Tag Archives: book marketing

5 Creative Ways to Promote Your Fiction Book

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When it comes to writing fiction, you may love the writing process but not know where to begin when it comes to promoting the book once it’s published.  Hopefully you already have a website and have established your presence on a few social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).  If you have all of those things going for you already, it’s time to get an outside perspective on the appearance.  Ask a friend to review your sites and give you feedback on how they look.

  • Do they look professional?
  • Is the branding consistent?
  • Is it clear to visitors that you are an author?
  • Is it easy to find a link to the book?

Kimberley Grabas, founder of YourWriterPlatform.com, offers an awesome tutorial on building your author brand, including a “Brand Identity Checklist” for more things to consider as you polish your online presence.

Once your presence is perfected, here are five creative ways to promote your book:

  1. Run a Goodreads giveaway — Kate Tilton, founder of Kate Tilton’s Author Services, LLC, provides an excellent guide on how to set up a Goodreads giveaway, including paperback, hardback or ebook copies.
  2. Create a Book Video Trailer — You can create your own video or have one created for you.  Once you have a book video, BookBaby offers 15 tips for promoting your book with a book trailer.
  3. Try Facebook Advertising — Surely you’ve noticed ads on Facebook.  Facebook makes it very easy to set up ads, boost posts, promote likes, etc., and all while targeting your specific/unique audience.  Joanna Penn, indie-author, speaker and entrepreneur, shared a helpful post on 5 ways authors can use Facebook Advertising.
  4. Get interviewed on a podcast — According to Katie Wyatt, podcaster and speaker, “a podcast is a supreme opportunity to maximise the launch of your book.” Start by reading Katie’s tips for promoting your book with a podcast, researching podcasts that might be a good fit for your book, and writing a pitch letter to send out to podcast hosts.
  5. Leverage your book reviews — Post your reviews in the Editorial Review section of your book’s Amazon page, on your website and social media.  This post on WritersWin.com provides more advice on leveraging your review to promote your book.

These are just a few things to get you started.  Networking with other writers and published authors is always a good idea no matter what phase of the process you are in. Get involved in a community of writers, whether it be a local writing group, a national organization or an online forum so you can network, get tips and advice and swap ideas.

Not sure where to start?  WritePubChat is an online Slack community just for writers who want to discuss writing, publishing, book marketing with other writers.

Featured image courtesy of Lou Levit

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BOOK REVIEW: The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide by Mark Coker

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ABOUT THE BOOK (from Amazon):

Learn how to market any book. This popular book marketing primer has helped over 100,000 authors and publishers dramatically improve their book marketing results.

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide contains practical, easy-to-implement advice on how to market any book. 41 simple, do-it-yourself marketing tips explain not what you can do to market your book, but also explain the context and thinking behind each recommendation. The marketing techniques apply equally well to both ebooks and print books.

MY REVIEW:

The Kindle format of this book is free.  In print format, it would only be 52 pages, so it can easily be read in about an hour or so. It’s definitely a marketing tool for the company Smashwords, but it also has lots of good book marketing tips for authors.  Coker covers topics like: “How to reach readers with Twitter,” “Organize a blog tour” and “Join LinkedIn, post links to your books.”  If you’re a newly published author and/or overwhelmed by 1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer (which is 704 pages),  The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide is an easy place to start.

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Book

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Social media is one of the best book marketing tools available to authors. It is the digital era’s version of word of mouth marketing, and it is free, easy to use, and effective. Some of the most popular social sites include Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Regardless of which sites you decide to use, there are a few tips to maximize your marketing efforts. Here is what you need to know about using social media to promote your book.

  • Always include a cover photo. Ideally, this photo should be the cover of your book. You could also use a picture of yourself if you plan to promote yourself as an author, but make sure the pictures are professional and appropriate.
  • Invite all of your friends and contacts to “like” or “follow” you. The more people see (and share)  your postings, the more effective your marketing will be.
  • Post regularly. Social media is not effective if you never post once you create the page. Fans expect frequent (but not excessive) postings. If updating regularly is a challenge, you can use programs such as HootSuite to schedule your posts.
  • Include a link on your website. For every social media site you use, make sure there is a link on your website so readers can easily find your social media profiles.
  • Check your page regularly. Social media is about conversation. You want people to comment on your posts, so you need to make sure you are responding to the conversations.

I’d love to know, what is your best tip for using social media to promote your book?