Book Marketing 101 for Self-Publishers

Successfully promoting books—whether traditionally published or self-published—comes down to the author. The author is the most knowledgeable and the most invested. No one else can be expected to sell your book; they can only be enlisted to provide sales channels and opportunities. Authors must learn to tell their story in a compelling way that motivates others to buy their book. And… it takes time to get the word out on a new title.

If you divide your marketing plan into manageable steps of action, it will help ease the sense of dread many authors feel when faced with selling their own books. The following descriptions lay out a variety of sales and marketing ideas you can consider incorporating into your marketing plan, and will help you plan, prioritize, and time your actions most effectively.

Establishing Your Book Online
Getting your book listed online is arguably the most important selling tool for self-published authors. Any publisher with a registered ISBN can list books for sale on the top three book search engines: Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and Google Book Search. Your book will be immediately available to millions of users who search these services regularly.

If you have your book published through a POD company, they will usually offer this service as part of your package. If you supply your own graphics files and go through a POD publisher service, you may have to upload your book information on our own, or at least double-check your listings by editing or adding information where necessary. Most people with a computer and high-speed Internet will be able to easily access and follow each vendor’s consignment program rules and instructions.

See Inside This Book
Amazon.com, Google Books, and barnesandnoble.com offer potential readers the option to see inside your book, using various trade names such as “Look Inside,” “See Inside,” etc. This function allows users to preview a variety of pages in your book before buying it. Usually the cover, table of contents, copyright page, and the first few pages are displayed for reader review using simple navigation tools. You’ll have to give permission to have your book entered into these programs.

Sellers maintain that these “sneak peeks” increase sales by providing customers the satisfaction of previewing before they buy. And don’t forget to ask readers and fans to post their thoughts and reactions to your book as starred reviews on these sites once they buy and read your work.

Your Book Website
All authors need to promote their books through their own website. It’s the best self-promotion you can have, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. By creating a blog-style website, you will be able to get your book and your profile displayed in the easiest and fastest way possible.

Whether you are selling your book or voicing your opinions, a blog using a content management system (CMS) will give you the tools you need to create, modify, organize, or remove your information from your website. According to W3Techs, Wordpress.org is the most popular online resource to create websites (or blogs). Squarespace and Wix are also popular choices.

Once you’re comfortable with the format, you can explore the other plug-ins and options available to you. You can customize your site and use names, logos, colors, and patterns to consistently brand your book. Offer free downloads with a high-perceived value or a few chapters from your book to entice readers to buy it. Setting up your website with additional pages for opt-in lists, auto-responders, and shopping carts takes time and some authors may prefer to get help to set up their systems and integrate software.

Have you made it easy for your book buyer to say “yes!” and easily buy your book? If you want to sell your books—or any other items from your website—it’s essential to have a payment option built in. PayPal is the most popular system for accepting online payments, as it allows you to accept payment from other PayPal accounts—and from credit cards.

Merchants link PayPal to product pages that display their items for sale in order for buyers to complete a transaction. To go mobile, set up with a service offered by Square, which accepts credit card payments with an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone. Although these procedures take attention to detail, they are not impossibly technical. Taken step by step, either you (or an independent contractor) will soon be able to accept payments for goods sold.

It takes time and effort to build any significant income selling online. If your books, products, and services are excellent and you consistently market them over time, you have a good chance at success. Create solid content on your site, update it regularly, offer value to your customers, and build traffic incrementally. There’s no magic bullet, although lots of marketing experts may try to sell you one!

Email Marketing
Content marketing can be a great selling tool for nonfiction writers. The valuable information you’ve spent time researching and collecting for your book is the lure that you can use to entice readers to buy. Even if you’ve already mounted a website/blog and update it regularly, readers have to take the time and effort to search it out.

With email marketing, you can reach out directly to those who are interested in your content, your products, and your services. People who voluntarily subscribe to your email content are more interested in what you have to offer. But, as with developing a website, it takes time and effort to learn the nuances of marketing using email, including blogging, building subscriber lists through website landing pages (also known as lead capture pages) and converting those subscribers into buyers.

Social Media
Whether or not you are a fan of social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Pinterest, they have become the center of online community buzz. Create pages on a judicious selection of these sites and link them to your website/blog to increase your visibility and spread your message exponentially. Build community through Facebook’s Pages and Groups, and you will reach the most people who are likely to share your book and your ideas with their network. Add your biography, clickable URL, and keywords to your accounts wherever possible.

Media Kits and Promotional Materials
When dealing with the media, promo materials are essential in providing information about you and your book. Make sure you prepare these in advance for any inquiries or requests.

Most authors create a one-pager for their /book that includes the book’s cover image, a brief description of the book, a biography, endorsements and reviews. It also helps to prepare a pre-written Q&Q, and a complete media kit that reflect your website, and your brand for efficient media interaction.

A media kit should contain a book sample, sell sheet, past media coverage, interviews, reviews, author biography and photo, and publisher details such as ISBN, publication date, and contact information.

With publicity and marketing expanding online, it makes sense to prepare the listed materials in digital formats. That way, you can follow up inquiries very quickly by emailing PDFs, or links to your online information— and you save time and money.

If you want to create a few promotional tools in print form to hand out at personal appearances, four-color sell sheets, postcards, and bookmarks are inexpensive giveaways. Be sure to have them professionally designed for maximum impact or they’ll be poor sales ambassadors for your book and a waste of money.

Live Events
Many opportunities exist for self-published authors to present their books outside of mainstream bookstores. Live events are often a better alternative to a traditional book tour.

Speaking at events is the best way to connect with readers and sell books because you can leverage off of conferences, conventions and festivals where organizers do the heavy lifting to draw your crowd. What conferences and conventions are your readers attending? Try submitting proposals to speak at these events.

Hosting off-site events at conferences and conventions is also a way to capture attendees that are happy to join you at your hospitality suite or event. Gather your tribe in advance and send out invitations.

You could also hire a Speakers’ Bureau to get you into events if you don’t feel able to do it on your own.

Local Opportunities
When you plan your book marketing, I want to encourage you to “grow where you’re planted,” and use local resources and connections to get the word out about your book. It may seem more glamorous to go after national exposure, but it’s probably better—and more effective—to send your news to local media outlets first.

Community centers, educational and adult learning centers, arts organizations, chambers of commerce, professional and business associations, even Toastmasters are all good prospects for speaking gigs. Take every opportunity to talk about your book or to do a signing, because no matter how small the group, you never know what that contact will lead to. Plus, it’s good practice!

Summing Up
Launching your book is just the beginning of your new identity as authorpreneur. The risks and rewards are an important part of the journey as you face the many challenges of self-publishing. Hopefully, the publishing process will bring you into a satisfying dialogue with readers who want what you have to offer. Presenting your work will enlarge your world and will be a stepping-stone to new opportunities in your career.

Just remember why you have chosen to embrace the creative life of author and self-publisher. Ultimately no author works alone. You are now part of a community of publishing professionals and readers—and any success you achieve will be a result of providing benefits to your community.

Plan for Success!

Lindsay

If you’re not sure if your book is a good idea, or you don’t have a clear plan, download my FREE GUIDE.

If you want guidance and help creating a plan, schedule a FREE DISCOVERY CALL with me to see how I can help.