One good way to draw attention to your book is by writing an article related to it, then getting it published. Fortunately, you don’t have to play the freelancer game to get the article published as you can post it for free at online article directories, such as Ezine Articles.

The challenge then is to come up with an article idea that is about 500-600 words long that would interest people in your book. If you write is nonfiction, that’s easy, as you can pull excerpts from it and pen a couple of lead paragraphs around it. For example, my hiking guidebook about Lake Superior easily could generate an article about “Five Must-See Lake Superior Lighthouses.”

If you’ve written a novel or book of poetry, article topics require a little more creativity and probably are less directly related to your book. Some possible article topics include the literary impact of an author who has inspired your writing, the quirky history of where your book is set, or a topic vital to your book’ plot (If you wrote a science fiction book involving time travel, an article might be “Will time travel ever be possible?”). Of course, you’ll want to sneak in a mention of your book, using it to establish your credentials for writing such an article.

Article directories do not carry the same weight on search engines as they once did thanks to changes in Google’s algorithm updates; in fact, they actually hurt your website’s rankings, so you want to avoid placing a link in your article to your site. Still, article directories do create another page and hence another entry point for readers to discover your book.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.