Authors invest a lot of time into crafting their books, so it’s important that their promotional efforts are effective. You don’t want hours of hard work and thousands of dollars to be poured into a book without results.
Before you create a marketing plan to promote your book, you must ask two key questions:
What value will readers get from your book?
Why should a reader listen to you over others?
These questions allow you to articulate your book's benefits, the needs it satisfies, and why you are uniquely qualified to serve those needs. Effective marketing of your book entails not only answering these questions but doing so before you even write the book. Doing this allows you to seamlessly integrate these promotional tactics into your writing process.
Now that you’ve started thinking about these questions, let’s dive deeper into 20 ways you can effectively promote your book.
1) Identify Your Audience
To effectively promote your book, you need to know who you are promoting to. Consider what your book is about, and who you are trying to reach. Once you identify your audience, you can conduct more research on the demographic. This will allow you to identify who they are, what they like, what they are looking for, what platforms they are on and much more. All of this will make it much easier to promote your book.
For non-fiction authors, this can be quite simple. For instance, if you are writing a beginner’s guide to car repairs, your audience comprises individuals interested in learning how to repair their car. However, for fiction authors, identifying your audience is a little trickier. Fiction books serve a variety of purposes and thus can appeal to various markets. Analyzing other fiction authors with similar themes might help you refine your target audience.
2) Perfect the Book
Now that you have written a great book, many other factors go into perfecting the book. The title, the cover, and the description all play a role in a successfully promoted book. The title gives them an idea of what the book is about, the cover plays a role in catching someone’s attention, and the description acts to sell the book. Before the release, you need to ensure all elements of the book, external and internal, are perfected and consistent. We will dive deeper into these elements in the following sections.
Remember that the title and description need to be SEO friendly. This will help to get your book recognized when people are googling online.
3) Create an Eyecatching Cover
You might know the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Although this is true, consumers can’t help but form opinions based on a book’s cover. When you are browsing a bookstore, you are overwhelmed by the number of available options. You tend to gravitate to a visually appealing cover. I know that I do this all the time. A nice cover grabs your attention in the sea of others, and it helps you to establish your perception of what the book is about.
Unfortunately, you might have a well-written book, but a poor cover can make the difference between someone picking up your book and skipping over it. Remember to remain consistent with your covers to establish a brand across all your works. This makes it easier for fans to quickly identify your books when they see them.
4) Write a Good Description
Most books are very long, and readers want to know what your book is about before buying it. So, a book description that is short and sweet is a great way to sell a reader on your book.
You need to be creative in this. Remember, an eye-catching cover is important. It’s enough to get the reader to pick up your book, but once they pick it up, they will read the description to decide if they want to buy it. So, your description can't simply describe what the book is about, it needs to sell to the reader why your book is worth purchasing. Think back to the question we asked at the beginning regarding what value a reader will get from your book. The description is where you can answer that question.
5) Take Your Author Photo
The book cover and the description are all about branding your book. But what about you? Readers are naturally curious about who the author is and how you can meet their needs. This takes us back to our second question about why a reader should listen to you over others.
An author photo helps to establish your personal brand and allows readers to feel more connected to you as an author. A great author photo sets a tone and can be used in your book, on your website, and across promotional materials.
6) Create an Author Website
Although the bulk of your sales may not come directly from your website, it’s still important to have a central place where readers can find more information about you. An author website will allow you to feature information about yourself and your books. It’s a great way to address the question of why a reader should listen to you over others.
Through the use of a website, you can promote your book with blogs, special releases, and other engaging content. You can also generate a mailing list and create a community of readers.
To optimize your website, make sure to include features like an About the Author Page, a section showcasing all your books with direct links to purchase them, a regular newsletter, and much more.
7) Utilize Email Marketing
Make sure to capitalize on email marketing. Leverage your existing newsletter subscribers to announce the release of your new book. Make sure to create engaging emails that not only introduce your book but explain the needs it fulfills. You can also offer exclusive sneak peeks through your email list that encourages individuals to be more engaged.
If you are looking to grow your email list, you might consider reader magnets like a free eBook, or giveaway, that gives people a reason to sign up. Once they sign up, you can use it as a way to continue to promote all your work.
