17 How Do I Promote My Book?
Sheridan hadn’t expected his book to be an instant bestseller. But he’d expected his book to sell at least a few copies. Didn’t most books do so? Was his book really that bad that it couldn’t even sell a few copies? Yet Sheridan soon realized that he hadn’t done anything at all to promote his book, not even the least little bit of giving his book a chance. As Sheridan connected with other authors, he learned that they pretty much all had a way of building some buzz around their books so that they sold at least a few copies. And so Sheridan set about learning how to promote his book. He didn’t expect to make it a bestseller. But he hoped he could at least sell a few copies.
Promotion
Writing a book is one thing, publishing it another, and promoting or marketing it yet another. Ideally, your book would be so timely and well executed that it would sell on its own. Get it distributed to online retail platforms, with a great title, cover, subject, and description, and watch the sales roll in. But the ideal is very much the exception rather than the rule. Very few books sell many copies on their own, without significant promotion. If a major publishing house publishes your book for you, they’ll handle the promotion. Your book may or may not sell, but the promotional effort won’t be solely up to you. But if you self-publish your book, or even if you gain publication with a small publisher, you’ll very likely need to do much or all of your own book promotion. If you want your book to at least sell some decent number of copies, whether in the dozens or hundreds of copies, not to mention thousands of copies, you’ll likely need to work diligently at your book’s promotion. Consider some of the following promotional strategies.
Reviews
Ask just about anyone, and they’ll tell you that having good reviews for your book is a necessary first step for your book’s promotion. You should have had readers and reviewers in the writing and editing of your book, before its publication. Once you get your book in print, return to those readers for an online review. Major retail sales platforms generally invite five-star ratings and written reviews online. A verified review comes from a reader who bought the book through the platform. A minimum of five to ten strong reviews appearing on your leading retail sales platform is ideal, but get whatever number you can. Strong reviews, or blurbs, can also adorn your book’s back cover, retail-sales-platform author page, social media accounts, website, and other promotional sites, posts, and materials. Various services offer paid reviews. The cost, logistics, credibility, and morality of paying for positive reviews of your book may trouble and discourage you. You be the judge, but seek, solicit, welcome, and deploy organically solicited positive reviews as a foundation for your book’s promotion.
Campaigns
Think of the initial promotion of your book as involving a campaign. New book campaigns seek to build buzz, anticipation, excitement, and momentum around the new book’s release. A new book campaign may involve any of the following strategies: pre-publication announcements of the coming book; pre-publication excerpts; glowing pre-publication reviews of the book; pre-publication surveys and votes on book cover options; pre-publication release of the book’s final cover design; pre-publication orders; pre-publication price discounts; release announcement; release party; release price discounts; book club discounts; and author appearances, book signings, and book tours. Whatever the features of your new book campaign, try to link and coordinate them so that they can build on one another. Keep in mind that your campaign strategy should be to build buzz or excitement around the publication of your book. Prospective book buyers may need not just one but two, three, or more of your offers and appeals. Design and implement your campaign to reach potential buyers with those multiple appeals.
Announcement
Announcing the publication of your book is an early book release campaign step. You should have a contacts list to which you can email or otherwise share or post announcements. That doesn’t necessarily mean to let everyone on your contacts list, including your doctor and dentist, know that you’ve published a book with fine reviews, although if your doctor and dentist are more than professional acquaintances, you might include them. Instead, curate a contacts list for book-related communications. The people on that list don’t have to be people you know. They may be strangers whose addresses you collected in some online interaction with them. Book authors deliberately build their contacts list, encouraging anyone to sign up for offers, discounts, news, and announcements. You may also be able to post a book-publication announcement on an alumni webpage at your school, a members’ update webpage at your church, and electronic or physical bulletin boards at your workplace, at your local library, and in other community locations. Local radio stations may likewise have community announcements. Get the word out about your book’s publication.
