Suggestion: Get a copy of the latest edition of Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual. Read the chapter on distribution (Chapter 8 in the 15th edition). Also see
www.parapublishing.com for more information.
"Best means" will depend on your audience and purposes. I do not think there is a one-size-fits-all answer. Anyway, Poynter's book and website should help.
--Ken
Thanks for the information.
I was looking more for people's personal experiences but I will certainly check that out.
Mark
Dan Poynter
IS a self publisher and that site
IS his personal experiance. He has self published 131 books to date, and that site (and his book) detail how he did it.
Personal experiance? ok, here goes: As for me, it depends on the audiance. I've done various things, Amazon works pretty good so you should set up an account.
Hype sells. Hype up your books useing personal profiles on networking sites... Also sell your books off your personal web sites. Even if you have a "domain site", you should still have at least 4 "personal" web sites: a home page through Freewebs.com, a blog through Blogger, a MySpace profile, and a FaceBook profile. Your Freewebs page will only need to be updated once every couple of month, and you MySpace and FaceBook pages should be updated weekly, and your Blogger should be updated at least twice a week (dialy is best). These 4 sites are the best there are for networking and reaching out to your readers, so be sure to start all 4 of them if you haven't already done so.
On your blog talk about your book. Give updates, such as: "Today I finished chapter 12 of my latest novel!!!!" Get your readers all hyped up for it, long before it comes out, that way they'll be in a frenzy to buy it the second it goes to print.
Readers love to get to know the author better via the author's private sites, and they love linking back to a "famous person's" MySpace profile, esp if you (the famous person) leaves comments on their profile.
Make up a press release (which is basicly a book review written by you and an author Q&A interview also written by you, and a free copy of your book). Send a press release to 3 or 4 local newspaper editors. Send one to a local college newspaper, and send out one each to as many book reviewers as you can find (localy, nation wide, or even internationaly)
Tell everyone you meet about your book. Shake the hand of strangers at the mall and say "My book was published!" Say it in a bright cheerful bubblely way and often they will stop and ask you about it. Uhm... I was a door to door salesman for 7 years, so walking up to strangers, and pitching a sale is second nature to me now, so you may find this hard to do at first, but once you get used to it, you'll find that most people will at least stop and listen while yo tell them about how great and marvelous your book is and why all the world should read it. TELL EVERYONE!! Word of mouth is a self publisher's #1 best seller.
Give free (autographed) copies of your book to all the local libraries... public, private, college, state, and school. And while you are there donating the autographed book to the library, tell them you are open to doing book signings, ask about their author day-book signing policies. (All libraries do book signings with local authors, most are just dieing to promote you, but they do not approach the authors, the author must approach the library.)
~~~~~~~
Here's a big scary one... I have not done this yet myself, however, my uncle did it with his 5th book:
Write to your fave celebrity (a singer, a movie star, an author, a political leader, a doctor, or anyone whose name will "look good" on the back cover of your book.) Send them a free copy of your book, tell them that you'd love to know what they thought of it, and that you'd like to use their comments about your book on your book's back cover in the next edition of it. Most will prob'ly not write back, however, if you send out enough requests, sooner or later, some big name star is going to answer you with a good quote, and you'll be able to print that quote on the back of your book.
My uncle did this last year. He wrote to former Pres. Bill Clinton, and a few weeks later he not only got back a quote for the back cover, but Clinton liked the book so much, that he wrote an entire introduction for the book, which is going to be put in the front of the book! OMG! That is so cool! (It was a non-fiction political book, cause that's the kind of stuff my uncle writes. I do not read his books, cause I find them boreing, I prefer fiction.) The moral here is, find a big name star who "matches" your book's topic.
~~~~~~~
My newest book comes out next month. It is differant for me in many ways.
First off, this will be my first book printed up for me by LuLu.com. Everyone says how great LuLu is, so I figured if they are as good as folks say, than I might want to switch my printer. So this book is me testing out LuLu to see how they compare to other book printers.
Secondly, this will be my first published multi format book. Multi format in that it was a short story I wrote a while back, but than I rewrote it into a ballet (stage play), and this book is going to include the original story AND the ballet-play script AND the set and costumme design art.
Because of the ballet nature of this book, I plan to print up several copies of it and than take them around to local dance schools, and dance supply shops to see if any of them would like to carry a few copies to sell. (I live in "The Arts District" so theaters and dance studios are everywhere). So this'll be a first for me in this area as well. I have no idea if they will want to sell my book in their stores or not, but I won't know if I don't try will I?
I would suggest that you look around your neighborhood and local towns and see what businesses might sell your book... and think outside the box, don't just think book stores, think: banks, hospital gift shops, tatoo shops, ice cream counters, anything and everything... look at each one and ask yourself: "Why would they want to sell my book?" Than come up with a reason and go in ask to talk to the manager, hand them a free copy of your book, tell them why their costumers would want to buy it, why it is to their advantage to sell it, and give them a way to order the book from you.
I can't think of anything else right now. I hope this helps you some.
