You've done it! You've written, rewritten, polished, proofread, and published your book. Congratulations!

Now what?

If you've independently published, your book is available online for anyone in the world to buy. That is a significant accomplishment, but the unfortunate reality is that you have a LOT of competition - I'm talking tens of millions of other titles. That makes the chances of a reader randomly stumbling upon your title extremely slim. Many independent authors have no idea how to get the word out about their books, which is one reason they may not sell as many copies.

If you want your book to stand out, you have to be creative, and you have to work hard. There are many things you can do to promote an independently published title, but before you do anything, I strongly recommend creating the following basic materials:

• One-line description of your book - In industry jargon, this is called "the hook." It should answer the question "What is your book about?" AND grab a potential reader's attention, so make it compelling!
• One-paragraph description of your book - Here you can provide a bit more detail. The goal is to explain what your book is about in a way that makes the target audience want to read it.
• Brief author bio, including something interesting about you
• High-resolution headshot and cover art

When you begin your marketing efforts, you'll be asked for these materials over and over, so it's best to have them prepared from the get-go. You can tweak and refine as necessary, but creating templates will save you a lot of time and energy.

Starting next week, I'll begin to dig deeper into how to prepare and use each of the above materials!

This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com.

Maria Murnane writes romantic comedies and provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.