Q&A: What's the best way to market my book?

QUESTION: I'm looking for new ways to market my book. I published through Lulu Press and then did some nationwide radio interviews. I had some sales, but when I'm not marketing, the sales stop.

ANSWER: There aren't any new ways to market books. Old-fashioned word of mouth is the only thing that works.

If you have a good book and enough people discover it, you'll have word of mouth. Then your readers will market your book for you.

How do you get to first base? Look for marketing tools that are free or very low cost, as opposed to things you must pay for. Grassroots marketing doesn't require much money.

I recommend Internet marketing as a first step for any author who isn't already famous. It's virtually free, and it not only enables word of mouth, but amplifies and accelerates word of mouth.

So how, exactly, should you market your book on the Internet? Basically, three things:

• Blogging.
• Participating on social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, and Gather.
• Getting people to read and review your book on Amazon.
  

Driving sales to Amazon is particularly effective when you're building buzz for a book because Amazon will recommend your book to many people who've bought similar books in the past. For authors, it's free advertising.

Internet marketing isn't the only way to market books, but it's usually more efficient and effective. There's nothing wrong with paying for marketing (or anything else) that works as promised. If advertising really helped sell books, that's all we authors would have to do: take out an ad in the New York Times Book Review section, our local newspaper, or buy a bunch of Google ads. But advertising -- and most of the solutions offered by book publicists rely on advertising -- doesn't really create word of mouth for your book.

If you want to read more about Internet book publicity techniques, read my book.
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Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors