*Guest post by Hayley Zelda

Marketing is extremely important if you want your book to be seen. Writing a book is hard, but the journey doesn't end there. Marketing is a whole new beast. Don't make the mistake of thinking that your book's sales potential is based on the strength of your prose, or the greatness of your story. Your story may be an amazing read, but if nobody knows about it, the sales will be mediocre.

In this post, I will take you through the very steps I use to market books online. You will learn all about paid advertising and also how to get free exposure through various forms of social media.

1) Tap into an existing community

One of the fastest ways to gain traction for your book, the first thing you should do is to tap into an existing community. If you write fiction, do some research on the different writers forums and online writer's hangouts. Most of these have an online community, and if you stick to your genre, you will find an audience that will be willing to listen to you and your book. Most writers hang out in Reddit /r/writing, but there are also other sub-reddits that are less crowded.

Keep in mind that on Reddit, you want to be seen and heard, not sold to. Remember, they are there for a reason, to build their craft. Don't pitch your book to them. Don't be pushy about selling your books. Be very humble. Build trust first, then try to sell.

Most importantly, focus on giving before taking. Be kind to the other writers, and they will be kind to you. Remember that there are people who are better writers than you, so be humble.

You can also look at other writing forums and group chats. If you do join other groups, follow the same advice. Don’t be overly promotional.

2) Get featured on book blogs

Book bloggers and author interview sites can be an amazing outlet to promote your book online. Build a relationship. Make them care about you. Connect with them in their network and share content. Don't just ask them for a favor, give them something in return. Think about the community first, what can you give them?

Be very selective with who you approach. Do research on who can potentially help you. Don't just approach any blogger. Look at the community they are part of, and the posts they've written. Are they a good fit for you? Look at who they like to interview and what they like to review.

Don't ask for a favor if you haven't given anything in return. Be sure that they are into your book's genre, and that they have already read books of that genre. Don't just say: review my book! Give them something they can use. Something that they can get value out of. A discount, an ad, a contact, whatever you can think of. Give them a good reason to review your book. It has to be something they can use, it has to make sense for them to work with you.

Start with smaller sites like Wired For Youth before approaching bigger places like Huffington Post. You can check out this article to learn more about how to take advantage of blogging to promote your book.

3) Post snippets on writing platforms

After I finished writing my first non-fiction book, I decided to put some snippets from it on Medium.com and that resulted in a lot of people finding me. These people ended up being an amazing network for me. They were tech people, many of them were founders and startup owners.

Also, the content I wrote on Medium was shared a lot, and that resulted in a lot of people reading my stories and then buying my book. Medium is one of my favorite places to post my stuff now.

Think about where your readers might be. Then go there and provide value.

Medium was good for me for a particular non-fiction book I was working on. If I were writing fiction, I’d focus on sites like Commaful or Wattpad.

These are the main steps I take to market my books online. What's most important, is that you are consistent. Be active. Keep publishing content. Don't give up.

*Hayley Zelda is a writer and marketer at heart. She's written on all the major writing platforms and worked with a number of self-published authors on marketing books to the YA audience.