Your book is published. Now, it’s time to let others know of your new masterpiece! But where do you start? How do you get the word out there? How to promote your book after it’s published? What are the best ways to market your book after it’s published?
After you have published a book, you have to promote it heavily. Book marketing is essential during your book launch, as you are trying to attract potential readers to buy your book.
This article will give you several book marketing tips that will help you to boost book sales, reach your target audience, and attract new readers. The goal is to reach all interested readers and give them vital information such as where, when, and how to buy your book, and any published author has to do a lot of book marketing to reach their sales goal.
Book Marketing Tips Ahead of Press Release
Before your book even hits shelves, you should be doing book promotions and book marketing. Teasers of your book cover should be posted on your Facebook page, on all other social media platforms, and on your Author website.
If you have your own blog, make sure to promote your book on it in at least one blog post. Repeat the launch date over and over to everyone you can, and encourage everyone you know to purchase your upcoming book. Try to build as much anticipation and excitement as you can.
1. Establish social media presence
Self-published authors have to work a little harder than their fellow writers, who are traditionally published. They don’t typically have literary agents and a marketing team to back them and set up events and book promotions.
Self-published authors have to promote their own books. One of the easiest and best ways to do this in the digital age is through social media.
Having an online presence is essential to your book’s visibility. Almost everyone is online, and nearly everyone has social media accounts. Posting your upcoming book on social media repeatedly is part of a great marketing strategy.
It will help if you also ask people to share the posts from your Facebook page aside from other social media channels like Instagram, Youtube, or even LinkedIn.
Promoting your book includes hosting live events on some social media sites to engage in real-time with people who are potential buyers of your work.
Facebook Live is one such tool in which you can make readers feel like they connect to you on a deeper level than that of a buyer and seller relationship in the comfort of your own home. It’s an easy way to gain fans, readers, and customers.
Many authors have turned to social media to help them promote a book they have published. A new book can reach a much wider audience if people on social media share it. So encouraging people to share your posts can help increase your reach.
In social media posts, you have to make sure that you include certain information when you market your book. The book title needs to be clearly stated, the release date, and the different formats in which the book will be available.
You can also run promotions and contests, such as giveaways.
For example, you can announce that you’ll give away a free copy of your new release, and the winner of the book will be randomly selected from a list of people who shared the social posts about your book. Not everyone will want to share based upon this promotion, but some will.
Having an online presence will also make you seem more relatable to people.
Readers want to feel a certain level of connection with an author, and being online and interacting with readers and fans a little bit can help you sell more books, which is critical when you have a new book coming out.
Building a fan base, especially if you are a self-publishing author, will help you drive sales.
2. Put up an author website
You can take a variety of steps on how to promote your book after it’s published. Many of the methods can be done independently these days.
If you are doing a book promotion, which you should be if you have a book about to be released, you absolutely must have an author website. On that site, you should give your target audience all the information they will want, not only your new book but all of the previous books you have written as well.
New readers may have an interest in purchasing other books you have available. So on your Author website, you need to have an exhaustive list of everything you have ever published, along with where they can buy them.
Other information that needs to be included on the website regarding book marketing is positive book reviews.
Giving your target audience a taste of the praise you have received will help encourage them to buy your new book at the time of book launch rather than waiting or bypassing it altogether.
People like to read reviews. It makes them feel like the investment they are making is a good one.
A guest post on your website will also help you reach your target audience, especially if the guest (usually a minor celebrity or another author) is well known to potential readers.
Offer to do the same for the people who write guest posts for you in return. This way, you are making connections with authors based on the mutual help you provide each other.
Be sure to have your book launch date repeated several times on your website.
Also, you’ll need to decide if you want to allow some of your readers to pre-order or pre-purchase your book. If you choose the pre-purchase route, an idea would be to offer bonus content to someone who has pre-ordered your book. This may persuade more readers to buy the book ahead of time.
Your book cover should also be clearly visible on your site.
A book promotion online won’t help if no one knows what your book looks like. Your book cover needs to be recognizable before the reader searches for it online or steps into a book store. The book cover should be plastered all over social media, on your website, and anywhere else you can get it.
Book Marketing Tips At Press Release
There are many activities you can do to boost public awareness of your book before its formal launch. Here are more book marketing ideas to help you out:
1. Book Promotion Tours and Circuits
If you want to attract readers outside of online, one of the activities you can do is go on a book promotion tour.
