Book Marketing 101- ALL You Should Know Right Now!

Is it really necessary to carry out book marketing? Can’t our books not begin to sell once we upload it as an eBook on Amazon, or as soon as it gets to the stores?

Well, the truth is book sales don’t happen over night.

Yes, recently I came across an author who made a post that she sold 100 books just within four days after uploading it on Amazon.

Believe me, this sort of magic only happens to known authors and it’s very rare for new authors to make this kind of book sales.

Marketing as most people know dates back to history, every product that flourished made it as a result of promotion, and book is not out of the equation.

In this article, I’m going to talk about:

• The meaning of book marketing

• How book marketing works

• 5 keys that makes book marketing works

• What makes a good marketing campaign

• Why book marketing is important

• When should you start your book marketing campaign

• Can you market your book without social media

Let’s dive in…

What is Book Marketing?

Book marketing is the act of putting systems and helpful strategies together in order to get your published book, in front of your readers.

It also implies the rate of audience engagement an author employs to promote their books.

Rome was not built in a day, every book sale an author had, was as a result of calculated book marketing strategies and plans that also included an author promotion. What’s an author promotion; this is the self-promotion authors render to their selves all in the name of building their online presence. 

The question is how does book marketing work?.

How Book Marketing Work

Book marketing is the process of getting people interested in your book. This happens through carrying out market research, analysis, and understanding your target audience.

It involves all areas of book promotion, including the idea development stage, writing phase, distribution channels, and advertising.

However, book marketing works better if you take the time to solve its puzzle right before you set foot in the publishing world.

Invariably book marketing includes branding; you can pick a certain color and logo to set up your author’s website. 

What form of advertising, PR, corporate identity, social media outreach, sales management, special offers, and exhibitions do you want to go with?

In all book promotion is made to help you create attention, make your book appealing, send consistent marketing messages, and most importantly give your reader a reason to choose your book rather than your competitor’s book.

Keys opens doors and as such what are the keys to book marketing?

5 Keys to Make Your Book Marketing Work

• Know Your Target Market
• Understand How People Buy Books
• Create Value Via Your Blog/Social Media Sites
• Communicate Effectively Via Emails
• Keep Up With Trends

Important tip: You don’t meet success because you took the path every other author took, just understand the trajectory of your book and move with it because, in the end, you’ll surely reach your audience.

There are features that make book marketing good what are they?

Features A Good Book Marketing Campaign

To keep up with the tides of book marketing, here are the features to look out for:

• Book Marketing Plan

Why book marketing plan? This is the tool that can help get your promotion out to publishers. When you draft a good marketing plan, it helps publishers to see…

1. Information about you.
2. Information about your book.
3. The audience your book is made for.
4. Description of your book.
5. The budget.

• Advanced Review Copies (ARCs)

You must have heard about advanced review copies (ARCs), these are the copies you give out in advance to bookstores and book reviewers. They are either in print or electronic copies of your finished book.

They come in very handy and you can easily give them away to the right hands, at events and reading forums.

Likewise they help build the initial buzz and contacts for your book and this attribute is what you need to come out successfully.

• Tip Sheets

Do you want to increase your credibility before retailers? Then Tip sheets must go with all ARCs you give out. A Tip sheet is one page that contains relevant sales information about your book, such as the ISBN, publisher/distributor, book-length, publication date, and book description.

• Author Website (optional)

You can’t market your book without setting up your author’s website eventually this would be the first touch of your visitors looking to find your book.  It’s also a home for your social links and other links that bring your readers to your book.

Having an author’s website helps to…

1. Build your brand
2. Target your audience
3. Communicate effectively with your readers
4. Increase book sales

• Blog

The rule of staying connected and committed to your readers is consistently creating relevant blog posts that will appeal to them and make them ask for more.  If you want to keep your readers interested in your works, you’ve to be consistent and freshen your content.

• Social Media

The most common place to promote yourself and your book is on your social media sites; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram including your Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads.

The best part of using social media is that they generate organic views (+reviews), and your book is likely to go viral when you consistently speak about it.

• Book Publicity

Self-published and traditional authors can’t increase book sales without carrying out targeted book publicity. I’ll greatly recommend that you key into book publicity. It’s certain that TV, radio interviews, reviews blog tours, are still very effective in spreading the news about your book.

