Self published Fantasy book in need of help/support/advice

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So I made this account in hopes of finding people to help me:
After a long time of hearing from literary agents that they couldn't risk the epic fantasy genre with an unpublished author (because to get published you have to be published. O.o ), I decided to self publish my YA book as an e-book on Amazon (because I don't have money for print self-publishing). Now I'm stuck because I don't know what to do to help promote it and get people to read it. I made a page on facebook for it and I made a book trailer, which is a movie trailer but for books, on youtube and now I don't know what to do. Everyone who's read it loves it but I just don't know how to promote it. I don't know what to write as posts on the facebook page, I don't know how to get people I don't know to read it, I'm completely lost now that working on my book requires interaction with people. I need help, please. My plan was to do well selling it as an e-book so that I could go back to a literary agent with a book that was already doing well for them to publish traditionally, but it's been a half a year and I've only sold maybe twenty or so copies. Please, please help me.

My book's called Mountains of Mist: Awakening, in case anyone wants to find it on amazon or facebook, or look up the trailer on youtube.

One strategy is to do similar to an author I've just read on Kindle. She published a 300+ page horror story on Amazon free of charge. Being a cheapskate I downloaded it and was pleasantly surprised and a lot of other people have done the same; she's got lots of 5 star ratings and it is pushing her book to the top of the list of free ebooks. After reading the first book at last page there is a link to a second book in the series which has a nominal cost and I'm very tempted to pay to read that one. The first book is complete in itself but easily lends itself to a series. Maybe this author will finally get noticed by a big publisher with this strategy?

First off, you should make a link to it on your post here. I'll do it: Mountains of Mist: Awakening.

The description is well-written (that's important). I scanned the first few pages and don't see any formatting problems or typos (that's important, too, if you want to be professional).

I wish I knew how to help you promote your book. It's very difficult. E-books have been a great boon to writers who can't get a mainstream publisher because it allows them to get their books out there without having to invest money in it. If you know how to format, btw, you can put it up as a paperback on Amazon also. It's print on demand, so it wouldn't cost you anything either.

The drawback, of course, is that so many people are publishing ebooks, it's hard to get noticed. It's been the most profitable for mainstream authors who self-publish their backlog titles whose rights have reverted to them.

One thing that I've read that might help is that it helps once you have several books published. You're more visible and there's a better chance of people running across one of 5 or 8 (or more) titles than if you have just one book.

I've been trying to help an author who is self-publishing his own two series after ghost and co-writing 26 books in the men's adventure genre. It's slow going, even with a good reputation with the series' fans. There's only a percentage of those who are following him enough to know he's been writing his own and probably all of those aren't yet buying them.

Here's a site which will do a free review of your book: Readers' Favorite. You have to register and send them a file of your book, and if reviewed, they will publish the review on several sites: B&N, Google Books, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+. Don't get involved in the contests, though; you'd have to pay a fee.

Thanks for posting a link - this site wouldn't let me since I'm a new member or some nonsense like that. There's a lot of contests that charge fees... I'm going to look around online to see if maybe it's worth it. Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think I could write 26 books... that's a little much. I've kinda focused everything on these three books I'm planning - haven't finished book two yet though.

That looks like a pretty good read. I'll have to take a look when I get some more cash.

Well try donating it to some library?s perhaps I have no clue if that?s possible but if it is it?d be nice. Maybe a local library could even help you get the word out there. I know our local library regularly holds an author event and they love when they get a chance to use local authors in it they always get good publicity so just contacting them and explaining you?re trying to get some publicity for your book and you?re a local author could help a lot. Maybe even get in the newspaper. I live in a relatively small town 40-50k so the library always has a section in the newspaper every week.

You can ask the people who read it to help you by passing the book on to someone else thus it gets passed around more and gets more exposure. Implore your fan base to help you.

As you already know go for contests I was more thinking the mail kind but whatever it is these days. If your book does well and wins an award then that always helps.

There are lots of websites to try and get some exposure I imagine. The only one that I know of as I?ve never done much research on this topic is wattpad. It?s a community of ?a lot? of authors and they all post their stories online if it gets a lot of good reviews online perhaps a publisher might reconsider. If not there?s a lot more authors on that website than here so they?d have more good advice for you on this topic.

Then finally the best way to promote is just time and exposure. The more stories you have out there the better known you become the more likely somebody is to explore your other work and find it. I would say it is the extreme rarity to get your first book to sell well so don?t feel bad about it. Get more books out there, more exposure. You can also diversify even more with multiple genre?s and the audience your targeting. And then of course it comes down to plotline and what people in the current culture enjoy. The dystopian setting is quite popular as is the teen romance. I?m not saying go for that but if a story is popular you have to write something similar to it if you want to emulate because that?s what people are going to seek out. Your story may be great but if the plot isn?t something that draws people to it or only appeals to a small portion of our culture then you?re screwed at least for the first book. I mean the goal seems more to get well known as an author so that your name will draw more people in and then you can go to the less widely sought after stuff.

Btw, if you wouldn?t mind answering, what?s your plot? I read the excerpts online and summary and now I?m curious how you actually take it and what the plot is as a whole? Since I?m sure you?re copyrighted there?s no harm.