I take it you have self published. The very best thing you can do is hire yourself a marketing firm. All of the things you suggest are valid, however you are going to find getting into a major bookstore is not easy. Did you know major bookstores are now charging major publishers for placing their books on the tables in key locations and featuring them? Publishers pay for that. No matter what you do, you are going to find it costs money. You can buy space on the internet in key sites that you think your readers might visit. You can advertise in local publications, you can send out thousands of letters to bookstores urging them to stock your book through the distributor. All of that costs money. That is one of the key reasons self publishing is a really bad idea. The average sale of a self published book is around 100 copies. You have to push.

I recently took a master class on promoting books - mostly for people who publish traditionally but we did discuss self publishing as well. The author who taught the class said that you can expect to have your friends and family disown you because you will spend so much time promoting your book that they will never see you again. It is a very rough road. And the sad part is you cannot even refer to yourself as a published author. You are a self published author. Your work has not stood up to the scrutiny to a publisher or an agent. Self publishers print anything. I could print the San Francisco telephone book if I wanted to spend the money to do so.

But what Lily has told you isn't always true. Publishers do not always dump money into first novels. Don't count on it. Sure, they get you in bookstores, but you still have to do a hell of a lot to push them yourself.

I am ghostwriting now for a major sports personality. He put out his first children's book about 18 months ago. I didn't ghost that one. His publisher - a top five NYC publisher promised him a ton of promotion. It didn't materialize. He pushed it very hard on his own - using his celebrity and his connections to get it moving. It made #1 on the NY Times bestseller list largely to his efforts - not the publisher's.

Now that they saw that, the two I am ghosting are guaranteed a huge promotion budget. You don't necessarily get it on the first book. But if your first book is a runaway best seller like this was, they will fall all over you to promote the next one. It is cool to know we won't have to do anything to promote these two.

I also know an author whose first novel did quite well. IN fact, it was a book of the month selection in many book clubs. She is sweating out the sequel - even offering to appear at reading groups to promote it. Her publisher isn't offering her much in the way of promotion for the second - despite the first doing very well.

All these things you suggest cost money. And they are iffy. You have to agree to get a bookstore to hang posters or do a signing. First you have to get them to stock the book. Remember that bookstores are all about shelf space. A bookstore pays rent. Square footage costs them money. So what they fill that square footage with has to be enough to cover the costs of their overhead plus earn them a profit. If they don't think your book will sell them more than one or two copies, it won't be stocked. Those are the facts. Your task is a daunting one my friend. Welcome to the world of self publishing.

Pax - C