8) Add the Book to Your Email Signature
Although it may seem small, it can make a difference. You probably send a ton of emails in a day, so why not promote your book while you do it? Adding your book to your email signature subtly promotes it without feeling like you're being pushy. This might even make someone more inclined to buy your book because they came across the email signature themselves and don’t feel like you tried to push a sale on them.
9) Reach out to Bloggers and Influencers
People love to hear what others have to say. It’s all about getting the right people to talk about your book. Before your book is released, reach out to bloggers and influencers who are well-known to your target audience. For instance, if you are writing a cookbook, reach out to a well-known influencer that makes cooking videos. These influencers possess a substantial following within your target demographic and hold considerable influence within the community.
By sharing your book with these influencers or bloggers, you leverage their credibility to endorse your work and share their genuine opinions with their audience. This will help to generate stronger interest in your book as the endorsement is coming from someone well-known within the space.
10) Leverage Your Social Media Presence
In today’s digital age, social media is a key part of marketing. If you already have a social media presence, work on continuing to build it. It’s important to start by identifying where your target market is and what platforms they use the most. Make sure to focus your marketing efforts on those platforms.
Through social media, you can announce your books, provide exclusives, and interact with potential readers. It’s a great way to get the discussion going and to generate a community.
There are a variety of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Identifying the right platforms not only depends on where your target market is but also on what makes the most sense for you. For example, Twitter is a great platform for people to share their thoughts. This is a great opportunity for non-fiction authors to share their thoughts and solidify their expertise on the topic. On the other hand, TikTok is a creative platform that tends to have a younger audience. It’s a great opportunity for authors who have a younger demographic, or who want to capitalize on the BookTok community.
11) Videos and Livestreams
On the topic of using your social media presence, videos and livestreams are a useful tool. This allows you to engage with your audience and directly communicate with them. Through this, you can promote your book and tell them why they should be reading your book specifically.
One way you can utilize this is by holding Q&A sessions. This can either be through a live stream or you can have people submit questions in advance that you generate video responses to. Once you have generated some interest in your book, it is natural for readers to get excited and have questions. By holding a Q&A you can continue to generate interest and provide some more insight. Be mindful that you don’t reveal too much so that readers are still surprised once they read your book.
You can also create vlogs showing behind-the-scenes clips of you working on your book. This helps to get readers more engaged and excited about the process. It also humanizes you as an author and allows for a better connection. This all plays into author branding.
12) Collect Book Reviews
What’s something you do before you buy something? You check reviews. You might notice that seeing good reviews encourages buying while the absence of reviews causes hesitation. This applies to your book as well. Without reviews, potential readers may be less inclined to buy your book. It’s crucial that you have reviews when your book launches so that the interest you have generated translates into sales.
However, getting book reviews isn’t always an easy task. So, before your book launches, it’s important to give some people the opportunity to read it and write an honest review. You can send it to book bloggers, and subscribers, get a professional book review, and much more.
13) Gather Blurbs for Your Book
Similar to reviews, blurbs are a great way to promote your book. Blurbs are quotes about your book from others who have read it. The best blurbs are the ones that come from people who are trusted by your target audience. Make sure to do your research and send your book to the right people. Once you have great blurbs, you can include them in your book and promotional materials.
14) Make Friends in the Community
A great way to promote your book is to make friends and connections in the author community. Before you release your book, gain connections with other authors. You can help to promote their books, write reviews, engage with their social media, etc. You can also find online groups for authors that you can make connections with.
If you are willing to lend a hand to others, they will likely provide the same support to you when you release your book.
15) Start A Blog
If you already have a blog, that’s great, but if not you might want to consider starting one. A blog can be a long-lasting promotional tool if it is used right.
Starting a blog provides you an outlet to share all your thoughts that didn’t make it into your book. Especially for non-fiction authors, you can establish a stronger reputation and expertise in your field by releasing more content related to it. For example, if you wrote a cookbook, you might also have a blog that allows you to share more tips and recipes in the meantime while you write your next book.
