What is the best way to promote self published books?

[Sylvester C]

I am a struggling author that is not making much money off the books and not many people are being interested in them, I have tried to through Facebook and even created a twitter account to promote, I have also made a web page and still nothing. I have even gone to several Cons trying to promote and I turned out more in the negatives then the positive. So what do I do? Is there any other options and what else can I do (That wouldn't cost me a arm and a leg)

[596]

Send me a link, and I'll look at your story.

My personal feeling is: the most important thing you can do to sell more books is learn to write better. But since I haven't read your writing yet, I can't really make that determination.

EDIT:

I've been waiting twenty minutes now for you to either throw up a link to one of your books in your additional details, or for you to email me privately. It's hard to give you specific advice if you won't give me specific information.

EDIT 2:

Dear god, man! Here is someone asking to see your writing, and you won't let them look at what you've written! No wonder you're not seeing much success...

[Rasesh]

Make your business cards(with your name, website, and place to buy books, and email) and spread it to local book store. I am sure since you are writer you may have contacts with book stores..you may chose to give away free copies of your work or a marketing copy which leaves book without climax/end and make readers to buy a copy....
Another thing you can do is go to places like barnes and noble and personally hand out your cards to people reading books there...Good luck!

[MavistheMaven]

I was going to say there isn't ONE "best" way. The best way is to do a variety of things. You have already tried several things, but basically, you're an unknown trying to get people interested, and it sounds like they aren't interested.

You need to do a few more things:

1. Make sure your story is compelling and well written. If you don't hook the readers and keep them wanting to turn the pages all the way through, you'll be wasting your time trying to sell a loser product.

2. Figure out who your target readership is and let them sample your book. It sounds like you have some idea, since you tried promoting it at Cons. Get an initial group of target readers to try your book. You may have to do this for free. You might post the first few chapters on a website such as wattpad or a fansite frequented by readers of your type of story. Use the feedback to improve it, if necessary. If they love it, they will ask for more and they will tell their friends, and then you can start selling to them.

3. Develop a readership. Write some other things and post them on wattpad or wherever. Get known, so people look for more stories by you.

4. You have a website, great, but do people know it exists? Put other content on the website to draw in readers. You could start a blog or review other, similar writers - and link to them. This is important, because you want some of them to link back to you. Some of them will probably check out your book, too, and if they like it, they can be very influential in publicizing your book.

[thought]

First, you are trying to promote the wrong thing: you should not be marketing your books, but rather yourself as an author.

Second, the best way to promote yourself as an author is to write brilliant books. It is about as hard (though in a different way) to be successful as a self-published author as it is to get a publishing company to pick you up.

[Teddy]

Really, you should have figured out all that before publishing your book. I'm going with commercial publisher, because I can't afford to pay someone to do all my marketing for me. Some commercial publishers do some of the marketing. And, I've already begun to learn how to promote my book when it does get published. To do that, I had to study how to do it, learn about SEO, and learn about networking. It sounds like you're trying to sell through sympathy. No one is interested in reading a story, because they feel sorry for the author.

[Tokimori]

You should try video marketing. I recommend you using this software - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXzZMRxhn...oad_owner, it has the software link in the description and it tells why the software is good and all and some of it's features, this software should help you boost your profits to your business but I recommend you make a website for your business first then use the video to draw traffic to your website then use the website to draw business to you