As an author, what you do now will plot the course for your soon-to-be-launched or very-recently-launched book. You can do a lot to help your book become a successful, steady seller over an extended period of time, and you will learn those techniques here.

In My Book’s Published – Now What??? we will provide you with the insight to learn what you need to do to reach your highest level of publishing success. We will show you how to focus on and make the most of your creative uniqueness and help you gain a greater understanding of how things really work in the book-publishing world. We will show you how to make good things happen for your book in the ever-surging trends of book marketing.

You won’t find a step-by-step plan of action tailor-made for your book, although there are lots of commonalities. Each author and his or her book is unique; that is the nature of creative endeavors. You won’t be given a sure-fire formula for making your book a bestseller – there is no such thing. Don’t expect to be enlightened with, If you just do this or that, attend a certain seminar, or buy a pricey marketing package your book will rocket to the top of the New York Times’ Best Seller list. Although all of the above sounds very glamorous and exciting, achieving this level of success is far less common than you might think.

There are two constant truths about book publishing. First, there are no guarantees. What might look promising one day suddenly isn’t the next– that’s just the way it goes in the book business and in life. You’ll learn, however, how to evaluate promise and potential to play the odds in your favor for the benefit of your book. We offer no guarantees or projected expectations, just positive ways to improve your odds of winning. The second truth is that there are lots of myths and misinformation about book publishing that are deeply entrenched in tiresome traditions rather then necessity. We’ll debunk the myths with real-world facts and current information about evolving publishing trends and their impact on the market life of your book.

We will reference our own books for examples of what to do, how we did it, what worked, and what didn’t – and when it didn’t work as planned, what we learned from that. We are both Infinity employees – in fact we are the co-directors of Infinity Publishing’s annual Express Yourself… Authors’ Conference (the leading authors conference focusing on book marketing and promotion) – but more important than being employees, we both originated publishing our books with Infinity before being hired.

As you read this book, you will find at times a wide variety of opinions expressed about one topic as it is seen from different perspectives. As in life, many paths lead to the same destination. You’ll need to sort through the advice, the wisecracks, the objective and subjective opinions, and the expansive insights of experts. In doing so, you’ll acquire the wisdom to define what you must do to give your book every possible chance to succeed.

We’ll be upfront and say that, ideally, you should have been plotting and planning your promotional to-do list before you even began writing your book. What’s done is done, though, so let’s just start by looking at the array of options from when you have just received your proof copy, with the assumption that you have little or no pre-planned book promotion. Maybe you were under the impression that all of the promotional and marketing would be done for your book and you’d only have to show up at readings and autograph parties, be interviewed on talk shows, and watch your book sail off the shelves as you sit back and collect royalty checks. That ain’t how it works – at least not for most active authors (as opposed to authors dead and buried who are still earning royalties on books they wrote long ago). It may come as a gut-wrenching shock to learn that you’re the one responsible for promoting and marketing your book, and that the success or failure of your book will be determined by the effectiveness of your own efforts. Perhaps this shocking awareness is now sidetracking your plans for instant fame and vast fortunes, but you can overcome the shock and make it happen.

We’ll help you breathe life into your book, teach you how to work through the hard parts, and show you how to have a book that not only survives, but thrives and climbs to reach the realistic goals you’ve set. Speaking of setting goals, you’ll benefit the most from your marketing efforts when you set aside your ego and your expectations. You don’t know half as much as you think you do about book marketing, and the half you think you know is very likely incorrect or outdated. Lose the ego and buckle down and learn what you need to know. Drop your expectations until you have a feel for the real world of book marketing. Don’t base your goals on the achievements of others. Just because it worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you – at least not without some adjustments to adapt their plan to your book. However many books you dreamed of selling in the beginning, cut that number in half and for good measure, cut it in half again. Let your expectations be the complimentary book seeds you plant along the way that will produce a fruitful harvest of royalties in the years to come.

Congratulations!!! You’re a published author!!! You’ve worked hard, you’re holding your book in your hands, and now you’ve come to the right place for help in the next phase of this exciting adventure. As fellow authors, we will help you learn to establish a plan with real world goals that will assist you to achieve a successful and rewarding publishing experience – in the near future and for years to come.