Excerpted from my chapter in AuthorsAccess’ upcoming book tentatively titled Authors Access: 50 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. My chapter is titled Successfully Selling Your Book Online.

In it, I list 10 (almost) free things you should be doing to sell your book online. I wanted to share them here as well.

6) Write Articles: You are a writer. That gives you some great advantages for marketing online. Musicians can do most of the things you can do, but most of them would be hard pressed to write really good copy about their album. You on the other hand write great things before breakfast.

Write short, well-edited articles about what you know. Don’t write about your book – write about what your book is about.

There are many online article databases to which you can submit your articles. They are free and they accept articles almost automatically. Submit to as many as you have time for. Once your articles are accepted and published, they are placed in a searchable database. I have listed a few of them in the resource section at the end of this chapter.

These databases are used by journalists, publishers, writers, bloggers and webmasters as copy to fill their publications. They get the article for free, you get the byline… including info such as your website, your book and where to buy it.

So, though you are writing articles for free, you are building broad exposure while bolstering your reputation as an expert in your area of knowledge.

Not much else to add on this one. Here are a few article databases that you can check out:

ArticlesBase
Article City
Article Geek
Ezine Articles
Submit Your Article

Next up: Write reviews and blurbs for other authors!