Adopt a Proactive Marketing Mindset

NOTE:  In January 2018, an updated and expanded edition of The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide was released, offering 65 book marketing ideas and new "Deep Dives" sections exploring social media strategy, how to work with beta readers, and how to earn free press coverage. 

To download the new Smashwords Book Marketing Guide for free, here are the coordinates:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
iBooks
Kobo
Smashwords

The new 2018 edition of The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide is also available as a serialized podcast on the SMART AUTHOR podcast, starting with Episode 10.

Click here to access all SMART AUTHOR podcast episodes.






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The information that follows on this page is from the 2013 edition of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, which will remain here for historical purposes only.




In the previous section, I shared what Smashwords will do for you, all for free, and all without you lifting a finger.  After all those great features, you might wonder if it’s okay for you to relax, wait for the royalty checks to pour in, and start plotting your next book.  Wrong!  Odds are, even with the marketing and distribution benefits listed above, if you do nothing else you’re not going to sell many books.  To reach more readers and take your sales to the next level, you must proactively market your book.  Although there are hundreds of books out there that will tell you how to market your book, and many of them are quite good (and published on Smashwords too!), most aren’t tuned specifically to help you market your book on an advanced digital publishing platform such as Smashwords.  That’s where this guide comes in.  We’re going to focus on the top things you can do today that will help you get the word out about your book.  Do the easy stuff first, and then refer back to this guide from time to time for more ideas.