This is the second of the three things I want to talk about regarding self publishing, and something that is a bit of a sore spot with me. The bottom line is this: YOU AS AUTHOR have to let people know you’ve got a book out there!

There’s no way around it. I noticed the uptick mentioned previously when I advertised my book on my other blog with a simple “BUY MY BOOK” link list at the top of the sidebar. That, and an occasional comment left on facebook got a lot more people informed. Now, of those lots more people, only one or two bought books, but this was a huge plus: I had sold none the year previously.

So advertising: you’ve got to do it. Me, being from Minnesota, it is difficult to talk myself up, or to toot my own horn if you will. I don’t like talking about my achievements or things I’ve done for the reason that it may offend someone and sound like bragging. Here’s something I realized though: no one who doesn’t know you will give two cents worth of their time if they aren’t aware of what you’re doing. Hell, I’ve got a doctorate now, and even the people I KNOW and talk to regularly aren’t too well informed on that.

The long and short of the point I am making is that when you self-publish you’ve got to put on more than just the author hat. You’ve got to go and do as much as you can via whatever means necessary to get the word out. For me, given the amount of time I have, that was usually via my blog or facebook. However, I’ve got Myspace and twitter as well…and those are huge venues in order to get the word out because people who are friends of friends will be able to see posts at times (dependent on your privacy settings of course). There are other methods, of course, that I am in the throes of testing, and I will let you know how those do as soon as I’ve got some hard data in.

But the best advice I have for this is that if you want to sell books, you need to get the word out. Heck, stand on a corner with a billboard if you must (provided you have the necessary permits from your city/county) but the only way you are going to sell to strangers is if they hear about your work.

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!