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Your book is published or about to be published. Now what? Well, if you're self-publishing, you are the entire sales force and your book is going nowhere unless you can let a whole lot of people know what it's about and make it easy for them to get a copy. This is probably the most difficult part of the whole journey. And, even if a conventional publisher is bringing out your book, anything you can do to help the publisher will help you. Some of the things to consider are:

1. ADVERTISING - If a conventional publisher is bringing out your book, lucky you, advertising is not your problem. However, if you are self-publishing, you need to give it some serious thought. You will be unpleasantly surprised at the cost and not at all certain of a pay-back. So far, I've paid for two ads; one in a magazine and one in a book catalog used by librarians. I believe the magazine ad ($310) sold 3 books and the catalog ad ($189) sold none. My optimism is going to require some time to heal before I try that again. On the other hand, if you are going to do a local booksigning, whether you have a conventional publisher or not, it behooves you to rustle up as much local attention as you can.

2. ASSOCIATIONS - Most public libraries will have a catalog of associations. If your book or books have a good connection to the work of any particular association, their membership list may be a good advertising mailing list. And, if you're comfortable with public speaking, they may be interested in hearing from you. The Green Flame resulted in three speaking engagements I hadn't even requested.

3. BOOK SIGNINGS - I've been to a few dozen book signings so far. In a June 2002 one, I discovered a new thing that can go wrong. It was a signing involving over 30 authors and I was seated next to a highly successful author whose books all involved the local region. I was a candle parked next to the sun. (This sort of thing hit me again in 2006 in Cody, WY. Upstaged by a popular local.) I'm not sure that anybody saw me. Based on my signing experiences to date, I think the author can expect about a third of them to be dismal, a third satisfactory, and a third might be called wonderful if your expectations aren't too high. The sort of things that can make the event dismal are a lack of customers of any kind and/or a bookstore proprietor who has done no planning for the event. (One of my worst booksignings of that sort was a group event in a book store in New York city's Grand Central Station. Totally bad management.) Those risks might be minimized if you can have a face to face talk with the proprietor a few weeks before the event and volunteer your assistance with anything he or she might be too busy to do, such as making up posters and press releases and getting them out to newspapers, libraries, coffee shops, or any other bulletin boards that accept them. The sort of thing that makes for success (aside from the sales appeal of yourself and your work) is a bookstore proprietor that's really on the ball, treats you well, and pays promptly. Also, for "unknown" authors, such as myself, it is crucial to be located up front by the door or the cash register so as to snag those impulse sales, which will probably be your only sales of the day. Most of the time, you won't know in advance whether things will go well or not. Still, it is an essential part of promoting your work and you need to approach it with optimism and enthusiasm. You'll find that independent bookstores will be happy to have you bring your own books on consignment, while chain stores will much prefer to have the books come through a wholesaler and perhaps accept your consignment books as a last resort. The chain store managers are often eager to set up a booksigning, but their corporate headquarters systems don't have the necessary flexibility. For instance, the corporation may find it "impossible" to order books because your print-on-demand publisher won't accept returns, and the local bookstore manager may find it "impossible" to accept your book on consignment because he has no authority to cut you a check for books sold. If your POD publisher is Infinity, hooray for you, because INFINITY HAS DECIDED TO ACCEPT RETURNS ON ALL OF THEIR BOOKS, PAST AND PRESENT. For the rest of us, a possible way around this is for the local manager to order books from your print-on-demand source to replace the books sold, and pay you with the replacement books. This works if there is a royalty for you built into your book price. As a self-publisher, the only other way around this is to go the do-everything-yourself route, including setting up a publishing company the chain store headquarters people can buy from. (I tell people that the "Dilbert" comic strip is non-fiction. Can you see what I mean by that?) Meanwhile, I've quit seeking booksignings for the time being because I need the time to find an agent or publisher for my new book, code-named "WNS", and to write the next book, which is into the first draft of its first chapter.

4. BUSINESS CARDS - I'd say there are two kinds of business cards. The first kind is the usual business card, 2" X 3 1/2", printed on light cardboard with your name, address, occupation, phone number, e-mail address, and perhaps a web site. The second kind is slightly larger, plastic, has your book advertising on one side and something generically useful on the other side; perhaps a calendar, sports statistics, signs of the Zodiac, or anything else a person might want to save. I find the second kind useful to hand out at book signings or other events in the hope that the person who says no today may buy later. Check your local phone book for people who make such things. (I get mine from Philco Plastics, P. O. Box 403, Vidalia, GA, 30475.)

