Marketing Your Book: What I Should Have Done Before I Published Mine
Part 1 of Marketing Your Book: the Pre-Publishing period.
Let’s say you’ve published your book, either through a traditional publishing house, an indie publisher, or even self-published it through Smashwords or Amazon. You check your stats, only to find that no one has bought it on the day of its release.
It’s fine, you tell yourself. Maybe people need time to discover it. They don’t hang around on the book marketplace every day waiting for new releases. You’ll go to sleep, and you’ll see some sales tomorrow. Then, after a month, you’ll get a huge royalty check.
Sounds well and good.
The Spiral of Despair
You wake up the next day, and you see nothing. No one has bought your book. Okay, it’s not the end of the world, you tell yourself. Maybe they are still looking for it. These things take time.
You check back every day, but you see nothing. It’s a big blow to your hopes — especially if you wanted to make a living publishing your own books. More so if you spent a thousand or more dollars making sure the editing, the interior, and the book cover are perfect.
Maybe your one or two sales were from your family and friends. Maybe they bought it, but they never read a word. You soon begin to realise that no one, absolutely no one, wants to read what you wrote.
This is when writers give up.
Having poured their heart out to the world and money into their passion project, and receiving no love in return, they simply up and leave, and say writing is not for them. But that could be fundamentally wrong.
Writing could be for them, but marketing may not be.
I’m a Writer, not a Marketer
Just as the header says, yes, you are a writer and not a marketer. You should put your time and effort into honing your craft. You should not be wasting your energy on other things. Indeed, you can do that — but only if you don’t want to sell any books.
If you’re publishing through self-publishing platforms or indie publishers, you would need to market your own book. It’s not a “nice to have” — it’s pretty much mandatory. Sure, your publisher would help you market your book some, but the onus still falls on you to spread the word.
By Keller’s Brand Resonance pyramid, the lowest level speaks of Salience. In this case, if no one knows that your book exists, they’re not going to buy from you. After all, they don’t even know that they have this option.
But How Do I Market?
This is a question I asked myself before I published my book. Like any naïve teenager ever, I thought that all marketing efforts should come after my book is out in the world. I focussed all my efforts on getting everything ready, and then figured that marketing would come later.
Oh, how wrong I was.
You can always engage the services of PR teams. They know what they’re doing, and they have the expertise, relationships, and equipment that great marketing requires. Though… what if you don’t have the money for it, or if you want to do it yourself?
Speaking from experience, I found that there are two phases to marketing. Pre-publishing, and Post-publishing. In this article, I will be talking about the Pre-Publishing phase. (Stay tuned for the Post-publishing one!)
Pre-Publishing
The goal of Pre-Publishing Marketing is to drum up hype for your book. This is when you let people know what your book is about, when it’s coming out, and ultimately, just making them excited for your book.
It sounds like a daunting task. How do you even begin spreading the word?
There are several ways that you can accomplish this. Even when you don’t have an established social media presence.
1) ARCs
“ARCs” is short for Advanced Reader Copies. Essentially, it’s a version of your book that has not necessarily undergone interior decorating or even has a book cover attached to it yet.
These are the copies that you send out to potential book reviewers across social media platforms to read and give you their honest reviews of your book before it even comes out.
You can also list your ARC in NetGalley for potential interested readers who would want to give your book a chance. They will post their reviews on their site, or whatever platform they use. They’ll then put up their review on Goodreads, Amazon, TikTok, their personal blogs, and/or Instagram.
Some book bloggers are partnered with Reedsy, so it’s worth looking through their list as well.
Just reach out to them with an email asking them whether they’d like to review your book. Be polite, don’t spam or threaten, and always keep at the back of your mind the possibility that they may not like it and leave a negative review. Also, make sure to read through their review policy to see whether your book would be a good fit for them.
Good reviews are great because 93% of consumers say that online reviews factor into their purchasing decision. If other people say that your book’s worth reading, then it’s likely that you’d see that sales number increase by a little, if it’s not jumping.
2) Book Trailers
Book trailers are basically short-form videos that introduce your book just like a movie would. You can make them yourself if you’re proficient with video editing. Otherwise, you can leave it up to a freelancer.
Book trailers can be worth investing in because videos better catch audiences’ attention and engage them better. People spend 88% more time looking through websites that have videos, and posts with videos on social media get 48% more views.
No matter where you are going to post your book trailer, you can be sure that you would have a higher chance of capturing someone’s interest. At least they know about your book now, in a more dynamic format than they would have if you just posted words.
But where can you post these book trailers? Well, your own website, of course.
3) Your Own Website
To show your professionalism, it’s best if you get your own website where readers can see who you are and what you’re all about.
Author websites list links to bookstores’ pages where interested parties can purchase their current books, announcements for new books, their book trailers, author interviews, links to social media, and author accounts on other sites. It’s also easier for you to connect with your would-be audience.
However, be warned that to start a site on WordPress or other site-building… sites, you need to find a host. And usually, hosts require you to pay a subscription fee every month. Consider your budget carefully before you begin building your site or paying someone else to build it for you.
If you’re serious about your writing career, then it’s in your best interests to get a website. Although, if you aren’t so sure yet, but you want to engage with potential readers…
4) Open a Goodreads Account
Goodreads boasts 90 million members as of 2019, and the number is sure to have increased since then. It’s a website for readers to review books and share their thoughts with fellow readers. And it’s also a place where readers can ask authors questions and follow them for updates.
Don’t apply for the Goodreads Author Account yet.
You need to have already published your book on some platform — preferably Amazon — to apply for one. Applying and utilising your author account would come after you put your book out into the world.
5) Social Media Announcements
How interesting that this would be a viable strategy. You’re probably scratching your head and wondering why I would bring this up even when you have just started out on social media. But hear me out.
Social media has the potential to reach many people. Your post can be seen by 3.96 billion users across all kinds of channels. And if you know how to utilise hashtags effectively, you can ensure that news of your book can be seen so many other people.
If you want to use Twitter to market your book, you can use hashtags like #writingcommunity, and #booklaunch, amongst others.
Discord’s writing groups tend to have channels where you can promote your book as well. Facebook and Instagram are also viable platforms. Can’t say much as to how well they’ll work, since I’ve only used Discord and Twitter.
6) Hold Pre-Orders
Pre-orders can help to acquire a few customers before your book even launches. It’s a great way to see the kind of response that you would get from potential readers once you release it into the world.
You can also allow people to pay discounted prices for pre-orders, which can entice them to give your book a try.
You can hold pre-orders up to the day your book is launched — and make sure to emphasise on your book launch date. That way, you can tap into people’s sense of urgency and encourage them to purchase your book before the price hikes.
Conclusion
Here are a few things that I thought I should have done before I published my first book. Being a self-published author, I had literally no support when it came to marketing, and I dove into the world of promotion all on my own. (Naturally, that didn’t turn out very well.)
In summary:
- Prepare and distribute ARCs.
- Make book trailer videos.
- Start your own website.
- Open a Goodreads account in preparation for post-publishing marketing.
- Announce on social media.
- Hold pre-orders.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this helpful. I’ll be posting a follow-up on this article regarding what you should do when it comes to post-publishing marketing. Till then, good luck with your writing endeavours ahead!
