Book Marketing Tips
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
Book marketing bedevils many writers who are not prepared to embrace it. Don’t be caught unaware. As a writer, there’s nothing more exciting than getting published and seeing your book out in the world. But of course, writing your book, revising it, and publishing it is only half the battle, and that’s the part a lot of published authors don’t talk about. Book marketing is what comes next in this endeavor, and it presents a completely new skill set that many writers haven’t yet developed. You need to know how to do book marketing effectively so that readers can find it and fall in love with your work. Here are some useful book marketing tips.
Book Marketing Starts with Leveraging Your Existing Network
Your existing network of friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances can be an invaluable asset when it comes to book marketing. Don’t be afraid to ask them for help, whether they can share your book with their own networks or provide you with feedback on the cover design or the content itself, they may be able to offer valuable insights that could help you make better decisions about how best to market your book. A lot of this due diligence should happen before publication, but if you’ve already put your work on the market, you can keep refining it with feedback.
Utilize Social Media for Book Marketing
Using social media for writers can be a powerful tool when it comes to book marketing. It gives you direct access to potential readers and allows you to reach out directly with information about your book and other news related to it. Utilize platforms such as Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to get the word out about your book in a way that’s easy for potential readers to find and engage with. Just remember that book marketing isn’t just about blasting your followers with news about you and a CTA (call to action) to buy, buy, buy. You should also be offering interesting content that’s specific to each social network that you’re choosing to use. Otherwise, you will lose followers, or not gain them in the first place.
Take Advantage of Paid Advertising in Book Marketing
While organic outreach can be effective in building awareness around your book, paid advertising can give you an even bigger boost. Taking advantage of platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads, or Amazon Ads can help you reach a wider audience than ever before—and put your book in front of people who may never have otherwise found it. That said, don’t forget that no matter how many ads you run or how much money you spend on them, quality content is still king. Your product description page needs to be optimized to transform the people who follow your ads into paying customers. Then your actual project needs to deliver on its promises and be of solid quality. If people don’t like what they see when they click through to your author website or product description then they won’t stick around long enough to buy the book. You need to pay attention to your conversion rates and keep optimizing your copy, cover, and content until you start seeing ROI (return on investment) for your ads that has you turning a profit.
Market research is key when it comes to effective book marketing. Take time to research what kind of content resonates with readers so that you can create posts that will attract attention—and ultimately drive book sales. You should also pick a few different specific marketing techniques and experiment with those until you master them, rather than trying everything and giving up when it doesn’t deliver instant results.
With these book marketing tips in mind (and some hard work), you should be well on your way towards ensuring that more readers find out about—and purchase—your newly-published work.
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