Marketing your own book can seem like a scary task. You poured your heart and soul into the writing of it, and now when you think about marketing your masterpiece, you think, Im a writer, not a salesperson!

But there is a simple way you can get the word out about your book. It takes a little time, but the effort pays huge dividends.

More people will be interested in your book when they are interested in you. Readers become interested in you when they can read some of your writing...for free. You can build your credibility, find readers, and establish yourself as an expert in your field by writing and distributing articles.

(This method works even for fiction writers.)

You accomplish this by these means:

- by publishing articles on your website

- by creating an ecourse or ebook

- by publishing your own ezine or newsletter

- by publishing your articles in someone elses ezine

Think about that last idea for a minute. Publishing articles in other peoples ezines (or on their websites) is the key, the secret, to creating a viral lead-generating machine.

The popularity of your book website is actually improved when other sites link you to. But Google only likes high-content links. Your articles provide this.

Not to mention that when you have your articles on more and more websites there is a greater possibility that someone will read your articles and do business with you.

The simple system that will market your book for you contains only three steps:

Step 1: Write and Publish Articles

This really is the best way for you to promote your book.

The key is to write a useful, high-content article, and send it to your newsletter and publish it on your website. If you write fiction, write simple short stories or poems, or provide excerpts from your novel.

(For a more information on marketing this way, please read another of my articles, "Online Book Marketing," at http://ezinearticles.com/?id=45696.)

Step 2: Distribute Your Articles

Send your articles or stories to article distribution lists and ezine directories. These directories exist for ezine owners and website owners to pick up free reprintable content to use in their ezine or on their website. You can find a list of these sites by searching for articles sites.

This helps you, because if your article is picked up and distributed by 10 ezine owners who each have 1000 people in their list, your article will be sent to 10 000 people!

Step 3: Your Articles Continue to be Distributed Virally!

When you submit to an articles directory, your article is there to be reprinted. You can submit an article next week, and ten years later it will still be there. Your article can have a shelf life as long as you want, and every time someone reprints your article, you get free exposure!

Bonus tip: If you include at the end of your article that your article can be reprinted anywhere by anyone, anyone who reads your article can reprint in on their website or in their ezine.

To use the above example, if another 1000 people reprint your article in some form, your business will be marketed to 11 000 peoplein a very short period of time!

Imagine this process occurring time and time again, with more than one article! How many interested readers will end up at your site?

This is how you successfully market your book online.