your book is published; now how to promote it?

If a book is going to sell, it needs to be promoted. Some publishers do a lot of promotion for books they publish. Others do little beyond putting the books in their catalogs. In either case it's helpful for authors to do what they can to promote their own books. You can promote in ways that suit your personality. Play to your strengths. Here are ten promotion methods that come to mind:

1. Speaking in public.

2. Doing interviews.

3. Schmoozing with people at conferences, talking up your book and selling copies if the opportunity presents itself.

4. Having a web site and or blog in which you discuss topics that relate to your book. People start reading because they are interested in those topics. Hopefully they then take the next step and buy your book.

5. Writing newspaper and magazine articles on topics that relate to your book. Hopefully the same thing happens as above.

6. Asking suitable friends and acquaintances to write reviews of your book and get them published online and or in print periodicals. 

7. Belonging to online and or face-to-face writers' groups. In such groups you're likely to make friends who would be glad to write reviews for you and talk your books up. [The idea would be that you would do the same for them.] One of the best things about belonging to online groups is that you make contact with people from different parts of our country as well as other countries. They can talk your book up where they live.

8. Having bookmarks made and distributing them in various ways.

9. Entering your book in contests for published books. If you win a contest or even get an honorable mention, it's great promotion for you.

10. Teaching an online or correspondence course about some topic that relates to your book, or teaching a course about aspects of writing. Some of your students would probably be interested in buying the book.