How To Advertise Yourself as an Author

A. F. Stewart is a writer of fantasy stories and poetry. Stewart has been writing for several years, periodically interrupted by those pesky events called life. Stewart has three published books: one volume of poetry, a short story collection and a non-fiction booklet about action movies. All are currently available at Lulu.com 

Here are Stewart’s free or cheap marketing wisdoms for marketing a book online:

1. Get a Website: An essential selling tool. You can sell your books directly from the site via links, or you can set up a store of your own. (It can be done, there are helpful sites that show you how).
There are plenty of free, or inexpensive hosting sites that you can use for your site. I went with Bravenet.com; you get some nice free website add-ons, such as hit counter, guestbook, email forms, etc. If you would like a look at my site here it is: Afallon Website

2. Get an Online Press Kit: You need to sell yourself and your book. This is an excellent way to do it. Create a bio, book list, post your reviews, press releases and any other promotional stuff.

3. Join the online social networking: Get your presence as an author out on the World Wide Web. Join Squidoo, MySpace, Facebook, Gather.com, AuthorsDen, or any other writing form that suits your needs.

4. Promotional freebies: It is not to difficult to create your own brochures or flyers, (using a program such as Powerpoint), that you can make available for a free download. And a definite must is a downloadable Media Kit for your book.

5. Book Trailer: You can get a professionally done book trailer, (if you look there are inexpensive options) or do your own. Windows Movie Maker can be use to make an interesting promo with some imagination.

6. Write Articles: Excellent way to spread your name as a writer. There are plenty of places to post them for free.

7. Get a Blog: Write your opinions, your experiences, post excerpts from your books, write online stories, whatever.

Trying to market your books, and make a name for yourself as an author can be tough, especially if you self-publish. And it can be expensive, if you listen to all the big marketing companies. They are loads of sites that try to sell you on their new and improved, breakthrough system, guaranteed to get you sales or bring traffic to your website. Maybe they can, but they usually cost hundreds of dollars.
So, I went looking for free advertising. And, yes you can find it, but you get what you pay for. I tried some of the free classifieds, the ads where you put code in your website, places where you can add banners, the advertising forums; basically a waste of time. Skip the freebie advertising.
Now for the free stuff that does seem to work.

Advertising your Website:

1. Put the URL in as many places as you can: on your blog, social networking sites, press releases, emails, media kits, website guestbooks, generally anything that goes public. And don’t forget to put it in your books.

2. Get in the search engines. Submit to Google, Yahoo, DMOZ, etc. Submit manually or use free search engine submission. Just keep in mind the free search engine submission sites also have pay versions and will try to sell you on those. Free bulk submission is easier, but I have found free manual submissions work better.

3. Get indexed by Google and Yahoo. You have to be indexed to use their helpful website monitoring tools.

4. Get Links. One useful way is link exchange. Link Market is an excellent free link exchange site, and you can pick and choose who goes on your site. And do not put just any link on your website, make sure they relate to your site in some way.

5. Submit your URL to free directories. You will have to this manually, but get it out there. Do a Search, and find those directories. There are several niche directories to which you can add your website.

6. Advertise your website with a free press release. Tell the world that you exist, and what you are all about. If you would like to see an example, my press release can be viewed here: Press Release

7. Hold a contest. I’ve created several contests and posted all on Grandma Jam’s Sweepstakes Guide to advertise. I got interest, and website traffic.
My Contest Page

8. Join webrings. Find rings that pertain to your website and join. It gets you on Google.

9. Join one of those online bookmark sites, and add your own website. I’ve joined del.icio.us and Stumble.

And if you have a special site, or preview page, for your book, make certain to list it in the directories and search engines as well. Also add to your online bookmarks.

What Blogging Platform Should You Use?

When I decided to start a blog, I researched different blog platforms and chose WordPress, mostly because it was the only one I could understand. The WordPress home page showed me articles that had recently been posted, and the tags showed me others. I liked that people could browse through articles and read the ones they wanted.

Those first weeks when I had only a few views a day, I had fun checking the stats, seeing how people found my blog, and coming up with titles that might entice a casual viewer. I still am not a major blogger, but I do get 1,000 hits a month, which isn’t bad for someone who never advertised and never wrote about popular or controversial subjects. I am still a neophyte, but in a writer’s group I belong to, I have become somewhat of a blogging guru. (Mostly because I’m the only one who blogs on a regular basis.)

I am a bit more knowledgeable about the blogosphere than I was a year ago, so I test marketed other blog sites, to give the writing group an idea of what they are up against. And I still don’t get those other sites. Blogger.com seems to be one of the most popular, but unless I advertise, no will find the blog. Eventually, search engines might send people to the blog, (if I ever submit it to search engines) but as of now, I have zero hits. Or at least I think I do. There’s no hit counter on the blog (except for profile hits), and I don’t want to add one — some are reputable, but others dump spyware on the unwary who stop to read. And if I want to play with stats, I’d have to sign up with another site that will track them for me. With Blogger, I could put ads on the site and get paid to blog, which I can’t do with WordPress, but so far I have not found another benefit. If any Blogger bloggers have a different opinion, I would appreciate your input.

I also signed up for LiveJournal. Don’t get that site either. It seems to be a cross between a social networking site like Gather where you post your blogs to groups, comment on each other’s work, and collect friends. The free version is pared down; many features are available only with a paid subscription. The way I figure it, even if the cost is nominal, why should I pay to post articles? And there are no stats to play with. And there are distracting ads on my home page. If any Livejournal bloggers have a different opinion, I would like to hear it. With the millions on the site, it must have some features people like!

Other blogging platforms I tried:

Microsoft Live Spaces: it’s easy to use and is accessible from the email account, but in the last six months I have not had a single profile hit. (Live Spaces, like Blogger, tracks profile hits but nothing else.)

MySpace: no stats. I did get one comment from a friend, but that’s it.

So what blogging platform should you use? If you don’t want to pay for it, if you don’t want annoying ads on your site when you view it, if you don’t want to spend all your time advertising it, if you like knowing what articles get the most hits and where you’re getting your readers, it seems as if WordPress is the way to go.

Besides, your blog will look great.