Where Should You Promote Yourself?

If you’ve ever had a dream… you need to be seen by some person. To be seen you need to promote yourself.  Or, make yourself into a brand.

Go on, write something — somewhere, anywhere — and get noticed, or at least this is the general idea.  You’re sure to be noticed at some point.  Is that the idea of promotion you had in mind?

Where should you promote yourself?  If you are a writer, where is the best place to show off your writing, should you do this online or offline?

A good beginning for promoting yourself is on your blog,  and commenting and being active on other blogs too. Another step is then going to various online writing sites such as Hubpages, and hope your work will get noticed by other writers- however there are many who are doing the same thing.  After all, promotion means that you have something to show to people, your potential readers, and you have only a small time to show it to them.  In some cases you only have seconds to make this important connection.

Promotion of your book is a must if you want to make money with your book, but you also need to think of yourself as a brand.  You are an author, and if you don’t get you name out there you will lose sales.  A book that sells for $12.50, and where both the author and the book are promoted, will sell much better than a book that sells for $10 if the readers don’t know about the author.  

You can hurt your sales if you haven’t promoted yourself in as many different places as you can.  There is a reason people are talking about Google books and Goodreads and social networking sites — they are all avenues to get your voice heard.  There is also the social networking sites, but relationships and people knowing about you is a must if you want to build book sales and your author name.

Promotion is like writing;  if you don’t promote yourself now, and do it well, you will fall short of your goal or your plan. Think about planning, and where you should promote yourself.  

Done correctly you can “make a name for yourself” anywhere- a brand if you will, and that is the key to building a strong relationship with your readers, and where you go about doing this is as important as when and how.  Do your best to relate to them.  You have written something and now you have something to say about it.  Branding is a step toward book success.  People see you as an author first, and then your books.

The best time to do it is now.

Saying something is harder when you aren’t willing to work at it.  Promoting is not making everyone want to buy your books, but rather finding the means to get more people knowing who you are in the writing world.  

Publishing a book is hard enough if no one knows about it.  This is what promoting is about but it doesn’t have to cost money- but rather will cost time and energy.

Where should you promote yourself?  It depends on your target audience.  If your audience is older, and doesn’t have a solid internet base- then networking outside of the Internet will help you. If your audience is younger, and more on Facebook, for example, having an author page is all important to connect with them.

The more you understand your audience and your brand the more you can market to the correct people, and focus on what works.