Keys to Sustainable & Successful Indie Authorship
Wise Ink: 50 Websites Every Author Should Bookmark in 2014
Amazing Stories: Marketing 101: Book Launch- 6 Months Out
Huffington Post: How to Become a Goodreads Power Users
Your Writer Platform: 71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book
Your Writer Platform: How To Target an Audience
Indies Unlimited: Book Promotion 101- 7 Critical Marketing Principles for Authors
Author Media: The Book Marketing Strategy Every Author Must Implement 

I ignore some words in those titles- like “every” and “must”. The information is good, but it may not help everyone. Don’t drive yourself crazy because you think you have to do everything on the list.

Subscribing to Jane Friedman‘s blog as well as The Book Designer gives me some amazing information. You should take a look at both those websites. One of the easiest ways to get a lot of promotion and marketing tips is to subscribe to different blogs and websites. The ones I subscribe to can be found on my Dark Fantasy Writing page.