Media
Social media can and should also be a big part of your book-release campaign. You may have substantial followings on multiple social-media platforms. Share announcements across all platforms. Depending on the platform’s nature and limitations, include a concise book description, image of your book cover, button or link to your book sales site for ordering, book reviews, book excerpts, and even video in which you or others tout your book. You may find that posting to one platform, particularly Substack, allows you to share to multiple other platforms, saving you substantial time and effort posting on each platform. When you get additional positive reviews, circulate them using your social media, to keep your book top of mind among followers. Urge your followers to share your announcements and posts, and to reply with encouragement and comments. Engage any followers who show interest, sharing your insights about your book’s features and development, and repost that engagement. Build social media buzz.
Influencers
Some social media users have substantial followings, so substantial as to call themselves influencers. If you have more than mere fan or follower connections with any influencers, then consider sharing your book and its inspiration with them to see if they might volunteer to give your book a positive review. Some influencers have marketing programs that would allow you to pay for the influencer’s endorsement of your book product, provided that the influencer approves. You be the judge of this form of paid advertising. If the influencer hasn’t read or at least reviewed your book, and isn’t genuinely endorsing it but is instead doing so purely for the income, then you may not find that kind of advertising to be honest or fruitful. Organic and genuine networking with others whom you know and who have larger followings than you is generally the preferred route over paid endorsements.
Website
Authors often have their own website to which to direct readers for book information, promotion, discussion, and sales. Some social media platforms work reasonably well for the same purpose. Your own website, though, would likely offer you greater design and functionality options, even a website that you create and maintain on your own through one of the several major website hosts. You don’t necessarily need to pay thousands of dollars to someone to build and maintain your website. Social media pages are generally free, while websites carry some cost. Price website hosts and web address fees to determine whether you should have a website to promote your book or multiple books. Whether or not you build a website, create social media pages on which to present your author persona, engage readers, and offer your book or books. Also build out your author page on the sales platforms to which your publishing service distributes your book for sale. You may find that between social media pages, author pages on sales platforms, and a website, you are able to reach readers through multiple channels. While building and maintaining these multiple sites may take some effort, readers use those multiple channels to recognize you as a credible and committed author.
Advertising
Both online retail platforms and social media applications offer advertising opportunities for book authors. You may engage those sales platforms and social media applications directly, to run your book ad campaigns. They design their systems for use by advertisers with limited advertising and technology experience. You should find yourself able to build and run your own book advertising campaigns directly with the retailer or social media company. You may, though, find that your campaigns are not successful or not as successful as you wish. You may alternatively engage a third-party provider, whether a company or an individual consultant whom you find through an advertising consultants platform, to design and run your ad campaigns. These providers offer several different strategies and services, each with their own cost structure, advantages, and disadvantages. Explore the world of book advertising, and dip your toe in if you wish. But set a budget, and evaluate results closely. Running ad campaigns can feel a bit like gambling. Don’t get sucked in for more than you budgeted. Watch costs, sales, and return closely.
Appearances
Your appearance at book talks, fairs, and signings can be another way to build your book’s promotional campaign. Local bookstores, book fairs, libraries, museums, art galleries, community centers, business groups, chambers of commerce, and other local sites may host author appearances. You may be able to give a talk about your book’s development and publication, to promote sales of your book right at the event, online, or both. Book appearances may produce immediate sales. But they can also build your author identity and connections within the reading community and lead to other promotional opportunities. They can also give you feedback and further inspiration for your writing and promotion. Investigate your options for local appearances. If things go especially well, you may soon find yourself on a regional or national book tour.
Clubs
Book clubs may be another way that you can promote your book. A book club is a group of readers who generally read the same book together over a month or similar period, to discuss and share their gleanings. When a book club adopts your book to read and discuss, you instantly extend your promotional network. Book club members often share with others the books that they read, promoting wider readership in exactly the way that builds buzz and sales around your book. You may have friends and acquaintances in book clubs, to whom you can offer your book at bulk discount to stir wider readership, or you may ask around and research for a list of local book clubs and their members, to whom to make the same offer. Libraries also feature books for club reading adoption. You may find that your local library will list your book among favorable options for book club reading.
