Some people
believe that 10% quality and 90% marketing is the ideal combination
for the success of a book. Independent authors usually don’t have
the marketing budgets that traditionally published authors have.
Chances are that after an author pays for professional editing,
printing, and book design, he doesn’t have much money left for his
marketing campaign. Even though it is good to set aside some serious
cash to use for marketing a book, authors can still market their
books on a limited budget and sometimes free. The following are some
thrifty ways to promote a book.
Setting up a
professional author website
Nowadays it is
quite easy and affordable to register a domain and set up a website.
Therefore, any serious author has no excuse to avoid setting up a
professional author website for his book. You can set up a website
within minutes and spruce it up to make it more attractive to
visitors. A professional author website is a great way to help a
self-published author increase book sales.
Make your site
media friendly
Setting up a
website for a book is a great way to provide people with a place to
buy and learn more about your book. However, you should not leave the
media behind. In your website you should include all the things that
the media might need in order to talk about you and your book. Things
like high resolution photos of your book cover and yourself should be
included. Also include your bio, quotes from previous press
releases and any other things that might be relevant to give the media the
information they need.
Make guest
blog posts
One of the best
ways to increase traffic to your site is to contribute on other
peoples’ sites. You can also improve search engine rankings in the
process. You should find fellow authors or bloggers who write about
books and offer to post on their websites. Ask them if you can post
links back to your book website. The links will help you to get
better quality traffic compared to traffic from search engines.
Do as many
radio interviews as your time will allow
Ordinary radio
stations are very costly if you want to be aired. They are probably
not your best option for your marketing campaign. However, there are
many community, internet, and college radio stations that will be
glad to interview you.
Send your book
to reviewers
You should do
some research to find reviewers who are open to receiving unsolicited
copies of books. Once you have a list, you should send at least one
book every day for several days or weeks. This will help you to
increase the number of reviews your book gets. Studies have shown
that people who buy books research them to find out whether they are
worth buying. One of the most frequent places they visit is review
websites.
Craft catchy
press releases
Since you don’t
have a lot of money to spend marketing your book in traditional
media, you should make every marketing effort count. A great way to
grab people’s attention is to send some well thought out press
releases to good press release sites.
