Our writers association chapter meeting for November was one of our best. Our speaker was Flo McCahon, a mystery author from Baltimore and fellow member of the Maryland Writers association. Flo gave us step-by-step suggestions on how to promote your book. They were so good, I took notes the entire time, and I almost never do that.
Why is Book Promotion Important?
Before we get into how to promote your book, we may ask why do it in the first place? Fair enough. This question comes up because authors might believe if their book is published traditionally, don’t the publishers take care of promotion? In a word, no. Flo shared that many publishers only provide limited promotion for books, and for a limited time. That’s what Jane Friedman said as well. Publishers will promote your work, since they have some skin in the game. But, Friedman adds, “few publishers will continue to put forth such efforts beyond a three-month window after the publication date.” So, once you’re outside of that three month or ninety day window, what do you do?
How To Do It
Reedsy is one of my favorite websites for writing and writers. They offer nine strategies for how to promote your book. Some of their strategies are low or no-cost such as cross promoting your book on your website for other authors. In other words, this is a “you promote my books and I’ll promote yours” arrangement. Some of the Reedsy’s strategies may cost authors, however, such as Google or Amazon ads. I haven’t tried those yet. But Reedsy also suggests reader magnets. Reader magnets are a giveaway or item that encourages readers to visit your website and come back again. In my case, I have an eBook that folks in my collegeandparents site can receive. This doesn’t cost me anything to offer, but it may encourage people to come back to my site.
On another note, most websites addressing how to promote your book specifically mention author websites. So, if you don’t have one, please get one, even if it’s only a one page option, as I’ve mentioned previously.
Social Media
One obvious way to promote your book is on social media of various kinds. Flo mentioned that during her talk as does Writers Republic. In fact, they focus on the whole range of social media. This includes the strategic use of keywords, using hashtags to make your books visible to potential readers, and telling a story with your book as part of your promotion. For example, they suggest showing off photo proofs of your covers the way you might with new family members. This can create the energy and interest in your book that leads to sales and greater author visibility.
A great tool I use to make the best use of keywords is Wordstream. It’s a simple tool that helps you identify the keywords people use to find content. The better you are at choosing the right keywords, the more visible your content—and your writing—will be. In fact, I search and find my keywords before I outline and write and online content.
The Power of Blurbs and Reviews
Two strategies for how to promote your book that I’ve just realized are blurbs or reviews. For example, if your book receives a certain number of reviews on Amazon, somewhere around fifty, your book may be featured by Amazon itself. So, it behooves you to get as many reviews as possible. One way to raise your book’s visibility is through blurbs, that are often written by more well-known authors than yourself.
Blurbs and reviews raise your book’s profile in ways that lead to additional book sales and a stronger author platform.
Your Bottom Line
I use this headline for many of my columns, but it’s particularly relevant here. That’s because as authors, we are running a business, however small it may be. Keeping that in mind, and focusing on the business as well as our writing is a sound philosophy. Promote yours like it matters, because it does.
