I know that a lot of people that read this either have books out that they have written or they want to write a book.  Promoting a book is not easy.  While I consider it easy to sell a few hundred books, I also consider it hard to sell a lot of books and make a best sellers list.  This is one area that quality and understanding your market is critical.  Quality is not necessarily the quality of your prose, but the books ability to entertain, inspire or enhance the life of the reader.  And you cannot do that for everyone – which is why you need to understand your market and what they want.

Chris Brogan has a good post on new media and marketing for books.  I often tell authors they need a blog, but his point with this is how people want to interact with an author that they enjoy.  It is a different angle.

What is obvious from his post is that you really need to approach writing like a career choice, not as a one hit jackpot.  Chances are you are an unknown author and you do not have a big following one the web or in real life.  You first need to start building that following right away.

Then you need to produce a book people genuinely like and the word of mouth will help you build a bigger following.  If you keep repeating this cycle of book publishing and book promoting – and building your fan base, you could end up with a respectable career as an author.  But that is not an easy road to go down for most people that give up when they see their first book fail to take off.

The truth is, the more you do something the better you get at it usually.  (Assuming you are trying to improve on past efforts)

These are things to consider.  It probably seems obvious as you read it, but how many of us authors approach it like a career choice?