How to Market A Self-Published Book in 2023

Here’s phase one of my marketing strategy

Photo by Yuri Efremov on Unsplash

Back in January, I shared my writing goals for 2023. One of my goals was to finally take the first steps towards self-publishing a book.

This book will be the first I ever self-publish. So, as I wrote in my January post, I’ll be focusing on researching and experimenting to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then I’ll share what I learn here. I’m excited for this adventure, and I hope you will enjoy reading these updates and find them helpful.

In February, I began working on planning out a marketing strategy. While my book is a novel, I believe these strategies can be used for a nonfiction book as well.

I’ll break these down into steps for those of you who also want to self-publish a book or more effectively market a traditionally published book.

Without further ado, let’s dive into chapter one of my indie publishing adventure.

Step 1. Write the Book

My adventure obviously started several years back when I finished writing the first draftof my novel. At the time, I hadn’t decided whether I would indie publish or would try to get the book traditionally published.

The main goal was just to get it written.

If you’re writing a nonfiction book, I think you could definitely plan out your marketing steps while you’re busy writing. In fact, your nonfiction book might be a key piece of the marketing strategy for your business. You might already have a system in place to promote it to your audience. Or you might want to build your audience while you’re writing.

However, writing a 60,000-word (or longer!) first draft takes a lot of focus and perseverance. You don’t want to get distracted by marketing and never finish your book.

But then, once you finish writing, you also don’t want to get so caught up in editing your book to perfection that you don’t spend the time you need on marketing.

After all, you probably want people to read your book.

That’s the stage I’m at now. I’ve finished writing and re-writing the book, and I’ve edited it several times as well. I ultimately…