Awards
Submitting your book to competitions seeking to win a book award is another promotional option. Your book winning an award would give your book instant credibility and should attract more readers and sales. Major book awards are, of course, highly competitive. But online research should help you identify other awards in your region, market, or niche, where your book may stand out among competitors. Book awards generally require that you submit one or more copies of your book, potentially along with explanatory information. Beware competitions that also require that you pay a substantial fee. Research any award to which you submit your book, to ensure that it is a credible award from an honest organization. Book award scams exist, preying on eager authors too willing to pay substantial consideration fees.
Services
You may find that your publishing service, printer, or retail sales platforms offer promotional services along with the services for which you already are dealing with them. Just because the major publishing service with which you contract for your book’s publication offers you a promotional service on the side doesn’t mean that the promotion will lead to book sales. Investigate any such offer, seeking author reviews and endorsements as to its effectiveness. You may find that the promotional service is an inefficient or wasteful add-on cost to your book’s publication. You can also find online many offers to take over your book’s promotion for you. Again, investigate any such offer before engaging the offeror at substantial cost to you. Read reviews and get references or recommendations before committing to paying substantial fees. Many authors are eager to have their books sell, and while many credible entities and individuals offer valuable promotional services, some schemers and scammers also occupy the field.
Direct
When you are promoting your book organically to friends and acquaintances, whether personally or through social media, email, or another route, you may find yourself directing interested buyers to your major retail sales platform. Doing so is all well and good, except that you’ll then pay the retailer’s cut. Some publishing services offer direct-sales links, enabling you to share the link with interested buyers, who can then order your book directly from the publishing service. You’ll see from the publishing service offering the direct-sale option that your royalty return is substantially greater when you eliminate the retailer’s cut. Indeed, you can lower your book’s direct-sale price to an attractive discount and still make a fair royalty. With direct sales, you, your reader, and the publishing service all win. With direct sales, you can even create a wholesale link through which you offer your book to special groups and friends at no royalty to you, further reducing the price. Use your direct-sales link on your website, in your social media posts, and in your other online communications about your book, for greater author return at lower reader cost.
Reflection
On a scale from one to ten, how much of a natural promoter are you? Can you identify several friends from whom you can get book reviews? Do you have multiple social media accounts through which you can announce and promote your book? Would you be interested in building a website for your book’s promotion? How much money would you be willing to budget and risk for an advertising campaign on your retail platform or social media applications? Are you comfortable making personal appearances and giving public talks? Do you have a local library and local bookstores that host author book talks and signings? Would you have a good story you could tell at a book fair or signing about the inspiration for your book? Do you know friends and acquaintances who are members of book clubs, to whom you could offer your book at a discount for reading and discussion? Does your internet research show any interesting book awards for which your book might qualify and be a strong entry for the award? Did your publishing service or retail platform offer promotional services for your book? If so, were you able to find any author reviews and endorsements recommending the service? And would the service’s cost fit your advertising budget? Does your publishing service offer a direct-sales link through which you can sell your book to friends and acquaintances, or through your social media and website, at a discount?
Key Points
You will likely find it necessary to promote your book to gain sales.
Getting strong positive reviews of your book is a first step toward sales.
Think of your book’s promotion as involving a coordinated campaign.
Begin your promotional campaign with multiple announcements.
Use your social media accounts to promote your book across apps.
Beware paying social media influencers to promote your book.
Consider building your own author website to promote your book.
You may advertise directly through retail platforms and social media.
Making appearances at book talks and signings can expand networks.
Solicit book clubs to read and share your book, offering discounts.
Beware book award competitions that require paying fees up front.
Research promotional services before committing substantial costs.
Use direct-sales links to reduce retail costs to special groups.