: Re: Are there agents or representatives who only specialize in book promotion and not distribution? I am currently leaning toward self-publishing my book via Amazon services. However, before I do,

@Samaraweera193

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From personal experience, having both self-published, and published through a traditional publisher, but without an agent, I'm fully committed, for all future book projects, to seek both. I neither want to, nor have the skills to do all the effective marketing, sales and representation of my book and its interests that a good agent and publisher can do.

Self-publishing is for businesspeople who can write, not writers who want to skip a few steps. Being successful as a self-publisher means taking on all the myriad jobs of a publisher and an agent and a publicist, and doing them well. The one biggest determinant of success as a self-publisher is not the quality of your writing or the worth of your content, but your willingness and ability to tirelessly self-promote and sell your own product directly. Of course, in today's world you'll still need to be prepared to do a lot of that, even if you have the best agent and publisher, but you'll have a huge step up in a highly competitive market.

As far as your title question, I never personally encountered a book promotion service for self-publishers that was worth the money. Things such as reviews and awards seemed to make very little difference. I suppose it's possible there might be some young viral marketing genius out there who could singlehandedly make your book a hit --if you find him or her, drop me a line!

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