Zen…

Do you write books, articles or have a blog? To monetize your skills, you need to learn how to promote your work.

Even traditionally published authors handle some part of their book promotions themselves. Unless you are that famous.

1. Show your work: Have you read the book ? Show your Work by Austin Kleon ? The best way to get people to buy what you’re selling is by showing your works. First off, know your audience. What kind of stories or contents interest them? Where are these readers? Second, what niche are you most familiar with? Focus on your strength, use it to drive traffic to your work and earn from it. Would you hire a make up artist without seeing pictures of her works especially the type related to what you have in mind to work on your face? Third, create a portfolio and sample your works. Content.ly and Clippings.me are very handy for portfolio creation.

2. Have a blog/ website: post your excerpts, the events you will attend, when and where. Leave a contact info, an email or a phone number to reach you. Keep your readers posted on your works, share a few writing tips and advices. These things keep your audience engaged.

3. Make good use of your social media: write interesting lines on your Twitter, post pictures related to your books and events on your Instagram, hop on trends and make creative but fun videos for your TikTok and Instagram reels, post instructional videos about writing on your YouTube. You’re a creative so be creative and attract a good amount of audience who automatically convert to loyal customers with your creativity.

4. Attend workshops/ conferences: when speaking at these events or going for one, go with your business cards and plenty copies of your books. Who knows, you might spark some interest through networking and end up handing out your business cards or selling some of your books.

5. Use other outlets: get some articles published with magazines, write for newsletters and newspapers. Guest post for blogs. Your credit which is embedded in your bio will inform readers of that space about your works.

6. Talk to some organizations/ large businesses : if your work is related to an organization into chicken pasta, you could approach them to sell your book on chicken sauce recipe. Or a business involved in marketing and advertisement can sell your book on how to optimize sales through social media.

Whatever means you choose to promote your work, keep it simple, fun but creative.