Wrote a Travel Memoir or Guidebook? Here's How to Promote it for Free

So you've finally written a memoir of your harrowing backpacking adventures in the Tatra Mountains or a guidebook to the 50 best Udon restaurants in Tokyo. Congratulations!

The good news: you've spent countless hours researching and reminiscing to finish such a consuming task. The bad news: compared to selling your book, writing it is the easy part. After you've printed a few copies for friends and family through sites like Lulu.com or Createspace, it's time to really try and sell that book you worked so hard on. Self-promotion is a daunting task for many writers, who may be inherently introverted due to the solitary nature of their craft. Which is why so many have traditionally relied on the Big Publishing houses to do the marketing for them. And when it gets down to it, that's all they really do. They use their big budgets and industry clout to get your book out there - and take a huge chunk of your profits for what amounts to a relatively small effort on their part.

But that's old news to today's writers, who are choosing with more frequency to sell their own books online. How the Internet Has Changed PublishingIt wasn't so long ago that there was really only one way to publish a book and see any money from it. You sent it off to an agent, and with some luck (and a good book, of course), the agent then finds a publisher for it. An upfront offer might be made, with royalties and rights on a paperback edition to possibly follow. While many authors have gotten rich and famous this way, many have been outright robbed blind. For better or for worse, all of that has changed, thanks to the Internet. Anyone can publish a book from a number of sites that specialize in self publishing, often for the price of a few dollars per book.

These companies charge a small fee to do so, but only a small percentage of the cost of the book. An author can pocket the profits directly and set their own prices. And books are printed on demand, so there's never a huge pile of them wasting money and waiting to be bought. The downside? No one is rooting for your book. It's all up to you. Marketing Your Book Online is the loathsome part of self-publishing. It is an author-owned business and that business must be marketed. There is no magic bullet. There is no "secret." Unless you are already a celebrity of some kind, you will send far more hours trying to tell people about your book than you did writing and editing it.Social Media is Free AdvertisingWhile sites like Kirkus Reviews charge a fee to review and display your book, some packages can cost hundreds of dollars. That's cost prohibitive for many authors, which is why many choose social media.

Facebook is a great place to start. Look up groups on Facebook related to your book's genre or topic. There are also many groups for self-published authors, often with thousands of members in each. The more groups you join, the more chances you have of someone clicking on one of your links - and buying your book.Along with Facebook, here are just a few sites to get the word out, linking either an article, blog or Amazon page:*Twitter*Reddit*Digg*Stumbled Upon*Pinterest*Yahoo! Contributor Network*Tumblr EBooksFrom an author's standpoint, ebooks are not only here to stay, but they've been outselling print books for three years now, according to the New York Times and Amazon. By more than two to one.