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71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book

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ways to promote and market your book

Do you know the most powerful way to market your book?

Word of mouth recommendation.

It’s a free, highly credible, highly viral resource that helps to amplify your efforts to create interest and buzz about your work.

And all you really need for word of mouth marketing is a book worthy of sharing, and a way to get it into the hands of the people who will spread the word.

Sound simple?

Well it is simple, but not necessarily easy.

The devil is in the details, right?

Although the concept is simple, the implementation is going to require some time and effort, especially in the beginning.

However, with a good plan, you’ll soon reach a tipping point where your fans begin to market for you in numbers great enough to really impact your book sales.

How To Get Started

The best time to design and implement your marketing plan of action is before you even start writing your book. It takes time to build relationships, learn your readers wants and needs, and develop a base of rabid fans that clamour for more.

Grow your readership as you write your book, and when it’s time to launch your book, you’ll already have an invested and eager audience waiting.

Great advice, except my book is already written. Now what?

Even if you already have your book in hand, don’t panic! The process is still the same. It just may take a little longer to see the book sales come rolling in.

So, let’s skip past the year or two (or five) of blood, sweat, and tears that were required for you to write, edit, and polish your masterful novel, and assume that it is indeed worthy of personal recommendation.

The next step is to get your share-worthy work noticed and shared by the right people. Here are a few key things to remember:

  • Focus more on discoverability rather than selling. Your work is important, so help those who can benefit from it, find it.
  • Accept responsibility for the marketing and promotion of your book. Even if you choose to outsource some of the work, your book’s success depends on you taking action.

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #11)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up #11This post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Give More Than You Get

Some authors equate book marketing with dodgy used car sales techniques and not only refuse to take part, but feel dirty just thinking about it.

Others wholly embrace aggressive, guerrilla-style marketing, and feel that the more noise and blinking neon signs the better.

Still others recognize that there may be a third option, but are overwhelmed at the time, effort and attention that may be required to build a quality ‘platform’ while trying to squeeze precious writing time into an already packed schedule.

So here’s what you need to do:

  • Don’t fear marketing; if it feels bad, you’re not doing it right.
  • Pull, don’t push. Draw people to you; don’t pop out of the bushes and hit them over the head with a club (a.k.a your book).
  • Stay calm and ease into it. Building your writing career isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, so expect to put in a lot of work before you reap the benefits.

The best tip is to spend your time giving, long before you begin to ask for something in return. Give more than you get, add unmistakeable value and develop relationships that are as advantageous to the other person as they are to you.

Marketing is really just creating an environment that makes you, and what you have to offer, irresistible to those who won’t resist. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #10)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #10)This post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Grab a Beverage!

Drastic climate changes are common for those of us who are native Albertans, which means that despite “summer-time” on the calendar, you may still find a few of us (ok, me) hugging a steaming cup of latte or Chai Tea.

But, whatever the weather where you are, choose your beverage of choice–either cold and frosty or hot and frothy–and settle in for the tenth issue of The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up!

Featured Articles

The One Factor that Will Determine Your Creative Success by Bryan Hutchinson at The Positive Writer

Bryan reveals the one thing that separates true greatness from the ordinary. Find out what’s required so you can begin working toward creating something extraordinary.

How To Target an Audience (And Avoid Book Launch Flop) by Kimberley Grabas at Your Writer Platform

In case you missed the article this week, I discuss the importance of discovering your target audience and how to do it: “the key is to identify and research what your true target audience craves, recognize the unique and meaningful aspects of what you have to offer, and align the two to benefit your ideal reader in an exceptional way.” [Read more…]

How To Target an Audience (And Avoid Book Launch Flop)

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target audience

Just launched your book (or hope to soon)?

Wondering why there is more fizzle than fan-fare?

Your target audience–or lack thereof–may be to blame.

Why Target An Audience?

One of the biggest mistakes writers make as fledgling authorpreneurs is believing that the larger the potential market, the greater the chances that their book (or freelance services) will get noticed.

In fact, the opposite is often true. The larger the market, the more competition you are likely to face and the bigger the drain on your already limited resources.

Trying to appeal to the masses instead of understanding the needs, wants and desires of a select few–the ‘right’ few–is the recipe for a book launch flop.

Finding and narrowing your niche will help you to reach–and appeal to–more of the people that will ultimately buy your book.

The key is to identify and research what your true target audience craves, recognize the unique and meaningful aspects of what you have to offer, and align the two to benefit your ideal reader in an exceptional way.

Here are some additional points to consider:

  • Don’t assume you already know your audience, or that they are just like you. It’s possible, but not always the case that your audience will think like you. So do the work to confirm what your readers actually want; not what you think they need.
  • Self-published authors aren’t the only ones who need to have a firm grasp on their target audience. Agents and traditional publishers also want you to know who your audience is, your allure to that particular group, and how you plan on connecting with them.
  • Even though it’s important to niche-down, it is equally important to ensure that you haven’t narrowed your market to the point it has become unprofitable. A bit of research will help you define your sweet spot.
  • Another mistake that many authors make, especially fiction authors, is failing to identify their target audience before writing the book. I know it messes with the creative process for some, but it certainly can’t hurt to have a picture in your mind of who you are writing for as you craft your novel. In fact, it can make things easier by helping to clarify the purpose of your book, keep you on track and even motivate you to finish. Both fiction and non-fiction writers need to write with their target audience in mind. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #9)

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Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up #9This post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

SEO and Social Media: Making it Work For You

Changing things up a little this week in the Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up, I’m sharing a portion of an email that I received from Brad–a new subscriber–regarding his struggles with SEO and social media.

Although a writer and marketer for almost 40 years, Brad says there are still aspects he finds “unfathomable” about applying the principles of SEO, and wonders whether social media (Facebook in particular), has any real ‘social’ or book marketing value:

“…what I struggle with most: how to use SEO principles to draw people to my site (and buy my books and such) AND how to understand, value, and control most social media, especially Facebook.”

Hopefully my response to Brad’s email will help clarify some of your own questions about tackling SEO and social media in your book marketing strategy. [Read more…]

Authors with Platforms Sell Books.

It’s that simple.

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