Book Promotion 101
Want to learn more about book promotion so you spend your time effectively when marketing your book? Want to avoid the frustrations you might eventually feel when you have no idea what you’re doing.
By becoming a book marketing enthusiast, you not only avoid getting frustrated, you also can see better results on the sales of your book.
The journey of writing, publishing, marketing, promoting and selling your book is a roller-coaster ride.
One tip might work for you, another might not, but it’s important to keep testing.
Don’t get discouraged, this might take time, but the outcome can be life changing in terms of the Amazon Royalty you can get.
Don’t forget to have fun and take a moment to breathe. Not everything on the list needs to be done in one day, so don’t fret. Enjoy the process. You can add more strategies along the way and you will find out which work and which doesn’t.
TIP: Have a look at what other authors have done.Cherry pick activities you can replicate/get inspiration from. Automate your searching by using Google alerts for key phrases like:
- business “book review” magazine blog newspaper
- author “new book” podcast interview
- “bestselling author” “book launch”
- “self-help” author webinar guest
Make sure that you know your audience before you start promoting your message. It makes the process a lot easier. If you didn’t do this before you started writing your book, you’re in trouble. You run the risk of publishing a book no one wants to read.
Remind yourself about who will buy your book? Think about their gender, age, where they live, what their hobbies and interests are. Set targets for sales to that type of person. Aim for a certain number of sales for launch and over a 6 month and 1-year time frame.
You need to set out intending to write the perfect book for your audience. If your book is dull, keep working on it until it isn’t. Give the manuscript to ten friends and ask for honest feedback. Fix any issues they identify, then ask your beta-readers to check out the revised copy. If there are still problems, guess what? Yeah, go back and fix it. Screw average. You want people to think you’re amazing, right? Don’t stop until your reviewers start saying things like: “I loved it! This book is amazing!” Get them to follow your advice and check they get great results. Use that in your marketing too!
Once your draft has been toned up and all the flabby bits removed, find an experienced nonfiction editor and pay them to polish up your manuscript. Never ever self-edit – it’s just not possible and you run the risk of publishing a book full of mistakes. It is worth the investment,
OK – once you have that sorted, let’s work out how to get promoting!
In this series, I’ll be covering the following:
- book publicity campaigns
- using an author platform
- face-to-face book promotion
- networking
- book tours
- third party sites and tools
- advertising incentives and placement
- content marketing
Let’s go!
