If you’re promoting a book for the first time, it can be confusing trying to figure out what will work and what won’t, what to spend time on, and what are unhelpful marketing ploys. Here are five tips for author marketing and author promotion to get you started.
#1: Use your contact list.
Don’t underestimate the power of e-mail. Yes, in the 21st century, there are more popular ways to reach out to other people. Still, e-mail has a sense of professionalism and air of intimacy that Facebook and Twitter messaging don’t have. If you’re like most people, you probably have a contact list at least a decade old, filled with relatives, colleagues, friends, former clients, and friends you’ve lost touch with. Send out an email announcing your book. Don’t spam. You may just be surprised by how many of your email contacts are compelled to check out your book and even purchase a copy, giving your book sales a boost.
#2: Get on social media.
One of the best ways to market a book – market anything, in fact – is to utilize social media. Ensure a solid online presence by creating Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram accounts. You don’t need to use all these; just pick the ones you feel comfortable with and the ones you think will be most helpful to you. The point of being on social media is to befriend present and future readers by creating a pleasing online persona, becoming a valuable contributor to the social media network/s of your choice, and interacting with others. While you’re doing this, you can unobtrusively mention and gain attention for your book. Just don’t overdo the self-promotion.
#3: Identify your target reader.
Marketing for a wide audience is a waste of time and money. Narrow down your target audience to a specific demographic profile. If your book is about teenaged superheroes caught up in a love triangle, you can bet that it won’t appeal to the middle-aged male crowd. So who do you market it for? Find out what age and gender they are, where they live, what their ethnicities likely are. Make marketing decisions in terms of the profile you’ve established. Where you hold promotional events and how you present yourself to these readers should be informed by research on your target reader.
#4: Go where no one knows you.
When touring, schedule in-person events and spend more time in places where you don’t know a single soul. If you hold most of your book tour events in cities where you’ve lived and conferences where people already know you, you miss the opportunity to make new connections and reach a wider potential audience.
#5: Identify your niche and brand yourself.
In the overcrowded literary world, the key to success is being easily discoverable. This will only happen if you distinguish yourself from the rest. You do this by identifying which niche your work should be in (or creating that niche), labeling yourself (e.g. “The Impoverished Irish Childhood Author”), and creating a marketing plan around that “brand”.
