DIY Author Marketing 101
If you’re an author marketing yourself for the first time, this scenario probably sounds familiar: You’ve written a great manuscript and you’re in your last stages of polishing. Perhaps you have begun drafting your query letters, or you’re looking to self-publish. Yet the marketing part of the process looms before you ambiguously. Where do you even start? Before you spend money on ad campaigns and website hosting, keep reading for author marketing tips you can do on your own.
If you’re an author marketing yourself for the first time, here are some ideas for how to begin.
Author marketing TIPS:
1. Establish your social media presence.
Personal or Professional?
This is up to you. You can certainly use your personal accounts for your literary presence. After all, you already have a built-in audience there. Readers may enjoy insights into your daily life and pictures of your cat. This approach can humanize you and help you connect.
On the other hand, many authors prefer to establish separate, “professional” accounts. Fluffy is sprawled all over your laundry, after all, and maybe you don’t want such mundane details available to the world. Since social media accounts are free, it doesn’t hurt to separate your private versus public life.
Author Branding
Your brand is kind of like your author logline. What do you write? Who does it appeal to? What are your writing goals? Include your category and target audience. For example:
I write paranormal YA romance for girls who just can’t settle for living, breathing human beings.
Okay, maybe make sure it’s a little more appealing than that.
Social Media Platforms
Go beyond general-use platforms like Facebook and think about building your literary-specific pages: Goodreads, Amazon Author Central, BookBub, etc. Try to make your handles match across platforms and remain as simple as possible, without numbers or special characters. It will be easier both for you and for people to find you if you have a universal @[authorname].
2. Build your email list.
Your email list is your most important marketing tool because it’s yours and it’s for people interested in you. Here you can promote your books, run contests and giveaways, and build excitement for upcoming releases and events. Make your main Call To Action (CTA) on your social media a link to sign up for your mailing list.
Plenty of EMS (Email Marketing Systems) options will cover your author marketing needs. And you do need one, lest your emails be marked as spam! MailerLite comes highly recommended for new authors and is free up to 1,000 subscribers.
Include an incentive to get people onto your list: free content like novellas or “deleted scenes” are good options. Put yourself in the mind of your ideal reader. What would they like?
Authors are real people, too!
For new sign-ups, send a welcome email that sets the subscriber’s expectations. How often will you be sending newsletters? What exclusives will you offer them? Provide an introductory video or picture of yourself. You often go unassociated with an image beyond your book cover, so this human touch goes a long way towards connecting with your readers.
3. Start getting reviews.
Yes, even before you’re published! This is an important step because much of the paid advertising you might take on later isn’t as effective until you’ve acquired some ratings. Before you look into the fees of releasing Advanced Reader/Review Copies (ARCs), think about your connections.
NOT Friends and Family
This is probably weird advice, but friends and family are not your best bet for author marketing. Why? Because your algorithms are being created by your buyers. Any built-in marketing for your fantasy novel which you might get from “also-boughts” (as in, “readers who liked this also bought…”) could be ruined by your Uncle’s deep interest in fly fishing. Instead, ask your friends and family to spread the news by Word Of Mouth (WOM), which is the best and easiest marketing available.
Who to Ask
Develop opportunities via social media to connect with communities of readers. These may be obvious, like the Space Opera Fans group, but I also encourage you to seek out niche groups. These may be based on your setting location, historical background, or perhaps a condition your character is living with. Highly targeted groups like these may be smaller, but are likely to be more highly responsive.
Be sure to ask beta readers, bloggers, and other writers for reviews. Again, look for unique targeting. The librarian blogger may already be drowning in requests, but maybe that blog about arctic wildlife is happy to promote your middle grade novel about talking polar bears.
Seek out connections with other authors in the same boat—that is, with a similar level of experience and reach to yours. They may be willing to do a promo swap, where you recommend each other’s book to your own audience.
4. Use reader magnets.
We talked a little bit about this in #1. Reader magnets are incentives you can offer for easy, free author marketing that serve as a CTA within a CTA. These can be short stories, novellas, background information, scenes you didn’t use in your final manuscript, research you conducted on that writing retreat in the desert, or other “exclusives.” At the end, tack on Chapter 1 of your new release with a link to purchase the book. Bonus points (and royalties) if you use an Amazon affiliate link.
5. Talk to people.
Become a guest on podcasts, where an audience is already built in. Keep in mind that it’s a lot more work to create your own podcast, and a good idea to be a guest on established podcasts more than a handful of times before launching your own. Accept interviews and Zoom calls where you can reach new potential readers. Talk to your readers. Create surveys, contests, and drawings on social media. Make shareable posts about your upcoming releases. Send short video updates to your email list.
What if I’ve already launched my book?
If you’ve already launched your book, it’s not too late! Editors and publishers may care about publication dates, but your average reader really doesn’t.
Reprint, relaunch, and recycle. Release your book as an e-book. Record yourself doing a reading. There are so many ways to market yourself, and all of this just scratches the surface without getting any help or spending any money.
Be as creative about marketing your book as you were writing it. Your readers are out there!
If you’re ready to kick into high gear, we’ll build a personalized plan for you at Good Story Marketing. Let’s grow your success as an author together!
Marketing Terms to Learn
Advanced Reader/Review Copies (ARCs)
Free copies of a book released in limited quantities before official publication date to encourage reader reviews.
Call to Action (CTA)
The main reader response encouraged in a marketing piece.
Email Marketing Systems (EMS)
A platform for sending mass emails to a list of subscribers.
Reader Magnets
Also known as “lead magnets,” these are incentives you can offer to draw readers in.
Word Of Mouth (WOM)
People telling other people about you. The best and easiest author marketing available!
