In this post, you will learn tips and strategies for Book Marketing for Self-Published Authors.
And as a self-published author myself, I can teach you the exact methods of promoting and marketing your self-published books.
Let’s get started…
Table of Contents
Why Book Marketing is Important for Self Published Authors?
Writing a book is not a layman’s job.
Thorough research, time and a lot of effort goes into writing a book and publishing it.
So why do most authors leave it or skip the marketing part of a novel?
Often, many authors get in touch with publishing houses to release their new books.
Some authors self-publish their books in the best possible way.
As a writer, marketing your book is just as important as writing one, and you need to be aware of the various methods that can be utilized.
No matter how connected you might be in today’s day and age if you do not try and market your book, thinking somehow it would garner the attention it deserves, it just would not happen.
Marketability is a crucial driver of the 21st century, governing every company, business, and individual.
Without marketing and the right ways to do it, you would not be able to come under the purview of your audience.
Like goods and commodities, marketing helps you sell yourself as a person and helps you rise to fame with what you have to offer to the world.
Your book might be based on a completely unique genre.
It might also fall under a niche that most individuals are acquainted with.
Either way, branding comes in handy for you when letting the world know of your new release and why they should read it.
As a self-published author who takes all the responsibilities related to publishing, launching and engaging the audience, you need to keep 2 things in mind:
- If you are launching your first book ever, things might not be so easy. You might not be able to sell more than 100 copies in your first year. This is where you need to bulk up and think about promoting your book launch.
- If you are in the business for a long time, you know exactly how to steer your audience. Having said that, you also need to go along with the upcoming marketing trends every year to ensure that you do not incur any losses.
Marketing your book helps you keep a clear head about the goals you want to achieve with the launch; the particular audience you wish to target and what you wish to put out there regarding yourself as an author and why you wrote your book.
Marketing is vis-a-vis communicating but it comes with a price of struggling really hard till you make it.
Book Marketing Strategies and Ideas for Self-Published Authors
Listed below are some book marketing ideas and strategies that you should take into consideration while marketing your self-published book on your own:
1. Author a Masterpiece Like Never Before
The first step to ensure a great marketing plan is by writing a great book.
Not everyone is going to relate to the subject of your book and hence you should not expect all kinds of audiences to like your writing either.
You need to choose a niche that you understand well, think of a great story, then create an eye-catching cover design.
Not all books sell the same way and maybe your most favorite book might just be your best seller, but the perspective differs in this case since your audience is king.
They decide which book appeals to them the most. Hence, choose your subject wisely and write your story sparing no detail.
2. Marketing is Not Selling
When it comes to promoting your book, you should not try and sell it in the first go.
A book is not a commodity to use and keep at the side.
A book speaks to individuals on different levels.
It teaches them things, makes them engrossed in the most fictitious scenarios, helps them evolve their mindset and nurtures their imagination.
Instead, you should use the power of communicating to try and let people know more about you as an individual first, and then an author.
Further, you can talk about your book, not as a salesperson, but how passionate you are about this new launch and what made you write it.
Since social media is a prominent method in marketing your book, communicate with your audience on different platforms, talk about ideas, give your opinion on different subjects and see how you get noticed day by day.
3. Use The Power of Social Media And Create An Impactful Presence
Social media is a must in today’s digital age.
Every company, business, and an individual is on various social media platforms.
Social media helps to connect, influence and market various things and it is an ideal way to kickstart your career as an author.
Further, if you are in the writing industry for a long time, social media helps you in creating the desired presence you wish to achieve.
As an author, you should read this post on how you can use social media to promote your book.
Social media can help you with your book promotion in the following ways,
- If you are writing a new book, how will you let people know? You can create a status update or mention the same in your bio to let people you follow know that something big is about to turn up. In this way, the individuals who follow you can keep a tab about your release and spread the word about your writing and expertise within their circle as well.
- If you need tips on publishing from a co-author or someone who has been self-publishing his or her books, you can always exchange ideas with them.
They can help you market your new book by spreading the news on their social media channels as well and if they are more established in a way, then it helps you all the more as their followers can also become your followers.
- Create a website or a blog for yourself where people can keep a track of what you are up to lately. The blog can also have a description of you, your pictures, your past achievements and information about book launches. If you choose to mention selling websites for your books that people can easily access, it would be beneficial in promoting sales and also define your seriousness as an author to your audience. Further, having a subscription tab on your page would help individuals get the latest feed and updates directly in their email.
- You can also use popular websites in your purview to feature in their interview lists or guest posts. Since these websites are viewed by millions on a daily basis, it would help you attain the fame you need, slowly but surely.
- Like, share and post articles on topics that you feel appeal to people the most. Share your viewpoints, write about important ideas related to your field and encourage people to give their views on the same. This would help you monitor your audience better and also increase your social media presence.
- Make accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and preferably Instagram to ensure you can cover all aspects of social media promotion and engage with audiences of all age groups.
There is software available to help you create powerful book mockups, videos, memes in minutes. I use Mockup Shots.
4. Follow Other Books In Your Genre
As an author, every day is a learning experience.
It is always important to follow authors and books in your preferred genre.
It helps you to understand:
- what kind of audience to target;
- why the chosen niche is important and how people react to it;
- how to promote it in the best possible way,
- what kind of titles, subjects, and cover designs are used by established authors and are helping them sell millions of copies?
