Advice on ebook promotion?

Check out the section here at AW on book promotion.

And the one on self-publishing.

...And this one.

Contra Glove said:

...since if I submit my work to publishers and they accept it, I will have to do all the promotion anyway.

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This is not true, and never has been, once you get out of the very bottom ranks of publishers-you-wouldn't-want-to-have-anyway.

Contra Glove said:

I'm thinking long term here, since if I submit my work to publishers and they accept it, I will have to do all the promotion anyway.

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I wish people would stop saying that.

Commercial publishers/trade publishers do promote books.

My publishers have never asked me to do any promotion, other than let them know about reviews or suggest where to send review copies.

They've put the books in stores, on and off-line. They've produced marketing materials, and successfully sold multiple editions.

I built a Web site, but I build Web sites, so that was trivial.

Here are a couple of blog posts I've written on how I sell my e-books that might give you some ideas

http://publishing4profit.com/blog/2011/08/04/how-i-sell-e-books-q-a/

http://publishing4profit.com/blog/2012/03/16/are-you-just-an-author/

Contra Glove said:

if I submit my work to publishers and they accept it, I will have to do all the promotion anyway.

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I'll add my voice to the others who have said this isn't true; I'll welcome you to AW; and I'll move this to our book promotion room. Good luck!

Try the book blogs

Something I discovered recently - there are literally hundreds of people out there blogging about books. One promotion suggestion I'd offer is to find the blogs, contact the bloggers, and ask if they'd review your book if you sent them a free copy.

Don't just e-mail every blogger, though - if you look at the blog, either in the links at the top or somewhere in the sidebars, almost all of them have a 'review policy'. Read that first, see if they even review your genre. (And fair warning, it seems like most of the book blogs out there are strictly for Young Adult - man, if you're writing young adult paranormal, you'd have it made in the shade with these blogs!)

I went through literally hundreds of blogs, winnowing to those that would review mysteries, could take ebooks, and were willing to review self-published books. I sent out 50 requests, got back eight positive responses, and sent out the review copies. The first couple reviews have been posted, and I'm starting to see a tiny uptick in views and sales.