You’ve just gone through the work and excitement of completing your first book or eBook and you’re ready to show it off to the world. Now, you have to spread the word and try to get some buyers. This, by the way, is just as strenuous, if not more so, than writing the book in the first place. You will soon realize that you have to dig deep within yourself to market what you have created to others to make the sales. An author I know when I once asked him how his books managed to sell so well he said he. “It’s easy. Write it down, put it somewhere people can buy it, and then promote it for about 3 years.”

I don’t plan on discussing in this article the myriad of things you can do offline to promote your creation, like book signings, getting a table at trade shows to display your book, and giving away autographed copies, trying to get retailers to sell it (if created a bound version), etc. The tips provided below are written to help you get maximum publicity for your online book or e-book.

Let’s get started with building your online sales strategy. Where will you put your book to sell it?

The most popular option on the Internet is Amazon. This is a very good first step for many books, particularly e-books. Amazon owns Kindle Books, the de facto leader in e-book marketing and distribution. Everyone has heard of Kindle and there are literally millions of Kindle readers that people can use to read their e-book, not to mention Kindle book reading software is available for computers, tablets and even mobile devices so which is very easy to distribute and make your creation accessible to others. Amazon also owns “Create Space”, a second entity that can turn your e-book into a bound book that can also be sold on Amazon-Kindle and through distributors around the world. If you want to “pay at market” for your book through Amazon? You can also do it by creating one of your advertising campaigns at cheap prices.

Going through this process also gives you an ASIN number for your book or an ISBN number for your book if you wish to go that route (required for selling print books through Create Space but not for e-books just sold on Amazon-Kindle ). You can also enroll your book in the Kindle KDP Select program, which is like an online library that people pay a monthly subscription to and you can get additional royalty payments for your book from here, based on the number of pages read. You can also get Amazon promotional banners that you can place on your website or blog and even email people to further promote your book.

The bottom line is that, starting out, Amazon – Kindle has a lot to offer a new self-publisher. You can literally publish your book in less than a week and start making money if people buy it.

But you will have to work harder for your book to actually sell and start generating income. Your book will arrive on Amazon OK, but it has to be seen and wanted for you to make sales. There are books that have been sitting there for years without any sales, so don’t think it’s over once you’ve published your book and it’s on the site. You have to help make sales happen by promoting it. So, below is a list of things you should also do online yourself to get people to visit your Amazon purchased page to buy your book.

• Be sure to create your author profiles on Amazon Central and on book review sites like “Good Reads.” At Good Reads, also be sure to include your book in their “Listopia” program, so learn how. Find other similar author sites and get your name out there too.
• Also consider posting an online press release about your book. Make sure you have links to where people can see and buy your book. Take a look at “Reddit” as a possible site for this.
• Promote your book on different social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.
• Consider creating a YouTube channel and creating a promotional video for your book with links to where your book can be purchased.
• Create your own “Author” blog site to further promote your book. Browse the internet to get links to your site or book through guest posting, article writing, etc.
• Set up an automated autoresponder and email marketing system and use it to help promote your book – build your email subscriber lists!
• Consider getting a series of podcasts on iTunes where you can have “podcast discussions” about the content of your book. FYI: Once you’ve created a few of these, paste a picture of your book in front of them and upload them to your YouTube channel as well as “Video Podcasts.”
• Keep posting and guest posting and hanging out with people. The more people know about you and your book, the better your sales will be. Build bridges with other authors (EzineArticles and Good Reads are great places to do this), book reviewers, knowledgeable people in your “book space,” etc. Make yourself known there.
• Create a Facebook business page for your book and put your author’s “Good Reads” button on your Facebook pages to keep people coming back to your author page on GoodReads. Promote your book on Facebook using the “Boost Post” feature – this is a very inexpensive marketing platform with great targeting capabilities.
• Make sure you sign in to Google+ and create your profile there. Then find and join various communities related to your subject area and also related to other authors – become a positive content contributor to these communities.

In short, if you can do all of the above steps to promote your book online, you’ll be well on your way to starting building the foundation needed to start earning money for your book. Best of luck in your career as a writer.