You’ve written a great book, but no one knows about it (yet). In this post, I go over how to promote your book to the world!
How to promote your book
Writing a book and self-publishing it isn’t enough. For example, there are millions upon millions of books on Amazon, so how are readers supposed to find your book? We do this by promoting it, also known as marketing.
There are 3 types of promotion, in my opinion. There is organic promotion (a.k.a. organic marketing), which is marketing that costs nothing. Then there is paid promotion (a.k.a. paid marketing), which is marketing you pay for. And lastly, there is influencer promotion (a.k.a. influencer marketing), which I will discuss below.
Organic Promotion
The first type of promotion is organic promotion. This, as stated above, means that it (generally) doesn’t cost you money. It could be content creation: blogging, YouTube, podcasting, Instagram, TikTok, etc. You create content in the hopes of other people finding your work. Some posts may not have the desired effect, while others might blow your mind!
When you get to a certain point in your career, you get readers that create content for you—or share your books with friends. I’m not talking about the readers you ask to do so, but readers who just love your book(s) and want to share that love with the rest of the world. Word-of-mouth is one of the most potent tools to distribute and sell books, if not the strongest. I believe that if a book is amazing, and you get it to your perfect readers, the book will sell itself!
Paid Promotion
The second type of promotion is paid promotion. This is very straightforward: you pay (usually money) to promote. Think of ads: Facebook ads, Amazon ads, Bookbub ads, etc. This type of promotion requires a certain level of safety. You should never put up ads with money you can’t afford to spend, especially when you’re new to ads. I’m taking the course “Ads for Authors” by Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula, and there is a lot to think about. So, I highly suggest you learn about ads before you dabble in them, and when you start, start with tiny amounts and learn what’s working and what’s not.
You could also consider giveaways, which cost money. Of course, you could give away books on your platforms in return for people following you or more. This could be very beneficial to growing your audience. But you could also try a Goodreads giveaway. This giveaway costs (a lot of) money, but it can get you great results! Goodreads provides a lot of exposure, and people might come across your book that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach easily. They have to set your book as “want to read” on their shelves, which might create a rippling effect. But again: this is very expensive, as in over $100…
Influencer Promotion
I think influencer promotion deserves its own category. I feel like it’s in the middle between organic and paid promotion, but it is its own industry by now.
You can send ARCs (Advanced Review/Reader Copy) to readers with an audience, for example, on Instagram, YouTube, Goodreads, TikTok, and more! When you think they will like your book, you can ask them for an honest review in return for a copy of your book. Do your research to see whether these book influencers even want your book. Some people won’t respond, some won’t take indie-published books, some will gladly accept indie books, etc. There might also be influencers with larger audiences that charge money on top of getting a copy of the book. At the start of your career, I would personally not sponsor anyone. More than enough readers with audiences out there would gladly read your book in return for an honest review!
Some companies take this process out of hand and set up book tours online. These companies also charge money for this service, so it’s up to you to decide whether you would want to spend money on that or not.
I hope you got some insights into how to promote your book!
Lots of Love,
Britt