Is book marketing that important?

Importance of Book Marketing

There is no doubt that book marketing comes with a lot of responsibilities and challenges however the benefits are more than the cost. Here are the importance of book marketing…

• Brand awareness

Book marketing leads to brand awareness. Some authors are well known for their brand and this is a result of book marketing.

Brand awareness refers to how your book is recognized. It also shows how your logo, your writing style, and reputation are perceived by your readers. 

The impact of brand awareness cannot be over-emphasized it helps readers to fall in love with your books and turns them into addicted fans. For example, Harry Potter is a book brand for kids and we know how they love this particular brand. 

• Fosters cordial business relationships with the author and the readers

For any book to go viral there must have been a certain level of relationship between the author and their readers.

Readers love to be part of the journey of a writer; they love to interact when necessary with authors. You can only build viable relationships when you key into marketing, relating with your readers on this ground will help you know what they want.

• Boosting sales

You’re going to be using different channels to promote your book, these channels when combined help in increasing the likelihood of better sales. Happy readers translate into your book ambassadors automatically.

• Staying relevant

Book marketing helps you to remain relevant, check the bestselling authors we’ve you’ll see that their books are not only relevant but they have become icons and authorities in their area of writing.

• Making informed decisions

The decisions we make today are what shape tomorrow, you need to make informed decisions to see results.

Basically this is what happens when you key into book marketing . You’re able to figure out do’s and don’t.

Many authors don’t know when to start marketing their book….

When Should You Start Marketing Your Book?

You’ll definitely want to start marketing your book right before it’s launched. Likewise before you begin marketing you might want to take into consideration the following key components:

1. Who is your target audience
2. Your goals with the book
3. Building your author brand: there are free courses available for this
4. Research book reviewers
5. Start blogging and you can pick up topics that relate with your book about your book

In addition to the above points, here are 7 periods you need to know before promoting your book:

Before You Begin Writing:

Right before you start writing your book, start talking about your book to your friends, and students, this will help build up anticipation. And anticipation is the door that leads to sales.

As You Begin Writing:

When you begin to write, to aid your book marketing, you can drop lines or excerpts of a chapter of your book on your social media sites to increase the anticipation mood of your readers. At this point, your audience would be eager to get their hands on your book.

While You’re Writing

Bring up a topic from your book and share it with your audience, ask them what they think of a character, or idea you’ve included in your book. Doing this will increase the bond between you and your reader.  They will feel excited and grateful that you allowed them to input their thoughts in your book.

While Your Book is Being Edited

This is another time you can market your book by announcing to your audience that your book is at the editing stage. 

This will let them know that the book is already at the finishing stage and soon they will be having it. You want your audience to know that they don’t need to wait too long before they get access to your book. Isn’t this a win-win situation?

Two Weeks Before Release

Exactly when it is two weeks to the release date make a special announcement and here introduce your book to your reader. You’re free to use all of its promotional materials to pass your marketing message.

Release Date

The release date indicates when your book will be made public, use this date to create a strong buzz for your book.

Post Release

Even after the book is released your book marketing should continue for a good number of periods. You don’t need to draw back your actions just because you’ve already released it. Book marketing is a continuous process and the most effective at this point is through periodic newsletters.

So what are the steps to carry out effective book marketing?…

Steps to Carry out Effective Book Marketing

You’ve learned about ARCs, Tip sheets, the Author’s website, and blog and how they impact your book marketing, here are some additional steps you need to carry out an effective book marketing:

1. Be ready to put in the work.
2. Draw out your plan afore time.
3. Create content (blog/social media) that will draw your book closer to your audience.
4. Collaborate with other authors.
5. Create a book team.
6. List out the local/international events you’d like to participate.
7. Stay consistent with your goals.

The final question is…

Can You Market a Book Without Social Media?

We live in a global village and everyone is virtually on the internet and on social media looking for what to buy or information.

If you don’t want to generate quick book sales and boost your brand awareness, I’d say you can stay away from social media.

People buy faster from those they know and as an author you can leverage on your social media connections to make sales.

Let’s wrap up

Every journey begins with a step the process of marketing a book requires a great deal of patient and strategies. As you know success only comes to those that gun for it.  So if you want to see a successful book marketing campaign stay focus and committed. Above all I wish you all the best.