Uhh! I hear you thinking. Why would I think about publicity before I write the book? Surely you worry about publicity when you are publishing it? Here’s the no 1 reason why you put this particular cart before the horse:

Relationship with your readers
When you start to plan your book, you also start defining and thinking about WHO you are writing it for, don’t you? Well at the same time as defining who they are, you need to think about how you will reach them. What else do they read? Which magazines and newspapers? Which online and offline communities do they inhabit? Where do they go to get information, inspiration or entertainment? When you start to gather this information before or as you write it helps you do several things:

• you get to know your reader, therefore you write more effectively for them
• you can begin a relationship with your reader by developing a blog or online community that they join and contribute to
• you can feed pieces of news or interesting information to the communities they inhabit and the other sources they read
• you can invite them to contribute ideas, thoughts, problems, questions which you can address directly in your book, now there is a powerful tool to encourage them to buy it when it comes out - the thought that they helped you write it!
• you encourage word of mouth marketing so your readers become your sales force - there is no more powerful publicity than recommendation
• you save enormous amounts of time, effort and money by targetting your relationship building specifically rather than scattering press information to the four winds on publication, most of which ends up in the bin without being read. 
• you can build your newsworthy story - i.e. the real story behind the book (who you wrote it for and why) which journalists are far more interested in than the book itself
• and most importantly you build momentum and desire for your book before it comes out 

Publicity is not just a press release; it’s the entire relationship with your reader. So start relating now, wherever you are at with your writing!

It used to be ‘publish or be damned’ but these days, as an author, your blog is almost as important as your book in fact more so in the game of raising your profile. Get your blog up and running as you write your book. Definitely do not wait til the book is published. Your blog is a mechanism for building a relationship with your readers and building a following, so that you have a ready made audience when your book is finally in print.

I could go on, but Alex Milway pretty much sums it up on his blog post for The Bookseller. Take a look here http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/61826-whats-the-point-of-blogging.html

If you aren’t sure how to get started the easiest to use is Blogger www.blogger.com. You can have your blog up and running in 3 easy steps. WordPress is also good www.wordpress.com and easy to use.

So if you haven’t aready, get yourself out there and get blogging!