How to Promote Your Book Like a Pro!

This is my book. I’ll be using it as an example throughout this post to show you how to promote your own book.

Congratulations on writing a book! Only a select few aspiring authors get started writing a book, much less finish it! You’ve undoubtedly invested enormous amounts of time, focus and love into your book. Now that it’s done, the work of promoting it begins. Here are some ideas and resources to help you do that.

Before going any further, be sure to read my post, Here’s Why Your Book Is Unpublished. If you’d like to know a little about me, click here.

NOTE: You’ll find sharing icons to share this post on social media sites at the very end of this post, right above the comments. Thank you!

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BOOK AND BUILD YOUR BRAND

The first thing you need to do is build a platform, which essentially means expanding your online presence in ways that help you reach people and make them aware of who you are and what you have to offer.

A platform is now a make-or-break factor for publishers considering a book proposal. Authors today are expected to perform the majority of the marketing and promotion for their books. As Jim Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency noted in a Wall Street Journal article called The Death of the Slush Pile, “These days, you need to deliver not just the manuscript but the audience. More and more, the mantra in publishing is ‘Ask not what your publisher can do for you, ask what you can do for your publisher.'” This is a challenge I heartily embrace. Promoting my books is a joy—it’s all about synergy, building awareness and building relationships.

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Before we go any further, there’s a vitally important question you must keep in mind no matter how you’re planning to promote your book: Why should anyone care? You might be the most adorable person who’s ever walked the earth, but that doesn’t mean that people are going to buy your book. Click here to read “What Makes You So Special? The Magic to Selling Books” by Kristen Lamb.

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For more information on platform building, check out the book Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, by Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.




















If you’re an eBook type of guy or gal, then you may opt for Go Global: Building An International Author Platform that Sells by Barb Drozdowich.

Here’s a great article by Kimberley Grabas of YourWriterPlatform.com titled “101 Quick Actions You Can Take Today to Build the Writer Platform of Your Dreams.”

As Kimberley writes: “The most important aspect to building an author platform is understanding that it’s about engagement; about connecting and interacting with people who are aligned with your message and affected by your story. . . . Establishing and maintaining a link to your potential ‘tribe’ is both the challenge and the reward of building your writer platform.”


Kimberley explains here how a Gravatar (globally recognized avatar) can help you build your writer platform.

The foundation of an effective platform is a blog. A blog is the linchpin around which every other component of your platform revolves. The more valuable the content on your blog, the more apt a reader will be to visit repeatedly and eventually become aware of and buy your books.

When you post something of great value on your blog, send out an e-mail alert to your list and watch the hits on your site jump. Some visitors will in turn feature your post on their sites and link back to you, which brings in their readers, who then see your other content and become your regular readers. Visitors may also notify their e-mail lists about a post that they particularly like. Every positive comment from a third party adds that much more value to your brand. (Lacking clarity about what your brand is? Read “4 Branding Tips for Nonfiction Writers and Authors” by Inspiration to Creation Coach Nina Amir.)

Liberally sprinkle your blog posts with

The Tree of Life

In the depth of winter, Nicholas Herman, an eighteen-year-old impoverished solider in the French army, stopped to gaze upon a tree. The thoughts that occurred to him in those few moments changed the course of his life and would serve to inspire countless souls in the centuries to come.

Like the tree, stripped of its leaves, Herman felt barren and hopeless. But come spring, he realized, the tree would once again blossom with leaves and fruit. In that instant, the leafless tree “first flashed in upon [his] soul the fact of God” and his soul blossomed with the hope and expectation that the turn of seasons in his own life would bring fullness, and that he too would be renewed through the mercy of God’s grace.

Not long after, a near-fatal injury to his sciatic nerve, which left him crippled and in chronic pain the rest of his life, forced Herman’s retirement from the army. After a stint as a self-described “footman who was clumsy and broke everything,” he entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Paris around the year 1635 and took the name

Skimming and Skipping Across the Surface of Our Days

Lori Anne Yang

I love the analogy my friend, Lori Anne Yang, expresses so beautifully in this brief post from her blog, Mammaste. it is a good visual and visceral reminder to make the most of every moment you have been blessed with.

SKIMMING AND SKIPPING ACORSS THE SURFACE OF OUR DAYS

Many mornings it feels like I put on my water skis, pick up the tow rope behind the speed boat that is my mind, the motor revs and

You Are the Dance

Your capacity to be fully present expands dramatically when you stop identifying yourself as a time-bound human being separate from others, and start experiencing life as a timeless spiritual being at one with all creation.

There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.
Eckhart Tolle

It is your intuition that is your lifeline to Spirit, to the ever-alert, ever-present observer within you. Deepak Chopra describes this “observer in the

A Close Shave

I was looking forward to meeting my friend, Lien, at Ecopolitan, my favorite restaurant, around 2:00. I arrived before 1:30, laptop in hand, looking forward to getting a little work done before she showed up.

As I walked in, a lovely young woman looked at me as if she had been waiting for me to walk through the door. “You’re here every time I am,” she said with a friendly smile. What a nice greeting! I Introduced myself and asked her dining companion if this was her first time at Ecopolitan. I said, “Nice to meet you both,” turned around and saw a young man looking at me just as purposefully. “It’s his

A Commitment to the Unimportant

We are human beings, not human doings. Pour all your efforts into doing while neglecting the art of being, and yours will be a life out of balance. You live harmoniously when you reconcile doing and being by performing every action with mindfulness and conscious intent.

Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
Stephen Covey

Emphasize doing and your attention is stuck in the past or the future. Emphasize being and you

Love, That You May Live More Fully in the World

Consciousness is a continuum, ranging from complete non-awareness to unity with the Divine Mind.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
Lao Tzu

Your level of consciousness is defined by your level of self-awareness, presence, and alignment with the Source of all that is.

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.
Julius Charles Hare

When your level of consciousness reaches critical mass, you can

There Will Come a Day

There will come a day when you will no longer be able to dance. So kick up your heels, laugh with abandon, and give your body up to the heavenly music that even now bursts forth from your soul in celebratory song.

There will come a day when the troubles that now occupy your mind will seem as insignificant as the whisper of the wind. So close your eyes and view today’s challenges through