In today’s world, a writer isn’t just a writer. A writer is expected to be a master in all things DIY – the author, publisher, promoter, marketer, publicist, PA, editor in chief, IT support, Chief Financial Officer, and sales agent for their book.

Publishers will say that the author is the best person to sell their book. But although most writers and authors are very good at writing, very few are actually good at book publicity, let alone selling.

It’s not their fault. They just haven’t been taught to promote, market or sell. Which is why many writers and authors avoid selling altogether. It simply falls in the Too Hard basket. Or the financial investment required for marketing is too high, not to mention the risk of poor or zero returns on that investment.

Most writers I meet think that once they’ve written their book that’s the end of it. Time to start the next one. However, like any product, a book needs to be brought to market. It needs to be promoted and publicized. It needs to be marketed. It needs to be sold.

Most of the heartache I see in writers is when they’ve spent years working on their book and invested not only time and effort but also money (not to mention the cost to their relationships with their family), and their book goes virtually unnoticed on the shelves of their local bookshop or on the virtual shelves of Amazon.

But as writers we need to be just as familiar with publicizing and marketing our book as we are with grammar, sentence structure, and character development if we want to actually sell our books to more than just our mothers and aunts.

The internet, however, can be a gold mine for writers and authors who know where to look for help. At DoctorZed Publishing and The Business of Writing School, we often make use of free online promotional tools to promote and publicize our authors’ books with great success. They’re free, easy to use, and save you time.

So, here are our Top 10 Free Online Promotional Tools to help you promote and publicize your book.

1. Dunnnk – Use Dunnnk to mock-up images of your product on devices such as iPads, Macs, PCs and more.
2. Pixabay – Use Pixabay for free high-quality stock images.
3. Pablo – Use Pablo to create royalty-free images to share via email, blogs, or social media.
4. CoSchedule – Use CoSchedule to analyze your headlines and taglines to improve click rates and boost online traffic.
5. Gyazo – Use Gyazo to capture images and GIFs and generate URL links to share via email or social media.
6. Buffer – Use Buffer to boost your social media reach on Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and more.
7. GoSpaces – Use GoSpaces to generate hundreds of slogan ideas for your book project or business.
8. JukeDeck – Use JukeDeck to create royalty-free instrumental music for your webcasts and podcasts.
9. Facebook Pages – Create a Facebook Page for your book to host your live webinars and build an online community.
10. ManyChat – Use ManyChat to automate your Facebook Messenger and engage with your community.

With these tools, your online book publicity campaign will be a whole lot easier, quicker and cheaper. And a lot more fun 🙂

Need help with your marketing? Click here…

*This article first appeared on ContentPlexus.com and is re-published with permission.

‘Remember, success like writing is a habit’

Dr. Scott Zarcinas
Director, DoctorZed Publishing
Founder, The Life Leaders Club

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