With self-publishing more and more common in the book market, effective marketing is more and more important. There are many social media tips to improve your marketing. Effective marketing can be tricky, since this generation of self-publishers cannot afford marketing firms to advertise their books. As a would-be writer, you might feel unsure where to begin with marketing. You spent a long time writing your new book, but you do not know how to market it. Fear not, with a few steps you can ensure your book will be read and enjoyed by people all over. Here are 5 steps to marketing a book online.
Research Your Reader
Your first step is to determine what audience might be interested in your book. All marketing today is targeted to specific niches. To make your marking effective, it must be targeted as narrowly as possible. While you probably didn’t think about it when you were writing, there are some people who will be more drawn to your book then others. Spend some time working out who this audience is and what they are interested in. This target audience will affect how you market later.
Build Your Marketing Tools
With a target audience in mind, tailor your marketing tools to that audience. These tools include the book’s title, cover art, synopsis, and author biography. These items can be written in such a way to appeal to one audience or another. Despite the famous phrase, most people will judge your book by its cover, or at least the tools above. As a result, it is important to make sure these tools lure the readers in.
Establish A Launch Team
With your book about to be released, you should form a launch team to push your book online. This launch team should consist of people in your target audience who are interested in pushing the book on social media. The first group to pull from is your immediate friends and family. Give them copies and encourage them to talk up the book to their friends and acquaintances. The goal is to eventually reach the stage where word of the book is spreading independently throughout social media. There are numerous Twitter tools that can accelerate this process. This sort of spreading word of mouth will take a lot effort, keeping up with launch team members and ensure they are still talking.
Cultivate Reviewers
Once you book is available of sites, you need to build a stock of good reviews. Within the first few days of the launch, you should aim to get at least 20. Start with your launch team by encouraging them to post reviews. A great way to build on this is to send book reviewers free copies and ask them to review it as well. Not all of these reviewers will respond, but the ones that do submit will go far. Good reviews will improve your place on the site’s lists and will help attract other readers. To ensure that you receive positive feedback, consider a branding style guide template to improve your marketing strategies. Cultivating reviewers will build prestige for your book.
Offer A Discount
If you are still looking to attract new readers, offering a discount will help. When it comes to self-published authors, a lot of readers look for deals. Offering a discount will not only draw people by price. If you offer a discount, the book will be put on special lists labeling books at a discount. Readers looking on these lists are more likely to pick something they haven’t heard of. As a result, you can make more money by raising the prices.
There are a number of straightforward steps to marketing a book. Take time to identify your target audience. Tailor your title and other marketing tools to attract that audience. Build a launch team to push the book on social media. Encourage reviews of the book to improve your site standing. Offer a discount to bring in browsers. These steps will help ensure that you have readers taking a look at your writing.