5. E-MAIL - This provides low-cost instant communication. Use it to let all your friends know about your books, but take the time to make each message personal. Spamming your message to every e-mail address you can find is not good business and will only irritate people who might otherwise have been interested. Sending your message to a purchased mailing list of people more likely to be interested can be good business, but one would have to keep up on anti-spam laws to avoid trouble. In my brief foray into this (which I don't intend to repeat) I found that the message must be brief and offer real value to those on the receiving end. Good enough? No. A few people really don't want any unsolicited email at all, and you may on rare occasion get a very angry reply. Some people regard any unsolicited mail from strangers as spam.

6. FALSE FRONT - They say that a defendant who represents himself in court has got a fool for a lawyer. Why is that? It's not simply that the defendant who represents himself may not know court procedures well enough. No, it's because of a quirk in human nature. Even if we think all lawyers are liars, we are more likely to believe what the lawyer says about the defendant than we are to believe what the defendant says about himself. Advertisers know we are more likely to buy product X if a movie or sports star says it's wonderful, even though we know the star is saying that because he or she is paid to say it. So, note that various self-published authors are setting up a publishing company for their book or books. Suddenly, their book appears not to be self-published and a wall of prejudice, stigma, and discrimination disappears. When, or if, I self-publish another book, I may do that too.

7. FLEA MARKETS & CRAFT FAIRS - I tinkered with this area for over a year and will give it up for a while because I need the time for other things. The markets I've checked so far have an entry fee for booth space, but no percentage of sales charge. (Book stores are the opposite; the space is free, but they need 20% or 40% of sales.) One thing I've learned is that there's a big difference between a "flea market" and a "craft fair." Flea market customers are looking for something useful at a dirt cheap price. Craft fair customers are more likely to buy novel or artistic things they like and not be as price conscious. There is an in-between category in which craft items are offered as well as all the second hand stuff associated with flea markets. These have to be judged on their own merits. In my one, only, and last attempt to sell my books at an outdoor flea market, the most success I could report was that at least twenty dogs visited my booth and not one of them peed on me. (It also rained, so maybe God peed on me that day.) I encountered one craft fair group that wanted $400 to $600 for booth space and quoted some "average sales per booth" to justify it. I didn't sign up for it, and still wonder what percentage of their booths sold enough to cover that fee. Craft fairs tend to require sign-up 6 to 12 months in advance, set standards for the appearance of your booth, and want some photographic evidence of what you intend to sell. This sets a tone I consider beneficial to new book sales. My only craft fair appearance to date, a 1-day December indoor event with a $50 booth fee, went well. A hybrid craft fair/flea market (3 days, indoors, and $25 for the booth) went reasonably well even though my sales on the day of the heaviest traffic were zero. On that day, the press of customers was so great they filled the aisle in front of my booth, one line going left and one line going right and very few willing to block the flow by stopping to look at books. One of the things I like about craft sale events, is that I'm free to set a reasonable price for my books, free of shipping hastles, and my customers get autographed copies to boot.
   However, Note Well: when I say an event "went well", it means I covered my costs, got more books into reader's hands, and increased the number of people who might visit this web site. In terms of wages however, anything over minimum wage is a great success.

8. LOCAL NEWSPAPERS - These are usually friendly and willing to present your story. Try to meet face-to-face with someone at the newspaper to get at least a verbal promise of looking at your story. Be sure to give that person an info package containing the sort of information you'd like to have included in an article about your work. Or give the newspaper a 'news release' that presents your story as you'd like it to appear. Either way, bear in mind that the newspaper will want the item to be very brief unless you can include a strong local interest 'hook.' Then don't be too surprised or annoyed if the story appears a month or two later than you thought it would (or not at all). Sometimes the difference between being a writer and being a successful writer amounts to living long enough.

9. MAILING LISTS - I've only tried one of these so far (see EMAIL, above). In my case, I'd need special lists of science fiction fans, western fans, nature lovers, and perhaps a more general list such as the members of a book-of-the-month club. So you see again the advantage of specializing in one genre, don't you? Bear in mind that mailing lists often result in only a 1% or 2% response. That is, you may only sell one or two books per 100 mailings. If you get a 10% response, you've gotten hold of an excellent mailing list. Most of the mailings I receive from authors consist of postcards with a glossy picture on one side and printed information on the other. So the cost per hundred is $27 postage plus the cost of the card. You may have to slip a shipping cost in with the book price to break even.

10. OTHER HELP - The Writer magazine has a series of "Breakthrough" articles in which authors describe what they did to promote their books. Such articles are insider information, not to be missed.

