Online Promotion – Does It Work?

Rachel Vincent, a successful fantasy author, uses her extensive experience to answer the question of whether self-promotion by authors—either online or in person—works to make a book successful.  For online promotion, she’s referring to Tweeting, blogging, giving away books online, etc.  She’s also done her share of book signings and handing out swag (bookmarks, etc.). 

Here’s her conclusion:  “In most cases, there is little-to-nothing, in terms of promotion, an author can personally do to make his/her own book a huge success.” 

Read her blog post for her reasoning. 

If this is true—and she sounds convincing—should we blog as often as we do?  If we’re doing so in the hopes of making a big splash with our books, then it’s in vain.  But I would add that if we’re learning from other aspiring and established authors and sharing what we have learned, it can be worthwhile. 

P.S. Rachel Vincent really is friendly when she does a book tour.  Here’s a picture from a previous post that she took with me.