Book promotion is one key avenue to help your book stand out in an ever more crowded market of self-published authors. This is increasingly important as self-publishing grows to occupy a larger and larger share of the publishing market.
How Traditional Book Promotion Works
Traditional publishers tend to grant authors a small amount of funding for book promotion and expect authors to cover the rest. The rationale here is that book promotion efforts serve not only to promote the book which the publisher has invested in, but also the author themselves.
Who knows when a national radio appearance will lead to a paid speaking engagement? Promotion of your book can work double duty as long-term promotion of yourself as an author. This can pay off in any number of ways down the line.
How to Start
A great way to start is to create a website offering readers a way to find out more about you. Readers who have enjoyed your work, or who are just now considering purchasing your book. Include on your site a way to access all of your books, such as an ecommerce bookstore.
- As you plan your website, also consider how to brand yourself as an author.
- Do you want to create a logo to represent yourself?
- Look into stationery, such as business cards, that would set you apart from other authors.
- Consider creating social media pages with distinctive cover art.
- Izzard Ink can help you create logos, stationery, social media art, and much more!
Focus some of your promotion efforts on websites such as Amazon Author Central page. Include as much information as possible. This helps potential readers get to know you as an author. Consider including videos about you or your books, and keep fans up to date on your event schedule to help connect your online presence to your in-person promotion efforts.
Book Promotion Ideas
Once you have laid a foundation to promote yourself as an author, you can focus on promoting your book. Here are fourteen ideas to get started.
- Attend trade shows and conferences to network with others.
- Help out fellow authors when you have the opportunity. Self-publishing authors form a community, and it will likely come back to you.
- Look for ways to get your book reviewed professionally – if you plan ahead and are not in a rush, some services will review your book at no or low cost.
- Apple and Audible provide free give-away codes to people who agree to review your book. This is one of the best marketing tools you can have. Authors post these offers and fans love it, providing a great way to get the reviews you need. When readers go to look on-line for your book you ideally want more than 30 honest reviews.
- Before attending trade shows and book signings you can work with Izzard Ink to create custom bookmarks, posters, business cards, and even a press kit for your book. Having these material objects that people can hold in their hand and take home can really help to make a lasting impression.
- Many authors look to Facebook as a platform to run ads. In the last several years, however, these ads have become less effective. As it becomes harder to reach followers, Facebook has become a tougher venue for lower to mid budget advertisers.
- Instead, consider a print ad in a publication likely to reach your target audience.
- Or, place an ad in the Ingram Distribution catalog that goes out to all of their bookstores.
- Make sure you have a book cover that will attract readers.
- Take the time to write an intriguing book description, including research on what makes for a good description.
- Use the best categories and keywords to make your Kindle ebook discoverable on Amazon
- Consider maintaining and regularly updating a blog
- Get to know who your target audience really is. This will help you target all of the various efforts discussed above to concentrate on the kind of audience who will really be interested in reading your book.
- Create a YouTube channel and post 3-5 minute videos about yourself as an author, and about the book. At Izzard Ink, we have even created videos using audiobook clips to help promote books.
Develop your marketing plan at least a few months in advance. You don’t want to rush any of the above.
Izzard Ink is here to help you along the way to promote your book, and to make a name for yourself as an author. With so many self-publishing authors scrambling to handle promotion on their own, Izzard Ink can help you stand out from the rest to reach potential readers.
