The decision to write a book and be published as an author is one many people are making today thanks in part to the self-publishing revolution. If you're one of them, make sure to find out how to market your book to make it a success. A crucial part of book publicity campaigns is author promotion, even for writers who are already established. In the opinion of promotion and PR pros, author promotion and branding is a type of personality cultivation to earn trust and respect from the media and public. It often leads to interviews and speaking engagements on a topic or subject area.

Setting the essential goals is crucial to successful author promotion. Once you've settled on your objectives, following through and taking the needed action is vital. It requires discipline because there are necessary actions on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Many of them have to do with engaging people to stay on their minds – especially in ways related to your book. Each author is different, and therefore there isn't an exact approach that will work the same for everyone. You'll also want to increase your emphasis on things that are working and drop from your list, the ones that don't.

Most authors have objectives they want to accomplish. Yours might be sky-high goals such as being interviewed on the Today Show or writing a New York Times Bestseller.  Others have more modest goals like completing a manuscript, finding an agent, entering a publishing contract, or selling a certain number of books. Whatever your goals are, achieving them requires consistent action. The action steps you take to build your platform are what creates your author brand. Examples include your newsletter and its subscribers, social media accounts and followers, book buyers, and event attendees.

Having an author promotion action plan, and sticking to it is the key to success. If you need ideas as the inspiration to get started, consider everything that can put you in touch with the media and potential book buyers. Of course, you'll always need to expand and refine what you've seen others do to make them personal and unique to you. Writing up a custom plan on your own is an excellent approach. But it's certainly fine to review other authors' promotional activities to inspire what you might do. Seeing their successes will get your mind working about what will be most helpful to you and your book.