Best 4 Ideas on How to Promote a Book for Self published Authors
In the previous article we discussed how authors can use the marketing and promotional features on Amazon to market their books. In this article, we are going to look at how self published authors can use other avenues to market their books.
Once again it would be better to mention that there are two ways to publish your book if you are a self published author.
- Completely on your own. In this case you will need a site and social media accounts.
- Through Amazon KDP. You don’t need a site or social media presence but if you are going to make this a full or part time career then we suggest that you make a dedicated site and social media accounts at least on facebook, twitter and instagram. A Youtube channel too possibly.
How to Market and Promote Your Book
As you may have read in our earlier articles, for a self published author writing a book is 60% of the job while promoting it is 40% of the job. So ideally, once you are close to completing your book, you should start creating hype for it through your social media platforms. But for this you will first need to have a sizable number of followers.
Also See: Fiverr Affiliates: Everything You Need To Know
1- Create a Social Media Presence
You can make a dedicated page for your upcoming book and then buy facebook ads to promote it. Once again this depends on your budget. Use your social media presence to disseminate info about your book, to get the reader’s interest. If you have got the budget for it, then reach out to some influencers and make appear as a guest on their channel or podcasts.
You can also use your own Youtube channel or any social media platform to go live and discuss the topic of your book to generate interest. Twitter Spaces have been launched recently and they can be a very good way to get the word out and engage people in discussion regarding your book.
Now if you do not have time to do this on your own, then you can by all means hire a social media agency to do this for you.
2- Create a Site and Scale It Up
It is also a very good idea to create your own site and scale it up. Successful self published authors create their own sites to showcase their work, publish blogs and stay connected with their readers.
This is not just a good idea but also absolutely necessary because you are going to use your site to create a mailing list. The more people you have on your mailing list, the more people you can directly engage whenever you have got any important news to share with your readers.
You should also think into the future. If you are a new author and aim to publish a series of books, then it is likely that you are going to have a following of readers who will want to know more about your and your past and upcoming projects. Readers who become loyal fans, tend to visit the author sites or their social media pages regularly to find news. This can generate a lot of activity and sales. In the long term, you can also offer merchandise related to your books.
So in the long term, self publishing is not just about writing loads of books but it is also about monetizing your idea to maximize your income streams.
But then your site is not just about creating a community, showcasing your work and monetizing your idea. It is very possible that if you become a successful author through KDP, in the future you may decide to publish your books without KDP or under another label through a traditional publisher. This is a route that many authors take, to maximise their market and reach more readers. In such a case, your site can be used to sell your books directly to your readers.
The mailing list can also be used to send free bonus material to your readers. In previous articles, we have discussed how free and bonus content can help boost the sales of upcoming books.
The above mentioned steps should be done before you release your book. Ideally you should get started with these steps as soon as you think about becoming a self published author. The key point here is to develop your mailing list over time. This is a point that many people miss when it comes to scaling up their site.
There are authors who have got thousands of subscribers in their mailing list. Now we all know that not everyone is going to read those mails but at the same time not every person will ignore it. There are authors who can get their sales number up by a few hundreds or even a few thousands simply by sending the link to buy the book through the mailing list.
Also See: 8 Tips To Earn More Money With Fiverr: How I Make An Average Of $35
3- Create Ad Campaigns.
Once your book is completed, you can promote it not only through Amazon but also through other social media platforms. You can buy ads on Facebook, Youtube and any other platform that you want to use for promotion.
While ad campaigns on Facebook and Youtube target viewers by displaying ads, there are other campaigns such as hiring influencers and paying teams to trend your book on platforms like twitter. The more traction you have, the more people will get interested in your book. It is however very important to target your audience to maximise your RoI.
4- Be Active on Social Media
Almost every successful self published author says that the days following the release of their book are some of the most hectic days when it comes to social media. People send mails and messages with questions, reviews, suggestions and what not.
You can maximize the chances of increasing your sales by replying to all of the messages and mails on time. Social media engagement also helps increase the traction of your book. You need to timely post about the promotional pricing for your book.
For instance if your book costs $5.99 but you have set it at $0.99 for 48 hours. Then make sure that you announce this before the book is launched and then post regular reminders, telling your readers to hurry up and buy the book before the promotional period ends.
Also See: How to Price Your ebook?
What Budget Should You Aim For?
When it comes to marketing budget, there really is never a straight answer! Marketing budget is a very subjective thing. It always depends on what your aim is and how much are you willing to invest.
New authors are not going to have a lot of budget, so they do not need to spend a lot. A few hundred dollars, spent strategically will deliver the required results. More experienced authors may want to hire marketing agencies, which may cost anywhere from a few hundred to a several thousand dollars based on the services required.
A general rule of thumb is to speculate how much you can earn from your book and then invest a percentage of that into marketing. For instance if you have got 5 books that are already published, then you can get their sales data. If each book earns around $3000 in a year, then you can peg your marketing budget at 10% of the total revenue.
Now that you know that your books can earn $3000 in a year, you can spend $300 to market and promote your new book. This is a simple way to keep the marketing budget at a low risk level.
We hope that you find these steps useful in marketing your books. If you do, please mention how it helped you in the comments. We`d love to hear your success stories.
Main Image Source: Pixabay
Also See: How to Decide on a City to Move To