Also, it’s a great way to stay connected with your readers and keep them up to date on your work, your life, etc. Readers tend to become very loyal to certain authors when they find one that they like. They start to love their work and are always eagerly waiting for the next thing. A blog will allow you to build a stronger connection and community with your readers and is a great way to continue promoting yourself and your work.
Frequent and regular posting is important so take the time to create a posting schedule that works for you. Remember to keep the content relevant to your space to ensure consistent messaging and marketing.
16) Create an Audiobook
It’s no secret that audiobooks are an increasingly popular way to enjoy a book. With the global audiobook market valued at USD 3.3B and an expected CAGR of 24.4% between 2022 and 2027, there’s an opportunity for authors to capitalize on.
Audiobooks allow people to listen to your book when they are on the go, have short breaks, are cooking dinner, etc. It’s also a great way to reach potential readers who just prefer audio or have a harder time reading a physical book. There is an uncaptured market if you don’t present this option to potential readers. Having an audiobook option is a great feature to promote in your marketing materials.
Creating an audiobook does take time, but once created, it presents a great opportunity to increase the popularity of your book. You might consider using an audiobook production service that helps you with everything from the beginning to the final product. Using an audiobook service will not only allow you to save time but also expand your audience, grow your brand, and benefit from external expertise.
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17) Giveaways and Contests
People love free stuff! Running giveaways and contests is a great way to engage with current fans and even those who might not know who you are.
For a giveaway, you can offer something like a free copy of your book in exchange for engagement such as a like or a follow. By doing this, you either gain a good review from a current fan or you can gain a new follower. Once they are introduced to your page through the giveaway, they will now have the opportunity to read some of your work. If they like it, you have now gained a new fan. Although it might cost some money at the start to host these contests, it can pay off in the long run.
18) Create a GoodReads Author Page
Many readers will check GoodReads when they want to learn more about a book or an author. Signing up for the GoodReads Author Program can provide many benefits.
Through this page, readers can find more information about you, your book, your blog, your events, etc. An author page also allows you to take questions from readers, it allows for reviews and is a great way to develop a social network for your fans.
As a GoodReads author, you can also link GoodReads reviews to your author website. GoodReads also allows you to hose giveaways through it, advertise your book, and access other marketing tools.
All this together contributes to your promotional plan to create more exposure for your book.
19) Be a Guest on a Podcast
Podcasts have risen in popularity and are a great way to gain exposure. Podcast hosts are always looking for guests to keep their shows interesting and to bring new perspectives.
Do your research. Find a podcast that aligns with your brand and audience. If you are writing a book about business, you might want to go on a podcast that also talks about business. This will give you a chance to have real conversations about your book with the hosts and their audience. It acts as a tool for promotion because you’re not just selling your book but yourself as an author.
Also, if you’re a company owner/leader and want to start your own B2B podcast to meet top decision-makers in your industry to grow your business, while at the same time gaining an audience in your niche for your book, you can work with a podcasting partner. They can handle the entire process, all you would need to do is have one conversation weekly or bi-weekly, fully remote.
Also, use this as an opportunity to share a free copy of your book with the host. This might just lead to another positive review you can use.
20) Start Early
It might seem early to promote your book while writing it, but it can prove to be advantageous. Delaying promotion until the book is finished will deprive you of sufficient time to generate buzz. By starting early, you can cultivate interest in your book ahead of its release. Once it is out, fans will be eager to purchase your book.
Early promotion involves showcasing your expertise in the field for non-fiction authors or teasing exclusive insights or spoilers for your fiction book. This approach prepares your audience for the launch, fostering excitement and anticipation.
Conclusion
You put all this time into creating a great book so making sure it is seen is so important. It will take time but every step you take to market your book is another chance for people to see it. Now that we’ve covered 20 different ways for you to promote your book, it is time for you to start your book promotion journey.
Written by Kaitlin Duong
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Jony Studios is a client-focused media production studio offering audio/video production, B2B podcasting, and audiobook services. They have worked with a wide range of clients from small businesses to larger organizations such as Penguin Random House, Amazon, University of Waterloo, Freakonomics Radio and many others.