Before the book is released, call libraries, colleges, book stores, and other places that support the literary arts. Ask if you can make an appearance to promote and market your new book that is about to come out.
Make a list of the venues that will accommodate your book promotion activities, and contact media outlets in those areas.
Remember to hit indie book shops as well as larger venues. Indie book stores may be smaller and have less reach and ability to sell mass quantities of books, but they are beloved by readers, and many authors have made a name for themselves based on the support of the patrons of indie book stores.
Once you have made a list of where you can make appearances, it’s time to hit the road.
If you have a blog, make it a blog tour at the same time that you do your book tour.
Blog about the places you go to while promoting your book, make sure you brag about the venues and the people there for doing an excellent job with everything from set up to security to decor, etc. Flattery will help you in your promotions.
Also, be sure to post your thanks in your blog so that when you market your next book, they will invite you back.
Readers who follow you online may follow you on the road as you go on a short book tour. If they can’t be there in person to meet you, they can read what you’re writing on your blog tour in each post that you publish.
Make sure you mention your blog at each stop so that readers can follow along with each post.
When you arrive at the venues around your book’s release date, you may want to market your book by reading some sample chapters. Also, answering questions about the writing process, the publishing process, the story you are releasing, and other questions that readers may ask have.
Stick around for a book signing, and take photographs with readers. This will help you to seem more relatable, and for those who don’t know who you are yet, it can make you seem like a big deal if people are getting your autograph and want to be photographed with you. You can also include some photos (with the guests’ permission) on your blog.
2. Podcast Promotions
Podcasts are hugely popular.
Get in contact with some podcast hosts and see if you can get invited to market your book on their podcast. Talking about your book in a podcast will reach a lot of people.
Just make sure that since this is a platform that is heard and not seen, and you can’t show off a book cover, be very precise about the description of your book.
Make sure you say exactly what matters most about your book. Try to sound friendly and engaging and answer any questions the hosts have.
Be gracious for the invitation, and promise to plug them in a post on your website or social media. If you create a working relationship with these people, you may be able to come back the next time you write a book and need to market it.
3. Book Reviewers
Book reviewers are an important part of book marketing because you can use them to plug your book if you have a good review. Ask book reviewers to read your book as far in advance of your launch date as possible so that you have the reviews at your disposal.
You can use these reviews on your website to promote your book, in your lectures and promotional appearances, and you can send them to places that may want to interview you so that they can mention the praise you are getting for your work.
If you can create an atmosphere of confidence and success while remaining personable and humble, you can launch your career and continue writing for a living.
You sell yourself and your personality when you sell your book. While many writers are introverts, most successful authors will tell you that if you want to write professionally, you’re going to have to work at talking to and engaging with people.
Give Your Book the Best Chance You Can
It’s tedious and exhausting to do a lot of book promotion, especially when you just put all the work into writing the book and getting it published. Make sure that you encourage yourself along the way to do your best and keep plugging along to give your book the best chance possible to be successful.
One of the worst things that can happen to an author is that they write a great book, have a great cover, and it’s being sold in great book stores, but there’s little to no promotion of the book, so the sales are poor.
You are the best investment you will ever make, and you have to stay motivated and driven if you want to receive recognition and see success as an author. If you’re going to write full-time, you have to stick with every aspect of it.
When you start to get exhausted with the process, and you’re tired and want to relax, tell yourself that if you finish these promotions, and you can boost book sales because of it, you can relax on a beach with the money your promotions will help you generate.
Remind yourself that even bestselling authors still have to go on book tours and promote their books on news shows, late-night shows, and other publications. If they can do it, you can do it.
If you believe in yourself, and you know that you wrote a great book, you owe it to yourself to promote it as much as possible. Ask your family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, anyone you can to help.
Know who your support system is, and make connections and friends along the way. Help other authors out so that when you write another book, you can ask for and rely on their help to promote your work.
Connect with your fans and readers who follow your work, be excited about new books that you release, and suggest your books to their friends and peers.
Maintain a solid online presence so that you can promote your work, connect with readers and fans, promote the work of other writers, and host engaging events like giveaways, bonus content, and other information that people may be interested in.
