The harsh truth today is that even if your book is an epic read, it won’t get any sales unless it is supported by a brilliant book marketing strategy. To make your book the next bestseller, more readers need to read it. If you are self-publishing a book, you must learn how to promote your book to reach as many readers as possible in your niche audience sector. Attracting and engaging the audience requires communicating essential information about yourself and your book in the most capturing way.
As we know that many of you make a living from your books, we wanted to offer the most practical book marketing strategy that would help you reach more readers in 2022 and forward, including metadata optimization, growing an email list, and forming your own launch team.
P.S.: Remember that this article does not aim to provide a comprehensive list of ideas. It intends to offer the most lucrative book marketing strategy for writers from different walks of life.
How to Reach Your Niche Readers Through a Planned Book Marketing Strategy
Like any other business, writing and book publishing, which is a full-time job for many, is not easy. After helping hundreds of authors with self-publishing, we have developed a tried and tested plan that will support your marketing goals. It starts with having your own launch team to support you and have your back.
Develop Your Launch Team Who Would Support You Throughout
A launch team is a dedicated, eager-to-help group that makes your book launch successful. The average size of the launch team is 150 members and can range between 50 to 250 members. The people of this team should be interested in you, and your book could be your family, best friends, school & college friends, church members, community members, social media followers, paid influencers, cousins, colleagues, and even clients.
Remember that it is not the quantity of the launch team but their quality of work. They should be committed to your book promotion. You can sweeten the deal by offering gifts or giving due credit, such as including their names in the book’s acknowledgment section or gifting brand vouchers or signed copies of your book.
Don’t shy away from expressing gratitude and congratulating them for each effort they put in. Before they start promoting your book, provide them with enough content and be clear about your expectations. You can create a Facebook or Phone messenger group to engage with them, share ideas, and provide feedback.
A couple of tasks that you can create and assign to your launch team to help you with the book marketing process are:
- Share snippets about your book on social media
- Submit reviews on Goodreads and Amazon
- Share book reviews on social media
- Post testimonials about your book on your website
- Create a book trailer video and request them to share
- Mail extra copies to give to their friends and family
These tasks must be carried out weekly until the date of the book launch.
Once you have established a launch team, try these book publishing strategies to reach your readers.
Must Read: How to Publish a Book – Choosing between Traditional vs. Self-Publishing.
Build a Powerful Email List (This Takes Time but is 95% Effective)
Email still is the most powerful (and cost-effective) book marketing tool. Email lists are made up of ardent followers or customers who are first in line up to buy your book. Building a good email list takes time, but remember that it will be the easiest and most effective way to market your book in the long run. There are different ways to create it – through website sign-ups from the homepage, newsletters subscribers, reader or lead magnet on the book cover, giveaway contests, and social media marketing.
If you don’t know how to create an email list before self-publishing a book, you can hire an affordable email marketing service provider or register with an email management system, such as AWeber or Mailchimp.
Start Influencer Marketing At Least Once a Week
Nothing, absolutely nothing, can cause a more significant impact on your book than an influencer endorsing your book.
An influencer could be a movie star, television actor, author, book reviewer, entrepreneur, blogger, YouTuber, social media person, or podcaster with more than 10K followers or email lists. People look up to these people and use their recommendations and advice before purchasing. Many brands are reaching out to various influencers to spread the word about their products and services these days. It has become the most recent trend.
The right influencer can market your book to thousands of people and inspire them to buy it with just a small but significant mention on their social media or blog page, for instance.
Identify at least 10 influencers and contact them with your requirement. Ask if they would like to promote your book. Social media influencers are not very demanding; a lot of time, they will want free books. The popular ones may also ask for monetary rewards or some kind of support for their work.
And who could be your potential influencer?
Someone who represents your genre. For instance, if you have written a book about South Indian Breakfast Ideas for Weight Loss, fitness enthusiasts, food bloggers, and dieticians should be top of your contact list.
Implement an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy
Whether you own a website or not, you must have a social media account to attract millennial and Zen Z readers. Social media is the most dynamic way to promote your book. With a few strategic plannings, you can engage thousands of readers worldwide. However, since you cannot be everywhere, we recommend you choose two social media channels when marketing your book.
- Select your social media site based on your book genre. For instance, if you have written a book on leadership, LinkedIn and Twitter should be the right choices. For fashion, lifestyle, food, health, and fiction, go with Instagram and Facebook.
- Hire a social media marketing company if you don’t know how to go about it.
- Post regularly and engage with your readers personally.
- Use relevant hashtags and add CTA in your caption.
- Do promotional activities like influencer marketing, giveaway contests, and collaborations.
- Boost your post for maximum reach.
- Write a nice bio and add a link to your book purchase page.
- Make engaging video content.
You could also read our blogs on Instagram for Self-Published Writers, and our tried and tested Digital Marketing strategies for authors.
Write a Meta Description or Book Blurb that Sells
Believe it or not, writing a perfect book description is the most crucial element of book publishing and marketing. A book description is 100 to 150-word content that describes the book to your readers. It is generally printed on the book’s back cover or added to the metadata field in self-publishing.
The book blurb must hook your reader within the first two sentences and leave them wanting more. It acts like an elevator pitch, where the first 5 to 10 seconds decide the book’s fate. While self-publishing a book, the metadata field includes two book descriptions – long and short.
We have published a few amazing blogs on how to write a book meta description and blurb. Please read them before writing yours:
- Click here to read ‘How to write a book description that sells.’
- Read the complete guide on ‘Creating a great book blurb.’
- Also know the ‘Importance of metadata in book publishing.’
- Finally, learn ‘The best way to optimize a book’s metadata for more sales.’
In our experience, self-publishing authors gain maximum benefits when they focus on these five strategies. Hope they help you too.
Authors that select the traditional publishing route or are interested in our comprehensive book publishing package can relax a bit as we shall take care of the book marketing and distribution, including creating a website and social media marketing. For more tips and guides on how to publish a book, follow our blog site.
