After successfully publishing your own book, as an author, you need to make a conscious effort to promote it in order for you to sell more copies. For most authors, this could prove to be a hard and challenging task, but you have to do it nonetheless. Gone are the days that as an author the only thing you needed to do is write a book and let other people worry about ways to sell it. Even if you have a publisher, you still need to market your own books if you want to make a sale. And for self-publishing authors, book promotion is a critical step you need to undertake to publicize your book and get people to buy it.

So when trying to promote your book, you have to make sure you are one hundred percent invested in the process. You don’t have to spend thousands to advertise your book either; you just need to think outside the box, be creative and use the available resources you have around you to successfully advertise your book. With that said, the first thing you need to make is a solid marketing plan that contains the different methods and tools you could utilize. You also need to create a tracking log that contains all the details of your promotional activities from start to finish, along with the results. This would give you the necessary knowledge you can draw from when you promote your succeeding books. There are a lot of things you could do to promote your book, but the best means are often overlooked by a lot of authors. Listed below are the best ways to reach out to potential readers and increase your sales.

The number one tool you need to use is the internet; this is quite obvious but there are still some authors who are not using it. It is important that you create your own author website or blog, so potential readers can look you up, learn something about you, and at the same time find out about the books you have written and buy them at the same time. Aside from building a website or blog, you could also use the internet to create your own profile or page on various social networking sites and online book forums, participate in online contests using your book as a give-away or prize, and create your own book trailers, then post them on video sharing sites.

The next tool you need to use is communication; reach out to your target audience further by conducting and joining events that will allow you to speak about your books in person. Contact your local radio station and inform them that you are available for a book interview, perform book readings in libraries, in parks or schools, and attend writer and book club conferences.

And finally do not forget the power of reviews and endorsements. Even if you are a very popular author, chances are not everyone knows about you and your books but they do know about another author who writes in the same field as you. Getting an endorsement from that author would lead to more people buying your books. And as a self-published or new author, getting an endorsement or testimonial from a distinguished author in your field would do wonders in increasing your sales and your book’s popularity. Encourage your readers to create reviews of your book too. Positive reviews will actually encourage other people to buy your book even if they have never heard of you before.