If you are an author – especially an independent author – marketing your book is crucial. You cannot count on blind luck to bring people to your book. The ease with which authors can bring their own book to print means that there are more books coming to market every year. In order to break through the noise, the author that out-markets his or her competitors will win.
But there are so many sites where you can advertise or list your eBook – several hundred, even. So it’s understandable for both new and veteran authors to be unsure where to even start. Here is an essential list of sites that are really a must for anyone publishing today.
eBook Shelves
Goodreads – Goodreads is the place to start marketing your eBook. This is a huge site that boasts a high reader-to-author ratio. Create an author page and book listings, receive reader reviews, and join groups for the chance to interact with other readers and authors. Personal interaction with your connections will help you find more opportunities for promoting your book.
Shelfari – Shelfari is another virtual bookshelf site that allows you to list your books, and which increases your chances for readers to discover your books. Join groups and start book lists to interact with other site members. Shelfari is run by Amazon, just like Goodreads.
LibraryThing – This site is another eBook shelf where authors can list their books and interact with readers. They claim to be the “world’s largest book club.”
Book Blogs
Ereader News Today – This is a site that has a good following. They specialize in cheap or free books, so keep it in mind for sales or promotions on your book price.
BookBub – A listing site that deals with discounted books. The difference in what BookBub offers its readers, however, is some content controls. BookBub employs an editorial staff that looks for, at a minimum, text that is well formatted and generally free of errors so that readers get the benefit of knowing that the book has been reviewed and meets the site’s standards. BookBub is also not a free listing site, but they publish the statistics for downloads and sales by genre. If your marketing budget allows it, this site is a powerful one with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
BookBuzzr – BookBuzzr is a fun site that allows authors to make nifty little preview widgets, and for a very reasonable monthly rate you can get your book advertised in games on Freado.com and in a bunch of other tools for websites and social media geared just for authors.
Social Media Pages
Book Junkies Library – An independent author and reader community where you are free to post books, boasting 876 members.
Promote Your Book! – This author community thrives on mutual re-sharing. You are free to post and asked to reciprocate by sharing the links of others. They have 1,703 members.
Kindle Facebook Group – This group has 3,794 fans, so it has nice reach – and not just with other authors, but with Kindle readers in general.
There are literally hundreds of free and relatively reasonable services available to authors to promote their work. Once you work through this list, look for other sites and make it a goal to add another site or opportunity to your marketing platform once a week or once a month. Promotion never ends – it is an ongoing labor of love for the book you created. These great sites can help you start to connect with readers just waiting to hear about your work.