Book promotion is a competitive area and results may depend on many factors. We can’t promise anything, but you may consider trying out the following to see what works best for your authors and/or books. You can also check out our blog for more tips and tricks on marketing.
- Use your metadata
Metadata is the key in automated book promotion. Build your own keywords, choose the right category for your book to make sure that intelligent recommendation platforms find your book and make relevant connections between your books and other books. This way you are more likely to reach the readers you want. Try to be as specific as possible: the platform allows you to select up to three categories. You can select the category when adding your book by typing in the category of your choice. You can also use BISAC numbers to search the database. You can also save a description which we use for keywords, target audience and there is a platform to input awards and competitions as well. So, do not forget to use your metadata wisely! - The power of bloggers
Reach out to bloggers and ask them to write reviews about your book. For this, you have to do your research in the blogosphere and know the influential people writing about your subgenre. It is worth the effort, however, because they can give you relevant and human-written reviews. Never underestimate the power of influential people. With PublishDrive, you can easily send protected review copies to the selected few. To learn about how to send review copies, check out this article. - Build your author page on Facebook/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram
Readers love to communicate with their favorite writers on social media. Whether you are an indie or a publishing company working with several authors, you must build rapport on social media and engage with your readers. Be approachable. Yes, it is hard work, but you can see the difference soon: engaged readers may buy not just your books, but any kind of merchandising materials later. - Register your book on Goodreads.com
Goodreads is the social platform of books. With Goodreads, readers are able to easily find new books to read and get more engaged with their favorite authors/books. No algorithm is as powerful as a friend’s recommendation: do not miss your chance to get discovered by new readers! - Collect reviews
If you already have a fan base, encourage your readers to write reviews or spread the word about your book. You can offer them merchandise, bonus chapters or easy access; if they love your book, they will be happy to help you advertise it. - Share a direct link of your book on Twitter/Facebook
Great job: you already have followers on social media platforms! Make sure that they know the news about you and your book, especially if your book is available in a new store. If they know it can be bought in multiple places, they will consider the options and will choose the best one based on their devices, country etc. You can easily share your book on social media from inside the PublishDrive platform. - Quote your book every day on different platforms
Readers love short and easy to understand quotes from books that they can share with friends or family. Use the power of social media to get these short quotes to more people by simply posting or tweeting them. You can create funny/beautiful gifs or memes from them, so your fans can engage not just with your words, but with your creative material and pictures too. - Build your own email list
Email is the cheapest solution to market your books, however, you need to collect a list of email addresses of your potential readers. You can obtain an email list via various ways: 1) building your own website where you let them sign up for email updates, 2) organizing contests where they have to give you their email address, 3) getting them signed up from inside the book: a link can take them your webpage, 4) running your own webstore, 5) running paid campaigns on social media. Once you have collected a list of emails, you can use one of the top list manager apps such as MailChimp or Sendgrid to contact them with differentiated newsletters based on the behavior. You can provide your previous buyers with coupons, you can organize webinars, online book releases via email, and most software lets you easily measure the effectiveness of your email marketing with different statistics. Please be aware of spamming: nobody likes receiving too many emails. - Let your readers ‘write’ your story
Being creative at marketing is rewarding. If you release a second or third part of a series, you may ask your readers during the creation and writing phase about their experiences and let them vision what could happen. You can either run a contest for the best resolution in a book or writing the best annotation. Anything which makes your readers more involved in the book creation process could end up in terrific results. - Use paid online advertising such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads etc.
If you have a budget for advertising, use online advertising with Google Ads or Facebook Ads, but make sure to trial your ads before you spend thousands of dollars for advertising. First, you have to conduct keyword research, then build your ads and set your target market as precise as you can. In the beginning, you should test what works for your users, so start with 4-5 different ads at the same time with A/B testing and try to find out which works and which doesn’t.
Google Ads helps you to be found by your potential customers when they are searching for something you can offer. Facebook Ads are more suitable for showing your potential customers what you offer and encouraging them to engage. You can run both marketing channels simultaneously, however, managing too many channels at the same time can result in a lot of money and time spent ineffectively. While many people have a natural talent for marketing and advertisement, you might want to consider hiring a professional for marketing your books. See our article on publishing costs for more details.