This blog tends to offer rather advanced book marketing tips. Sometimes, though, I forget that there are a lot of authors who may be overwhelmed by posts about ROI, essential ad metrics, KENP counts, and AcOS.
So, here is a guest post by Elaine Bennett, a marketing specialist-turned blogger, currently writing for Bizzmark Blog. It is aimed at anyone wishing to take a step back from the grittier details of book marketing and look at the big picture.
4 Simple Marketing Strategies for Promoting Your Book
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What is the point of writing your book if nobody reads it? Chances are you’ve heard this line before.
But it’s true. Especially today when everyone seems to be writing and trying to get published or self-published.
In order to get your book in front of readers, you will need to use the power of book marketing. Think of it as a business venture, and your book as the main product. If nobody knows about your product, how can you expect them to buy it?
To make life easier for you during the two months of pre-release promotion, here are a few marketing strategies to help your book get the attention it deserves.
1. Use Your Blog to Create Fans
According to Kevin Kelly, when it comes to selling anything (your book included), all you need is 1000 true fans to succeed. But in order to create that fanbase, you will need to remain present and relevant in between two books. One way of doing this is through your website, or more specifically through your blog.
A blog is a powerful content marketing tool. Even with two posts per week, you engage with readers and get continuously read. Creating the perfect newsletter is a way to promote that content and stay relevant each week. So when the time comes, you’ll know where to start promoting your book.
2. Give Your Readers Something Personal
Giving away original personalized products for the promotion of your book is a great way to influence more readers to buy it. To achieve this, you’ll need to gain personal info about your readers and team up with your designer to create something really engaging.
This works particularly well during the pre-release period, especially if you’re organizing a bookstore launch. Except for the usual signed copy, have a designer create items such as bookmarks, coffee mugs, or T-shirts with quotes from your book. Use your gifts as a source of information about your book.
Imagine yourself as a reader and how much you would love an author who went through all this trouble for you. You would definitely want to recommend the book to all your friends and share it on social media, wouldn’t you?
3. Connect with Readers on Social Media
Not everyone can be as successful as Thomas Pynchon without engaging with readers. That’s why you really should take advantage of social media and interact with your audience. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads are all ways you can connect with fans. You can even use LinkedIn to promote your book by selling yourself.
You can also get creative with social media. Use YouTube to vlog (= create a video log) about important issues discussed in your book, or Quora to directly answer questions using quotes from the book. In both cases, you can directly speak about your landing page (and link to it) without sounding too promotional.
4. Open a Book Club
As you know, a writer’s job is more about reading than it is about writing. So why not create a book club?
It’s more than just talking about books. Like your blog, a book club allows you to remain significant. You interact with readers via comments or video chats and create die-hard fans who will definitely buy your book.
Recently, Florence Welch (from Florence and the Machines) released her book of poetry. Primarily because of the success of her book club, she sold out the first edition in days. Wouldn’t you want that for your book?
It’s All Up to You
You are the chief champion for your book. How many readers you reach rests on how much effort you dedicate to promoting it. If you put half as much time into marketing as you did into writing, there is every chance you will succeed.
But be patient. Success doesn’t happen overnight. All you can do is hurry up with your writing, plan your marketing strategy to get it out there, and then wait.
It’s up to readers to grab it from the bookshelf. If you did everything right, you can be sure they will!
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Hi everyone! Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to read my advice and give feedback. I agree, it can be time-consuming, but it’s something we can’t ignore. Especially when it comes to social media, people expect you to connect and interact with them, and they also want a highly personalized experience. I wish you all good luck on your book promotion journey!
Also, thank you, Nicholas, for publishing my post and giving me the opportunity to share these tips with your audience.
It was a pleasure! Many thanks for the great guest post 🙂
Great ideas! I don’t think there are enough hours in a day to do all the reading, blogging and socializing we writers have to do. I wish I could clone myself. Great blog!?
Lol–I know the feeling 😀
Some great ideas here, Nicholas. Wow this is all so time consuming! Lol.
Makes writing look positively easy, doesn’t it? 😀
Good advice. Like a diet, it really will work – if you stick to it. That’s really the hard part.
Lol–good point 😀
Thanks for the tips as always, Nicholas. Sounds like as much work as writing the book. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Nah, writing the book is the easy part. Getting people to read it? Now, that’s the challenge 🙂