So, your book is finished and it’s going to be published. Congratulations! Now the real work begins.

As a writer/artist when we sign with a publisher, it’s a good idea to set aside a little bit of that advance you’ll get for marketing purposes. Could be and ad, could be promotional material you just give out, stickers, pins, posters etc.

Here’s why: When you release a book. One thing happens: Almost nothing. Your publishers’ marketing department will do their best to sell it to bookstores and online. They will go out of the way to get you signings, workshops and speaking engagements. They will send out review copies to anyone who asks.

But that will only go so far to reach your audience. It might amount to actual sales of roughly 5-8,000 books. That’s not a lot and in all honesty, it will probably be a lot less than that. If this is your first book for a “smaller” publisher you’re looking at 1,000-,1,500 copies sold. If it tanks … well, even less than that. A good review from BTJ (Sweden only) might mean a few hundred copies for the libraries.

For a book to be moderately successful in Sweden, an estimated 8-12,000 copies need to find new readers (depending on publisher, some might be happy with around 5,000). Most books dwindle way below those numbers. In a world of cute cats and Justin Biebers, that fantasy epic you handcrafted for a year is heading for some tough competition online (I know I will click anything with a cat in it). So you need to work, and work hard to get your book out there.

One year after I released my third YA book, I still had people asking me when it was going to be released. And we are talking about fans of the series now. You can never reach everyone out there but you can make sure that it goes a little further by paying for targeted impressions on Facebook, quite literally your largest source for an audience. Most of them are there, you just have to know where to look. For me, it’s fans of The Hunger Games and Harry Potter with an estimated reach of about 300,000 people in Sweden. Not all of those are prospective buyers, but at least it’s a start. If you can rack up a few hundred sales from an online ad on FB, or a promoted post, your book is going in the top 10 next week and you will have reached your first goal – To get it seen. Those eyeballs are worth more than the money spent, believe me. If it’s in the top 10, people who visit that online book store will see your book. If it isn’t – they won’t. Simple as that.

Twitter is harder, you need a fanbase that will retweet your link to death. Guess what, that’s not going to happen unless you have several hundred thousands of followers. Same goes for Instagram and Google+. Sorry.

And to add insult to injury, most book stores face dwindling sales and they may not even carry your title, instead opting for the big hits. If they carry your book at all, it will likely end up on the shelves for a few weeks until the next batch of releases come in. And a book on a shelf needs you to go there to find it or a dedicated clerk to recommend it to you.

Maybe you’re not in it for the money? Well, I can tell you that your publisher sure is. No matter how many friends tell you that your new book is awesome, that will matter diddly squat when those numbers come in and you only moved a few thousand copies. You’re heading back to flipping burgers.

Now, if you excuse me, I have to go look at pictures of kittens with witty captions.