STOP, don’t do it, when you going to promote it! When you want to come?

It’s now 2012, do we still need to keep putting the 2000s on everything, or are we at the point where people are comfortable dropping the first two digits again? I mean there are about 10 people still alive from 1800s that the 1900s VS 2000s could be confused on.

I don’t know when we dropped the first two digits last time; maybe one of them could post and let me know?

It’s time for me to start doing the thing that I have been dreading…It’s time for me to start promoting my book.

I rub my face with both hands, not just one mined you.  This is a two-hand kind of stress job.

I like to talk about how awesome I am and I love to think that I’m all that and the bag of chips that you forgot about, in the back of your cupboard behind the coffee beans. You know that bag you never reach for because you never think of it while making coffee. Well that’s where I am, just this side of my expiration date.

But really the truth about me is, I rather just toss my stuff out there and hope that it floats on it’s own. This might work for the Stephen Kings of the world but the Robert Dufalo (who’s last name isn’t in MS Word’s dictionary) has to get off his butt and make sure that people buy his book. I’m not saying this because I want to be rich. In fact I can say that my goals for the most part have been accomplished.
1. My name shows up in bookstore. (Amazon)
2. People have read my book
3. People have liked my book!

This is all that I set out to do, and I’ve done that. Still, as I sit here I think that it’s time to expand my roll a little.

I’m still not a published author with any publishing house, I have no agent, and I have no contracts for me to write other books, and no company yet wants to spend money to print my book on paper and ship it to the last great glass and mortar bookstores of the world.

It’s a new year and its time to sets some new goals. :)
1. Get an agent.
2. Sell a book to a publisher.
3. Do a public book signing.

I’m not saying that to be an author that you need to do these things. No, I believe that I am an author now and I also think that I’m rather successful at it. Just for me, and who I am I always need to take things to the next level. I’m sure that I’ll have another goal once I meet the next three on my list.

Now where was I…

Oh right promoting my book.

I’ve purchased the URL for my book www.electricdisease.com (Now that I’ve told you this I really should put up a website around it)

I’d done the social promotion of the book through Facebook, the only true social site that I use.

I then thought that I would do a few searches on promoting self-published books and I found that I wasn’t really happy with the advice. 

It gave some of the same things: Use social media, use a blog, make a website. 

Some of the other things that it says to do is use free press sites or even post to writers forums. I’m skeptical of the people that follow these sites for what they are going to read next. I mean none of the people that I know follow these and if they do, they aren’t talking about it.

The last one that came up and I’m eyeing with distaste, is doing a press release. I don’t seem myself spending much money to have to pushed so I’m not sure that it will even ben looked at. But I’ll make a crack at it over the next two weeks in the hope that I can make something that is useable.

So this is my project for the next few weeks; to see where I can promote my book and see if I get more sales. For science; I will track the numbers and see what comes back.

Rob