Even after running a successful promotional campaign to get media attention for your book, it may not have been enough to generate the book sales you desire or to create interest in your private business that your volume promotes. If that’s the case, you may need to consider advertising. There are a lot of different ways to advertise your book, however, and not all of them involve spending money!

Some common advertising strategies include:
• Online storefronts – You can promote or offer up for sale your book at readers’ websites, self-publishing house websites, and even on eBay.
• Widgets – These are small boxes that appear on websites to advertise your book. Some may link back to your book’s website or blog.
• Publications by specific audiences – Consider getting plugs or taking out ads in newsletters or special publications related to your book. For example, if your book is religious in nature, a church bulletin is one place to promote it.
• Your Amazon.com page – Thanks to Amazon.com’s huge presence on the web, many readers will come to you simply by discovering your book’s page at this bookseller. Spend some time putting lots of useful information about your book on this page.
• Goodreads author’s page – Many serious readers have pages at and trade recommendations on the Goodreads website. You can increase awareness of your book by having a page there, too.
• Reviews of book – Surveys show that many readers learn about a book or decide between two titles by reading reviews. So you’ll want to find people who can write reviews for your Amazon.com and Goodreads pages or other sites and publications.
• Business cards – When you run across someone in public and tell them you’re author, they’ll likely forget your name and book’s title by the time they actually go online or into a bookstore to look at your volume. Giving them a business card can help jog their memory.

We’ll discuss each of these advertising and promotional strategies in more depth during upcoming blog entries.