Readers are creatures of habit. They'll pick up a Stephen King or John Grisham book and buy it, just because they've read and liked earlier books by the same author. They're a known entity; King with his horror and Grisham with lawyer thrillers. In order to make a living writing as a self-published author, your goal should be to become a go-to name in your genre. It's all a matter of marketing: embedding your name and face everywhere your typical reader will go, so they become so familiar with you they'll automatically buy your books.
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Identify your ideal readers and market to them. If you write cozy mysteries, don't worry about vampire fans who don't buy your book. They're not your audience.
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Set up Google Alerts for your name, pen name, book names, genre, Twitter handle, other thought leaders, etc. Every time you get an alert, go to the site and make a comment or thank the writer for mentioning you.
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Study the competition. Not just the big dogs, but the indies in your genre who are making a living doing this every day. What are they doing on a weekly basis? Can you go where they go to pick up tips?
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Write a short bio that you'll use everywhere online. Your text shouldn't deviate by even one letter. This is the beginning of branding yourself, making your description look common and familiar to readers.
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Hold contests. Use Rafflecopter to give away books. Set up a giveaway using your Facebook ad. Create an attractive visual that readers will want to forward to their friends.
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Answer all your blog posts. Don't have a blog? Start a blog!
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Start conversations. Go on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and start talking about your genre. Let people know you're an expert on your topic.
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Use multiple media. Create a series of amusing or useful YouTube videos. Make up songs and put them on Spotify. Make it look like you're everywhere.
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Be yourself. It's almost impossible to keep up a facade for months and years. Even if you do, readers will get angry and disillusioned when you slip and the real you comes out. Better to keep it real so you can always react with integrity.
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Pay it forward with HARO (Help a Reporter Out). You'll earn good karma points while getting published as an expert in your field.
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Bonus: Act like you're special and people will accept that you are. Make every book release a huge party. Blog like the expert you are. Help out those just starting out.
The path to becoming well known is a crooked, branching one, but the good part is that almost anyone can find enough shortcuts and side roads to cover most of the basics. Get your name out to as many places as you can. If it starts to feel like you're saturating your world with your books, you're on the right track for becoming a go-to known quantity in readers' minds.
Become more disciplined than your competion and you will have moved yourself into a position most in life do not acheive.
Keep the Faith and may the Force be with you!
