Marketing Your Book: What I Should Have Done After I Published Mine
Part 2 of Marketing Your Book: the Post-Publishing period.
Now you have published your book, what next? Well, it goes out into the world. If you have read the previous article in this two-part series, then you would have at least told a couple of people — strangers, especially — that your book is available for purchase.
You may have acquired a few reviews from ARC readers. You may have accumulated a few preorders. You may have set up your website and Goodreads account. That’s good, because it’s going to help you greatly for your post-publishing marketing.
Post-Publishing Marketing
The difference between pre- and post-publishing marketing is that your book is now available. That means that people can now buy it and get it whenever they want. Note that this immediacy is going to be the core of your marketing strategy.
Here are some suggestions for your book’s post-publishing marketing:
1) Apply for an Author Account
If you have a KDP account and have published your book through that, then you can apply for it fairly easily. Just add your book to Goodreads’ database, filling out the specified fields.
If your book is not published through KDP, and you have used platforms like Draft2Digital or Smashwords, it is more than likely that your application would be rejected.
Based on experience, you would need to provide proof that the book that you added was written by you. When mine was rejected, I contacted the support staff and provided a screenshot of the author’s dashboard on Draft2Digital, with my book’s name in full view.
Once you have an author account, you can engage with your readers on it, and readers can also review and rate your books. Since most people go to Goodreads to look for new books to read, they could more easily find your book and other fellow readers’ reviews.
Moreover, if they have any questions about you or your book, they can also post their questions, and you can answer them.
2) Social Media Announcement
Of course, you should post your book launch on social media. If you’ve read the previous post, this includes all the social media channels that you possess: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and your personal blog.
If you don’t know how to write a self-promotion post, or are too afraid to, you could reference other people’s self-promotion posts and use it as scaffolding to craft your own. Remember to make mention of 4/5 star reviews if you have them.
Be sure to include a link to the sites where your book may be bought. Include your Amazon book link if you published it through KDP. If you published through Draft2Digital, include your Books2Read link.
On Twitter, you could look for authors and book promoters to cast a spotlight on your book, usually with the hashtag #Shamelessselfpromo. Don’t reply to people’s posts with unsolicited self-promotion. That’s just not in good taste and it’s rude.
3) Send Out Emails
If you have built up a mailing list (through your website, your blog, or otherwise), you can send your followers an announcement of your book launch and a call-to-action. Because the link is sent directly to your followers’ emails, they can easily click on it to purchase — this compounds the immediacy of receiving your book with the speed and convenience that you are giving them.
According to HubSpot, there are about 4 million daily email users, and this is 99% of all email users, with a couple checking even 20 times daily. Your emails are more likely to be opened and seen — it’ll probably create more traffic to your book’s purchasing page than social media.
Moreover, people in your mailing list have signed up to receive your emails — meaning that your self-promotion is not unsolicited by any means. You don’t have to worry about being disrespectful and getting up in someone’s face.
4) Do Giveaways
Giveaways are an awesome way to promote your book to potential readers. Mainly because they’re receiving free books. Usually, people who sign up for giveaways — that is, to receive the books — would review them and post about it.
The easiest way to hold giveaways is through Goodreads (if you are from Canada or the U.S.). This is partly why it would be best for you to create an author account on there. You can choose to give away e-books or print books.
If you publish print books, then you can choose to order several author copies to hold a physical giveaway which you can mail out. Remember to announce this giveaway on your social channels so people can request for them.
5) Promotions and Discounts
You can run promotions and discounts by lowering the price of your book for a certain period of time. Most bookstores allow you to list your books for free apart from Amazon, which requires you to price your book, at the minimum, at $0.99.
Draft2Digital lets you schedule these promotions to be had across all your distribution channels (i.e. the bookshops you have distributed your books to). This can be done on your book’s D2D page.
Again, broadcast your discounted price to all your channels. Do mention when this discount ends and urge people to buy it before it does. Urgency gives the illusion of scarcity, which will prompt people to take action. (In this case, it’s to buy your book.)
6) Be Promoted by Other People (Free Version)
What I mean by this is that you can sign up to be guests on other people’s content, be it podcasts, blog posts, videos, or other forms of media. This means that you need to keep a careful eye out on people’s social channels, where they may request for authors to appear as guests.
You may be called to discuss your book, your writing process, and other things, depending on what the content would be about. Of course, that is not to say that you would be selected — there are probably many other people vying for these positions. However, it definitely is a strategy that you can consider.
7) Be Promoted by Other People (Paid Version)
Sometimes, it can be worth it to seek out someone who can promote your book on their channel or website for a small fee. Unlike the free version, this guarantees that your book would be promoted.
This helps you expand your reach, since these people already have a sizeable following separate from your own community. This means you can get news of your book out to a big and new audience who may never have heard of your book before.
Choose your promoter carefully — a large following is not necessarily a testament to the quality of their followers. You want someone whose followers regularly engage in their content, and you want someone who is not actively involved in drama.
8) Author Interviews
Sometimes, people want to see that human element behind the book. They want to know who the author is, and how your writing process went. Author interviews help you showcase that to the world.
These interviews can be done over a call, or through email, whichever way you and your interviewer would like. Most influencers that offer book promotion tend to offer author interview services as well.
These author interviews can be posted on your website, which you can link from your other channels.
Conclusion
Marketing is not done even after publishing your book, and you may even be promoting your books half a year later. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself — don’t be afraid of sounding “cringe.”
Remember, you will never be too late to market a book. Some books only shine in the future, years after they were published. Keep at it, and don’t give up. Once you see those sales numbers jump and the royalties coming in, that feeling of accomplishment would be nothing like you’ve ever felt.
Thank you for reading, and I hope this helps! Good luck on your writing endeavours!