11. PUBLIC SPEAKING - You dread public speaking? Join the club. So do I. But that doesn't mean we can't do it. Many successful actors and actresses have that same dread of appearing on stage. For myself, the dread disappears shortly after I begin my talk. On a topic I know well (And who knows your book better than you do?), the outline of a one-hour speech will fit on a couple of 3" X 5" cards. I never write out a speech in detail or try to memorize it, though I do mentally rehearse what I might say on each item of the outline and check the time required for it. The main requirement of the speech is that you hold the interest of the audience. Do that any way you like, but my own preference is to 'wing it' with a bare outline. There may be things you might have said better and there might be unintentional omissions, but the audience generally won't know that. As a member of the Toastmaster's Club years ago, I discovered that even the initial dread tends to fade after giving a number of monthly talks. Sadly enough, that dread returns when you get out of practice. Still, focus on what you want the audience to know, and deliver that message without too much worry about the details.

12. REVIEWS - These can be very beneficial and are correspondingly hard to obtain. Why should a reviewer read your book as opposed to the many other choices he or she has? Contact any reviewer or newspaper columnist who has a special interest in your subject. If you get an expression of interest, have a copy or your book or its galleys ready to donate with no strings attached. Timing is crucial. Reviewers like to have a look before the official publication date and their interest fades rapidly thereafter.

13. SALESMANSHIP - Now you have cast yourself in a role you may not be prepared for. Your advantage is that you are thoroughly familiar with the product you're selling; your book. The best salesmen seem to have a talent for it, but you can sort of mimic what you've seen them do. That's why I try to make eye contact with potential customers at booksignings and get a conversation going. Other ploys I've heard of include, (1)asking anyone who picks up your book, "May I sign that for you?" and (2) simply leaving some irresistible object on your booksigning table. What object? Well, a slide rule for science fiction fans, an antique gun (within legal limits) for western fans, or unusual woodland plants for nature lovers.

14. TIME - If you've read the 'Time' headings under 'Writing' and 'Publishing', you know what I'm about to say, don't you? Right. You now have the Promoting monkey on your back along with the Writing and Publishing monkeys, and those three monkeys are going to be competing for the author/publisher/promoter's time. Could it be that Emily Dickinson's not having published any of her poems in her lifetime may have been a sign of great wisdom?

15. TV & RADIO - Check the listings in Literary Market Place (LMP) at your public library. Phone book yellow pages are also useful for local stations. And don't be too surprised if your "first choice" programs, even if they are local, are solidly booked with authors linked to conventional publishers. The way the sergeant explained it to the rookie in the movie, No Time For Sergeants, "We're all on a lake. The general has a boat, the captain has a smaller boat, the Lieutenant has a smaller boat than that, and you've got the smallest damn boat there is!" Net result: don't try to pull rank, you haven't got any.

16. WEB SCAMS - If you have a web site, be aware that you will once in a while get a 'bill' for keeping or protecting your web site or for keeping your books listed on other web sites. Be aware that such bills may be bogus and any money you pay in response may buy you nothing. Don't pay e-mailed 'bills' unless you're very sure they're legitimate. And know that you can't verify their legitimacy through the reply address on the 'billing' e-mail.

17. WEB SITE - If you're reading this, you obviously know the basics about web sites. You may find this one relatively plain, and that's deliberate. I wanted it to download quickly and be easy to read. (I'm consistent with those plain covers on the Xlibris books, you see. My focus is primarily on content, not on appearances.) In setting up your own web site, you have a choice of using software that does all the code set-up for you or you can start from scratch and learn the HTML code. I chose to learn the code, thinking that would make it easier to up-date the site from time to time. Take either route that suits you, but do take advantage of this means of getting your message out. Also, carefully consider the name of your site. In calling this one "DequasieBooks" I chose an accurate name and a long-shot chance of making it a brand name. Time may prove that I should have chosen something like, "UnknownBooks", recognizing the slim chance that people will remember Dequasie or how to spell it. As you may know, you can see the code used in this web page or most others by clicking on "View", then clicking on "Source". And do learn about viruses and how to avoid them. This particular web site was delayed about a month by a virus, picked up by opening e-mail attachments of the sort that circle the globe after being sent on their way by some anonymous person who could be one of those creeps who hopes to become famous by being a computer terrorist. I don't open e-mail attachments any more. And learn all you can about the search engines and how those search engines determine whether to include your site and how highly to rank it. The ten top search engines are the most difficult to get listed on and will determine how successful your site is. There's a lot of free advice about search engines floating around the Internet. Print it out, file it, and review it now and then for things you can use.

18. WHOLESALERS - If you are self-publishing entirely on your own, be aware that wholesalers don't automatically accept your book. They need some proof that you are a reliable and stable business entity. You need to work on their acceptance well ahead of publication. Otherwise you will have to sell to bookstores and libraries entirely on your own.

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