This is a post geared more toward the newer writer and/or self-published writer, and/or the veteran author who just wants a laugh at a newbie’s expense.

We’re all happy when we see our work out there. It’s an amazing feeling. I’m not going to lie: I look at my book’s Amazon page every day. That’s my book out in the world – with my name on it. Still crazy to me. But I digress…

I read I-don’t-know-how-many books on self-publishing before making the choice to do so, and all of them basically said the same thing: YOU ARE YOUR OWN MARKETING TEAM! It’s basically screamed in your face from cover to cover. So what did a young, foolish, naïve K. L. Strader do? He scoffed and said, “Psh, marketing shmarketing. I got this.” That’s right. He scoffed and said, “Psh.” What a tool.

So I finish my book. I do all the work through CreateSpace (amazing site) to publish it. It’s published and up on Amazon for purchase. I’m ecstatic. Huge boner. Everything. Then I’m like, “Oh shit. Nobody knows about this book.” I facepalm because of myself. “That’s what all those books were talking about!” I say. Like I said, I was pretty ignorant back then.

My wife becomes my manager (but let’s just go ahead and admit that they’re our managers from Day One, guys and gals.) Without her I’d be lost. I’m not afraid to admit that. I can put words on paper, weave them into a wonderful story, but beyond that I’m less than useless. She’s looking everywhere, scouring the interwebs for any and all information on self-marketing and relaying instructions back to me. Hopefully by the end of this post you’ll have a few new ideas to try, or will at least have gotten a laugh.

I started simply. Vistaprint is a beautiful thing for self-pubbers. (I’m trying to get some advertising royalties by throwing all these names out there…) But it truly is. Check it out. You can put your name or image or book title on literally anything. T-shirts, pens, mouse pads… I went with business cards and small book posters.

The card:

Now I don’t have to write the name of my book out sloppily on a Post-It for curious potential buyers.  I can just hand them one of these.  Do I feel like a douche, having business cards for a book?  Honestly?  A little.  I’m not going to lie.  But the cards show that I care about my work.  Or at least that’s what I hope people see.  They look cool, and fit my image.  (And took hours to design just right, but that may have been the perfectionist in me.)  Just an idea…

And the book poster:

I really like this one.  It’s the cover of my book with a movie-style tagline beneath it.  These will go up at all the local retailers who will tolerate it.  There are many game and hobby shops around the Ville, as well as privately-owned book stores.  Hell, there are even a few awesome dive bars that my kind frequent who love putting up stuff for local artists, be them musically or literarily gifted.  Just another idea for you…. Vistaprint.  Check it out.

Then there’s the internet.  Gods, the internet.  Social media is a given.  I shouldn’t have to explain the value of the facebooks and the twitters and the instagrams out there.  They work similar to word-of-mouth, but on a global scale.  Use them.  But there are a couple that were new to me, which I will pass on to you.

Goodreads is kind of cool, but limited in its use.  Shows people what your tastes are, and you review works you’ve read.  All you do is add your stuff on there, and then tell people about it.  Then, hopefully, they’ll get on there and review it (after having bought and read it because of your reviews.)  People will see your reviews, then want to buy it, thus gaining you more reviews, and so on and so forth for all time.  And it’s just for books as far as I know, so you won’t be stacked next to movies and all that like on some review sites.

Reddit is awesome.  If you’re new to it like I am, it’s very overwhelming at first.  But you learn to feel it out.  There are hundreds of subreddits.  You can get lost for hours, so keep your wits about you upon entering the beast’s lair.  One of my favorite threads (or subreddits) to follow is Suggest Me a Book.  People get on there and tell the internet what they’re looking for, and people reply with books that fit their criteria.  Don’t be a dick and just answer posts that your book fits.  Become part of the community.  Branch out.  Gain a following – people that will come to trust your literary judgment.  Reddit claims to be “the front page of the internet,” and they are probably right.  If you can’t find information on something via Reddit, it’s probably not out there to find.  Like I said, there are literally hundreds of subreddits to follow – dozens of which are geared exclusively toward books and authors and readers.  Go there.

And finally, how this blog came to be: WordPress (or other blog sites.)  There are so many authors with blogs like mine – authors willing to help by writing out their own struggles toward the Land of the Published.  Read them.  Learn from them.  Interact with them.  Writers are many things, but selfish is not one.  We spend so much time in our own heads, living and breathing literature, that it’s thrilling when someone in real life wants to actually talk to us about it.  So do that.  Make a writer happy by sparking up a conversation about writing.  I love talking about anything literature – be it the last good book I’ve read, the quickest way to push through a block, how to kill off a character organically, etc.  Come at me, bro!  Or any of us.  We have one of the few professions where we actually enjoy talking about what we do at work.

There are many other ways to market yourself out there.  Just look.  And, of course, don’t hesitate to ask another author for advice.

As always, thanks for reading!

Kyle