Self- publishing is no longer a strange thing today. Now more than ever, many more self-publishers are sprouting everywhere. But the big question to pose is: How much difference are they able to make with their books? Whether you are publishing a novel or an academic book, the word about it has to be spread.  The focus of this piece is to show you how to spread the word, promote, and sell your self published book.

After publishing your book and launching it, the normal thing will be for more sales to be attracted initially. The fact is, if you are not careful, the book may soon begin to have difficulties reaching the target audience leaving you with very few orders for more copies. I have dedicated time to try as much as possible to give you ways that will enable you even make more sales as the launch excitement dies down.

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Book promotion is supposed to be the obligation of publishers but for self-published books you have to go an extra mile to get many more people reading your piece. Remember, that you have to recover the money you have put into printing the book. No, doubt you have a good message in your book you want your readers to discover, but you equally want to receive the remunerations.

The weight of these compensations is going to be determined primarily by the number of copies of your book that will be sold. Book promotion is not for lazy people as it requires you to think out of the box and make informed decisions especially what to do and what not to do in order to have sales going up.

The budget for initial promotion is usually 10 per cent of the expected sales income and depending on the degree of success the budget could be increased. You increase the budget because you may want to reach out to new markets and this requires awareness. You can also increase the budget to target an age group that turns out to like the book more than the first target group. Here are some of the practical ways you can toy around to promote your book.

1. It Starts With The Content

Many persons have written books; books on various aspects of life. More persons are still writing new books. In fact I can tell you for sure that as you read this article, there are even many more others, writing on what you have written or intend to write on.

What makes a difference between you and another writer in what you make from your book is the book itself. For your book to make so much money, you need to make it very attractive through the presentation, language, style, etc. Your choice of the way your book should be depends on who your target users are.

Books for children must be simple to understand, filled with color pictures, written with many illustrations and examples, etc. Books for adults must be mature, yet not difficult to understand. They must be captivating and bonding. In short, you must make your book very suited for your target users. See more on “Five Steps To Publishing Your Book”

2. The Jacket Or Printed Copy

The advice for self-publishers who are intentional about getting a greater reach with their books is for them to do a book cover that shows booksellers and potential readers what the book will look like. Let your book cover or jacket contain information that your target audience want, like the author’s name, title and a condensed summary of the book content.

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All these call the attention of the reader who wants to learn more about what kind of book it is and who the author is. What your critics say about your book is very important to the decision to buy, by an interested customer. So, make sure your book cover is available at least four months before the date of publication.

3. Review Copies

Review copies are those sent to newspapers, magazines and news columnists especially those who comment regularly about books. To help promote your self published book, you are required to send copies to renowned reviewers who are known for their reviews.

Some of the things to determine the number of copies you send out for review include the country’s language patterns, the number of reviewing media and the kind of book among others. You may spare some money to get good reviews that will give you good sales in due time.

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Bear in mind that a lot of people rely on what renowned reviewers say before making a decision to buy books. This will guide you to be more ‘intentional’ in getting your book reviewed by prominent reviewers.

4. Presentation Copies

These are copies you give to influential members of society to attract comments. They include lecturers, newspaper editors, chief booksellers, and civil society leaders to name but these few. These are opinion leaders who will spread the word faster and influence even those in their spheres to buy copies of your book.

The distribution of the copies should be well planned to reduce waste and maximize recipients’ ability to increase sales.

5. Trade Announcements

One of the ways to promote your self-published book is to place notices, for instance, on billboards, giving information about the imminent publication of the book. The information which could include book title, brief description and of course the price and selling points of the book is important for booksellers and librarians plus potential readers.

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An adaptation of the jacket designed in color could be blown up on billboards in strategic locations of the targeted towns or cities. Make sure you make everyone become increasingly aware of your book by using some of these avenues that make people see or hear about your book on daily basis.

6. Sales Representatives

To effectively promote your soon to be launched or newly published book, get sales representatives involved. The sales representatives will go around with printed material about the book in question. They should be equipped to the teeth and be apt to offer useful and reliable information to buyers and potential buyers about your book. So, make sure you print promotion material well in advance.

The fact is that, you cannot effectively and efficiently get the job done alone given that as a publisher you already have too much on your hands to handle. Even getting friends or family members involved in sales representation will keep your book sales going up.

However, don’t forget that motivation to these people who sacrifice time and energy for your sake will do some good to them and to you as well. Don’t give people the impression that all you care is to make book sales.

7. Offline Promotion

Purchase space in newspapers or magazines and run advertisement about your book. You may equally want to advertise your book on radio and television stations that can effectively reach out to your targeted book audience.

Radio and television advertisement for instance, provides a forum for useful commentaries for lecturers, commentators and book reviewers who will help make listeners and viewers wish to buy the book. This also gives the listeners and viewers an opportunity to get a foretaste of your self-published book.

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These are just a few ways that will help you effectively and efficiently promote your self-published book. I believe they are accessible and will possibly help you build a high reach for your book.

8. Online Promotion

Today, the internet has become a veritable tool in the hands of any serious business man or woman. The internet market is a very large one and no serious entrepreneur can minimize it. Unfortunately many persons still think of the internet only in terms of socializing and communicating with loved ones.

Social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and others, are places where millions of people converge daily for different purposes. Any sharp publisher will take advantage of these media, to get their book across to the audience, at no cost. You could create a Facebook page for all your writings and you will always be glad you did.

There are also several sites on the internet where you could sell your book. Popular ones are Amazon, Ebay, Kindle, etc. They shall advertise your book and pay you the dividends when they sell.

9. Those Who Matter

Some years ago when I use to teach in a secondary school, book writers will approach me with their books and if I saw it rich enough to recommend to my school, I could advertise the book for them. I will go through them and the ones I recommended were always considered for the next school year’s list of books.

There is no point writing a book that the key users of the book will not appreciate. And how can they appreciate it if they have not seen it? And how can they see it without someone marketing it to them? Find those who have a say in the choice of a book to be used for a target audience and lure them to consider your book.

10. Accessibility

As much as possible, you and your book must be accessible by the target audience. As soon as you begin making some sales from your book, do everything possible to multiply the copies and distribute them to bookshops where they can easily be gotten.

You may also prefer to be contacted personally for copies. In this case, you will have to put sample copies in bookshops with your phone numbers so that you could be contacted when the books are needed. This is however very limiting because it will put away users who want just a copy or two.