How to self publish Part 4 - selling your work

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Now that you have a book, you want to sell it, right? CreateSpace does some limited marketing even if you don't pay for the marketing package. I remember how happy I was when I had just bought some Joel Rosenberg books and got an email saying "If you liked Joel Rosenberg, you might like The Dice Of Fate by Rohvannyn Shaw!" That was truly awesome. Marketing doesn't have to be difficult. Here are some basic steps you can take to get your work out there: Announce on your social media. Kind of a no brainer, right? Create a website or put a new page on your website for your book/s. Fill out your author page on Amazon, or your profile on Lulu. Join Goodreads, get an author page, fill it out. Blog about it if you have a blog. If you join Goodreads, check out the author communities. Often you will find people willing to host author interviews or feature new books on their blogs. Do a promotion - CreateSpace lets you make coupons and do giveaways. Don't stress over reviews too much, but if you can get them, great. You can do a Goodreads Giveaway too, they are pretty helpful. They only cost the price of whatever book you are giving away, plus postage. Make little placards and leave them up places where readers gather. Bulletin boards at coffee shops, libraries, bookstores, etc. I make mine when I see those promotions for penny prints at Snapfish, Shutterfly, or similar photo sites. Buy a few books and sell them on Ebay or Etsy. You might be surprised at who wants one, and it helps put them in front of more people. Go to craft fairs or holiday bazaars with some copies. There aren't many authors at craft fairs, so you will have less competition. There are a thousand other ideas out there, some of them quite creative, but you get the idea. Notice that most of these ideas are cheap or free! An expanded version of these posts, plus more useful information, is going up on my blog, Coming up next: The ins and outs of publishing for Kindle