Once you’ve written your book, the time has come to show it to the world. Unless you’ve landed a deal with a publishing house, be prepared to accept the responsibility for the promotions and marketing of your book. In this day and age of e-books and self-publishing, you might find yourself flabbergasted at the fact that sometimes, content, no matter how great it is, is simply not enough for your book to do well in sales. There are several key actions that you must take that will have an enormous effect on the sales of your book.
1. Create a solid marketing plan
First, establish your marketing budget. How much will you spend on advertising? Will you pay a freelancer to design a marvelous book cover that will catch the reader’s eye? Focus on your priorities and determine how much time, effort and money you will spend on your promotions. Don’t forget to research the market, and gain information and insight not just from the writing industry, but from other industries as well. Look for tips from other successful marketing strategies, and see if you can tweak them and use them for marketing your book.
2. Focus on your audience
Making sure that your book is able to reach the right audience has a very big influence on the promotion, marketing, and ultimately the sales of your book. Find out who your book will appeal to. You can do this even before you start writing your book – as long as you feel that doing that will not impair your creative process, for trying to please everyone can be a toll. Get to know your audience well and make sure that your book can easily be discovered by them in turn – both online and offline.
3. Prepare a solid book launch
To make sure that your book gets the launch it deserves, throw a party, both online through social media and offline at a place of your choosing, that’s unique and connected to the content of your book. Invite people and ask them to spread the word. Get out of your comfort zone and team up with fellow authors and support and promote each other’s work. Get early reviews by giving advanced reader copies to popular book bloggers and reviewers that have many followers in your genre. This way, you build up the excitement and make your readers eagerly expect the release of your book.
4. Create an online and offline presence
Optimize your website; add a professional photo and bio that isn’t amateur, improve your profiles on social mediums like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Update your email signature to include your most recent releases, with book links that are easy to find and go directly to the retailers where your book is listed at, like Amazon and Smashwords. This will make your book easy to buy, especially after you connect your book with articles that you’ve written on the same topic. Attend book signings and author visits both live and via Skype; join book clubs, library meetings, and local area meetings with fans, which will help you gain both online and offline exposure.
5. Advertise all of your books
Just because you’ve started working on your second or third book doesn’t mean you can now stop marketing your previous works. Divide your time instead – and make sure you promote all of your books all the time. This is highly important if you are writing two separate book series, or if you’ve published books in different genres, like non-fiction and fiction. The first thing a reader does after reading a book that they like is look for more books from the same author. Don’t be surprised if sales go up for a book you’ve published a year ago when your newest book has just been published. Instead, make sure you have listed all your titles at the end of your books, along with your information, your website and links to all your previous works.
Editor’s Note: This article was first published on e-Books India in January 2015.
Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As a 22-year-old art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.