Follow the insights and also include them in your metadata.
You can also look for search queries used by most individuals in finding books related to a specific genre to trace what exactly people have in mind.
In addition to this, read people’s reviews on books related to your genre to measure their ideology and why they love the book so much.
It will help you define the goals you wish to achieve with your new release and help you connect with your audience with the exact words and phrases that get them hooked to books in the first place.
5. Follow Reviews For Your Book
If you are publishing a new book, you can send over a polite request to past reviewers to review your latest launch.
If you are a first-timer, the best way to get genuine reviews is by following Amazon’s top reviewers.
You can further categorize the reviews that you like best from your genre.
Amazon helps millions of authors in releasing different versions of the same book, from paperbacks to hardcovers and also eBooks.
If you have released a paperback version of your book and have an unreleased ebook, any review for the paperback will automatically be stored for the ebook as well, validating a genuine review base for you and your new launch.
You can also market your new book on the Goodreads website.
It caters to more than 65 million members daily.
It also offers a space for reviews for pre-published books, giving you a proper idea of how well your book is being received by your audience.
6. Increase Your Book Distribution Channels
As a self-published author, you can use Amazon’s database services to publish your new book.
You can use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for eBooks and printed books.
Feature your book on the following distribution channels to ensure maximum promotion and sales,
- Apple’s iBooks
- Kobo
- Barnes & Noble’s Nook
You can also engage with eBook aggregators like Smashwords or Draft2Digital.
Since eBook aggregators can give you access to multiple formats of printing and publishing, there are preferred by some as the distribution channel.
If you decide to publish wide, i.e. on multiple platforms, ensure you purchase an ISBN separately and don’t use the free one supplied by Amazon.
7. Indulge In Marketing Via Free Ebooks
More often than not, authors give away free eBooks to increase their fanbase.
This should never be seen as a loss to sales.
Free books pave the way for cheap marketing especially if you are a new author.
It helps readers get an insight into your writing, your genre and the characters that you have worked so hard to create.
Ebooks can sell a number of copies.
Since downloading is made easy and free of cost, the number can increase to 1000 or more as the days go by.
If you have multiple books in a series, a great strategy is to put your first book free for a number of days (use KDP or enrol your book in websites that promote free books). This way you get many readers viewing and reading your book. If they like your writing, they are more likely to purchase the next book in your series.
In any case, you should make free eBooks accessible for some of the books you have, if not all. It is an important component to consider while marketing your book.
8. Try Your Hand At Paid Book Promotions
When you are trying to market your book, it is necessary to fix a budget for promotions.
Paid promotions on social media platforms or offline can help garner a lot of views.
Since a number of features get unlocked via paid promotions, your audience can increase helping you fuel your motives.
Indulge in paid promotions but maintain a budget while doing so.
Do not go overboard.
You can also search for a number of websites online that sell promotions, garner traffic, increase likes and visibility and more.
9. Promotion Takes Time And Positivity Is The Key
Book promotions do not happen within the span of a day.
You might be able to get only 5 views today but you might get over a thousand views tomorrow.
You might make 1 sale today with just 5 views or 0 sales with a thousand views.
My Personal Experience
When I self-published my first eBook on Amazon, I sold only 5 copies in its first year.
That was a disaster for me.
Then I started promoting via Facebook paid ads.
Though it was not enough I was able to sell 53 copies in the next month.
The return was not much as Facebook ads were costing half of the eBook price.
But due to getting many sales of my eBook quickly, it jumped in the top 50 under Love and Relationship category on Amazon. This is exactly what you want. If Amazon sees consistent sales, it will promote the book for you.
So…
Always maintain your cool and strive harder by using all the marketing techniques possible to achieve your goal.
As a self-published author, you will fall under the burden of doing everything on your own and the stress might get to you.
You need to understand that sales and marketing take time and the more you try the better it gets.
Do not lose your cool at any point to the extent of backlashing at your audience, or fellow writers from the same genre.
Maintain level-headedness to aid you in striving every day as you create a name for yourself in the industry.
10. Always Keep Writing
Never lose your passion for writing even if your first book or one of your book fails to receive the attention it deserves.
Not all books are going to be popular reads.
You might also have a few favorites that your audience might surprisingly not take well.
The more you write, the better you become
Read more: Why you should write?
It also helps you get new ideas for a new book.
You can indulge in some story or article writing on multiple platforms, or try your hand at guest writing for blogs or newspaper columns.
This will, in turn, help you in churning out new concepts for another subsequent launch which would further accentuate your career as a self-published author.
Final Words
Strategize your book marketing plan thoroughly and give it a proper thought before launching your book promotion campaign.
As you establish yourself as a self-published author, you will face setbacks again and again.
Gain inspiration from fellow writers talks to readers about what interests them and read a lot in your preferred genre to ensure that you create a masterpiece like never before.
As you write more, you will be able to figure things out for yourself and become the best at what you do.
Very informative, thanks for sharing your expertise.
Thanks for sharing these effective ways to market the books once they are done writing. I will definitely implement these strategies.
As a new author of a self-published children’s book titled “Is it a Cat or a Dog?” selling on Amazon, I was unsure what to do. Thank you for the information, inspiration, and encouragement.
Nice Write-up. Thanks for sharing.