How to market your book
Have you finished your book and are determined to get it out there straight away, no matter what, even though your social media profile looks like a ghost town? This blog shares tips on how to market your fictional book on Amazon and other platforms with little to no social media followers.
Let’s get to it. How can your humble little book compete with the millions and millions of books out there in the world, when hardly anyone knows you exist?
How can you make it sing through the crowd?
Don’t fret.
There’s a lot you can do to market your book, even if you have little or no social media followers and no newsletter.
Here’s a list of important ways to market your book to get it right out there.
Get multiple book reviews
One of the most important things you can do is get reviews of your book on platforms like Amazon.
If you have no reviews, this may adversely affect your sales, especially when you launch Amazon and Facebook ad campaigns, because people like to see social proof that your book is a good read before they buy.
A good tip is to write a quick note to readers at the end of your book. Ask them to join your newsletter and leave a review if they’ve enjoyed your book.
Give them an incentive to join your newsletter (regular writing tips and updates, for example).
Apply to book review and book blogger sites for reviews. Also ask people that you know (that aren’t family members) for honest book reviews. Aim to get at least twenty-five reviews of your book.
Research categories and keywords
Another important thing to remember on how to market your book on Amazon and other platforms is to put a lot of effort and research into getting the right categories and keywords for your book.
This is so your book can be more easily discovered by readers browsing on Amazon, thereby increasing your chances of sales.
At time of writing, there’s a great article from kindlepreneur.com about categories and keywords to help you out. You can check it out here.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Get a great book cover and write a compelling book description
Your cover and book description are going to sell your book, so make sure both are outstanding.
The book cover should clearly indicate genre. For example, if it’s a fantasy book, it should clearly look like a fantasy book so a fantasy fan browsing through Amazon doesn’t mistake it for something like historical fiction and move on.
This can cost you in sales, so make sure you get it right.
Getting an attractive and interesting book cover is extremely important. First impressions count, so if you have a bad book cover, you will lose sales.
A good way to make sure you have a great book cover is to get it professionally designed by someone else; you should never do it yourself.
Get feedback from several people about your book cover and listen carefully to their responses.
Create a compelling and evocative book description to leave readers wanting more. Again, it’s advisable to get feedback from others and tweak and re-write if necessary.
The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
Arnold H Glasow
How to market your book on Amazon and Facebook
Run ads to increase your sales! These can be a great boost. You can read more about Amazon ads here.
You can also read more about Facebook ads here.
There’s also several tutorials on YouTube on promoting your book through Facebook ads.
Enrol your book in the KDP Select program with Amazon
This is a free kindle book program that allows you to reach more readers at no additional cost.
You get access to great promotional deals to help sell your ebook.
Join Amazon Author Central
Getting an Amazon Author page allows you to take control of your author profile. Once you’ve got your book published on Amazon, make sure you sign up for it.
In your Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing account, click on ‘marketing’ on the top bar and you should come to a new screen, ‘Marketing Resources’ which includes ‘Amazon Advertising’ and ‘Author Central’.
Click on ‘Author Central’ and fill out your Amazon Author page.
You can list your author biography, books, website, blog, and social media all in one place, giving you much more accessibility to your readers. It’s important that readers can easily find you.
Attract five-star reviews of your book
Make sure you’ve had professional help with your novel and that it’s a good product.
In other words, make sure you have done nothing less than your absolute, one hundred percent best, otherwise you may suffer the consequences.
This may come in the form of several bad reviews, and too many will hurt your book sales.
Do you want people to publicly mock you over your typos and sloppy writing? No? Then best to put in the work and pay for professional editing, proofreading, cover design, and formatting.
Participate in the Look Inside program with Amazon
This is a free program with Amazon where readers can look inside and view pages from your book.
This is a great way to sell your book, as people are able to read a few pages and decide whether they like it or not.
When you upload your book and information on the online Amazon form they ask you if you would like to include the ‘Look Inside’ program.
Make sure you say yes! You’d be crazy not to!
UGLY WORD OF THE DAY: CHORK. This has two meanings: 1. the combination of a fork and a chopstick and 2. the squish squish sound your socks make when you walk around in shoes that are waterlogged.
Get yourself in front of a wide audience to promote your book
Contact your local newspaper and/or your local community radio station to arrange for an interview about your book.
If you have a non-fiction book, contact relevant organisations and arrange to talk about your book at events.
For example, if your book is about health, wellness, or spirituality and you live in Australia, you can contact the Mind Body Spirit festival to give a talk about your book.
If you fancy the idea of marketing your book to a large crowd but lack self-confidence and experience, consider joining Toastmasters to practice your public speaking skills.
GET BETTER AT WRITING THROUGH PRACTICE: Write a passage on what you do to soothe yourself when you’re stressed. Don’t be formal when you write this passage. Write like you talk.
A hundred or more other book marketing ideas to try out
Here are some great book marketing ideas to try out, courtesy of BookBub, all 119 of them. Check them out here, and go for what appeals to you.
Even though I have outlined several ways to market your book without a social media and/or newsletter following, it’s still essential not to ignore this aspect.
Your social media (and especially newsletter) following are an invaluable asset in your writing career, so keep on working on building that list.
It takes time to build a list, but it’s beneficial to think long-term if you love writing and want to keep putting your work out there.
Success requires commitment and work, but the rewards are there for those hungry enough to seek them.
Hope you enjoyed my post on how to market your book on Amazon and other platforms.
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