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As a published author, I had to learn how to get free publicity for my book. Although we all think a publisher will do this work for us, it’s up to the author to do the majority of the book promotion.

So, how do you get publicity for your book? It doesn’t matter if you worked with a publisher or self-published, these tips should help you get exposure for your book.

Top Book Review Sites

1)   Publisher’s Weekly is known as the bible of the book business.

2)   Kirkus is another well-known, reputable book review site.

3)   Top Newspapers like, USA Today, New York Times, and the Washington Post have book review sites.

Book Bloggers Reviewing Your Book

1)            Google Search and Alexa Ranking – search for bloggers in your genre who perform and are accepting books for review. Compile a list and then check out their ranking on Alexa. The lower the rank, the higher traffic the blog. For example, Huffington Post has an Alexa ranking of 20. It’s likely not be worth mailing a book to a book review site if their Alexa ranking is in the millions. Here is a listing of top book bloggers.

2)            Be Active on Their Blog – Show the blogger love by paying attention to what they write about and commenting on their work. Bloggers make their living based on engagement so if you want to have a blogger write about your book, make sure they know you are paying attention to them and engage with them on their blog.

3)            Engage on Twitter – if you’ve been reading my blog or hearing me speak, you know I’m a huge fan of using Twitter to engage with journalists. The same holds true for bloggers. Find them on Twitter but don’t pitch your book right away. Build a relationship by engaging with them. Like, comment, and share their work. They will start paying attention to you.

Using Traditional Media for Book Publicity

1)            How can your book help a journalist cover a story?  What is the specialty of your book? How does that pertain to a current event? This is a great way to use your book as a platform to provide subject credibility.

2)            What unique pitch can you come up with from your book? What is your book about? What is something unique you can pull out of your book to create a media pitch?

3)            Don’t forget about mining for gold in your back yard. Pitch your local media about the book.

Exposure is key to book sales. Whether you get that through a book review, being written about in a blog, or being covered in a newspaper, magazine, or television show, it’s exposure that will get your book seen by large numbers of people.

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To Your PR Success,