Promote Your Fiction Online: Tip #1

Several people have asked me for tips on promoting fiction on the web. Here is the first tip in a series. Non-fiction authors: these tips can easily work for you as well. They just represent my favorite ways to promote fiction online.

Tip #1: Get Talking

Many fiction authors do readings, but reading an excerpt from your book to a small local audience is unlikely to lead to a large stream of sales. To have your spoken words attract a worldwide audience, you need to go online. You can record and post a basic excerpt on your website or blog (try Flash Audio Wizard, Audio Acrobat, or Gabcast) or or create a podiobook, a serialized audio book delivered via podcast (see Podiobooks for an example).

If you follow the serialized approach, it is up to you to determine how much to provide for free. Some authors podcast their entire novel with the goal of selling print books to new fans; others deliver only a few chapters and encourage sales to listeners eager to find out what happens next. Another option is to podcast a series of short stories for free that may help develop an audience for your novel.

The advantage of a podcast is that you can generate additional publicity by listing it in podcast directories such as Yahoo! Podcasts or iTunes and by encouraging subscribers. The advantage of an audio excerpt is that it’s faster and easier to create.

Filed Under Blogging, Podcasting 

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