Book promotion is a powerful tool for all authors. Promoting your book is truly essential if you want to increase your sales and get your book noticed. After all, if people do not know about your book, how can they buy it? They need to be made aware of its existence.

In essence, book promotion is all about networking, making those essential contacts with other authors, readers and critics and, most importantly, placing the book in front of them. Many authors feel uncomfortable about promoting their book as they also need to promote themselves as an individual, but this is what needs to be done. People need to know about you so as to gain interest and readership of your book.

So how do you actually go about promoting yourself and your work? Well, there are a variety of ways in which to do so.

Websites and blogs are really your first target. Every author should have a website dedicated to their books which lists the books they have written, and often with an attached link to any sites selling their books. Many authors also use their website to list any book giveaways or promotional offers. An author blog is also a really useful way to engage with your readers and to gain an audience. You can blog about topics related to your given genre; this will help to steer traffic in your direction and help to increase book sales. It is also a fact that people do not want to constantly read about how good your book is or that they should buy it, so blogging is a much more subtle way to gain the interest of potential readers.

Media such as local newspapers, radio, and TV stations are all excellent ways in which to promote you as an author. It is always worth contacting them prior to a book release to see if they would be interested in sharing your story. The media always love to promote local authors.

Bookstores and libraries are obvious locations in which to hold a book promotional event. They are ideal locations for a book signing, a book reading or a Q & A event. Many independent bookstores relish the chance of promoting a local author and people in the local community are always interested in finding out more about the person behind the book.

Reviews are an author’s best friend, the good ones anyway, as they help people make a judgement about a book on whether to buy it or not. So if you possibly can get your book reviewed by bloggers, in magazines, and if you publish on Amazon, ask for Amazon reviews and star ratings. This will all help in selling your book. People love to read about others' opinions.

Book festivals - if you can get yourself invited to a festival which specialises in your chosen genre of book then do so as this is an excellent way to network and promote your book.

The book promo is indeed a powerful tool.