Regardless of how you publish your book, you’ll need to market it – not just for the launch, but on an ongoing basis.
If you’ve done your work properly, you’ll already have an ideal reader profile and have a good idea where those people hang out, so here are some ways to get more sales.
Build your community
Smart authors start building their community when they start creating their book. That means that when you launch you already have a decent sized group of people that are primed to purchase.
Building a community takes time and effort – you’ll need to offer value on an ongoing basis, whether that’s a regular podcast or video interview, to grow your audience. Or it might be the creation of a membership model to bring people into a community you lead and deliver value.
With a community you’ll be marketing to people who are already committed to what you offer. Getting them to buy your book is just an email campaign away.
Speak up
Find groups, associations, institutes that represent your ideal reader and offer to speak at their branch meetings, conferences, monthly events, etc.
Are any local organisations running events that are a good fit for your book?
Take opportunities to speak at your regular networking group meetings, not a sales pitch, but sharing some of the wisdom from your book.
Social media
Use content from the book to create posts. You might also consider running ads on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn, featuring your book. Do your sums to work out what the cost per click/sale works out at.
Media
A press release announcing the publication of your book may get some interest, but better still are thought-leader articles around the book content, or Q&A style articles. If you’re going to get these published you’ll need to create a press list of publications that serve your target audience and email them to find out if they’re interested.
You’ll need to provide maybe three potential headlines with a one line summary of what that article will cover. Plus your author bio – which is where you say ‘author of [your book title].
Local radio could also be a good place to feature, depending on the content of your book.
And don’t forget podcast hosts, people with YouTube channels, etc.
Leverage the content
You can run courses, webinars, seminars, workshops, etc. built around the book’s content. Of course, you will have a special offer on your book for attendees!
Advertising
The obvious advertising opportunities are ads in publications that serve your audience, but I’ve never found them to be a good return on investment for books.
Don’t forget Google ads. In the hands of an expert you can get good results. An ROI of 4:1 on ad spend is good. That may not sound like much, £4 for every £1 spent, but when the sales start to stack up, it’s a considerable amount. When you spend £100, you get £400 back – and so on. Invest in someone with experience and a good track record – ideally for books – to create and manage your ads.
Persistence
Marketing isn’t a one-and-done activity. Like a business, you’ll want to continue to make sales – so you’ll need to have an ongoing marketing campaign, that may have some or all of the above activities involved.
If you keep marketing, you’ll keep making sales.
