Here is the thing: when you publish a book, it doesn’t just magically sell itself. You have to spend a lot of time and energy marketing a book. So, if you have already published a book – then you already know this.
If you are currently writing a book, you will eventually publish it. Getting people to buy your book is almost as hard as writing the book.
Here are some of the different things that you can do to market and sell your book.
Polish and Perfect Your Product First
As an author, your product is your book. Basically, you are all about your book. All marketing decisions you make should revolve around your book. Each time you decide how you want to market something, you have to figure out if it will benefit your book.
Of course, you will need to integrate a strategic marketing plan, too. But – if the book isn’t well written, then it is not going to pick up. If you believe that you can just rush through the writing phase and get straight to the marketing – you must rethink this plan, as it will not go well for the book and your author’s career.
On that note, make sure you put a lot of work into your book – not only the book but the hook and its cover as well. Treat the cover of your book like the packaging of the book. Hire a professional for beautiful book cover artwork so that your ideal reader is attracted to the book and can relate to it right off the bat.
Remember that the book cover and title are powerful marketing tools themselves, which is why paying attention to this aspect of your book is incredibly important.
Find A Home for Your Product
Now, if you want to market your product, which is your book, the right way to get it in front of your ideal readers, you must find a home for it. In this case, the home for your product will be your website or author’s platform.
If you are serious about building a writing career, then you need a platform, which can be a blog post, a social media page, or even YouTube. You need a website to build your target audience on. You need a website or a platform that houses all information about your book, yourself, and your social media channel.
As a matter of fact, whatever you post out there as an author should lead back to your official website. On Twitter, you only have so many characters to give a bio, so you want to make sure that you have your complete author’s bio displayed on your website.
This way, if someone finds you on Twitter or any other social media platform and wants to learn more – they just have to click on the website link, and they can find out everything they want to know about you.
Have A Dedicated Website
If you have a dedicated website, your ideal readers will be able to immediately connect with you and find the much-needed information about you as a writer and the book that you are about to launch. Keep your website organized and interesting in the best way you can.
Include a contact form so that if your website visitors have further questions or if they want an interview – they can easily do so. Your website doesn’t have to be super fancy –make sure that as you evolve as a writer, your website reflects that, too.
Establish A Presence
When it comes to effectively marketing your book, you need to find a presence, too. This comes down to social media marketing. The best part about marketing your book on social media is that it is endless and free.
For now, you must know that you need to be on social media because this is the only way that people will know about the existence of your book and that you are the existing author behind the book. So, if you want to connect with your ideal readers, you want them to know that you exist, and to make them know that you exist, you need to be on social media.
There are three basic rules that you need to follow to build a presence on social media:
- Be professional.
- Be relevant.
- Be yourself.
You must keep in mind that authenticity always appeals more than building a fake persona and then not being able to keep it up.
Being present on social media can be a dream and a nightmare all in one. It is a dream because you are using it to market your book, and the reason it can be a nightmare is that there is so much out there, and you have loads of competition.
Today, everyone is on social media, which is amazing because it means that you have a lot of people looking at things, which makes marketing so much easier.
Start with One Social Media Platform
Start with researching a small number of social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and find your niche within those platforms. While doing your research and deciding on the platform that you want to start with, you must ask yourself this important question:
Who is my audience?
Of course, you can also rely on your LinkedIn for your social media marketing – but there is a chance that people who read fiction or novels aren’t usually on LinkedIn. Sometimes, your ideal readers are on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
The point is that there are a lot of options, but you have to choose the ones that will help market you and your book. Also, keep in mind that if you are publishing your book the traditional way, you will still be responsible for marketing your book for most of the part. If you are self-publishing, you should ideally start marketing your book in some way or another, even before you complete the first draft.
It would also help to join writer’s communities on various social media platforms and get useful tips on how to effectively market your book