Christina Kaye
Book sales stuck in the "friends zone?" Here are 3 super effective ways to promote your book that you probably never thought of before!
When it comes to marketing your book, you’ve probably already tried (or plan to try) using social media to spread the word.
Maybe you’re even a bit ahead of those authors who rely on social platforms alone, and you’ve even set up a complete email marketing strategy.
But odds are, you’re still scratching your head, looking at your KDP analytics, wondering why on earth your books just are not selling.
I can tell you exactly what’s going on.
You’re focused too heavily on promoting your book to your “bubble” audience – those readers you can market to any given day by posting on social media or sending a newsletter.
But what if there was a way to reach exponentially more of your target audience of readers who are not in your “bubble?”
There absolutely is a way, and in this post, I’m going to share with you five super effective but way too often overlooked book marketing strategies, each of which will expose you and your book to thousands more readers than you will ever reach without them.
What's in the Blog??
Get Yourself Featured in the Media!
Not even trying to get yourself featured in the media is a huge oversight, especially considering how even one media appearance will expose you to tons of your target audience, who would likely never hear of you otherwise.
In my experience, there are two common reasons so many authors skip this step:
1) they are intimidated by the prospect of being so “out there” and exposed, and/or
2) they think they need an expensive book publicist to reach out to media contacts.
I understand the discomfort many authors feel because so many of us are introverted, shy, or even reclusive by nature.
And from the time the first book was printed until now, authors never had to worry about showing their face publicly.
But we now live in a completely different, totally virtual world, and hiding behind our computer screens is no longer an option for authors who want to succeed in self-publishing.
Also, there’s no rule that says you must hire a book publicist if you want to be featured in the media.
Anyone who has internet access to find media contact information and the gumption to put themselves out there with a short, simple, and concisely worded pitch email can and should be working as their own book publicist.
PRO TIP:
If you CLICK HERE and grab my digital resource on being your own book publicist, I can help you with every step of this process!
Start small and with the types of media you feel most comfortable with, such as writing a guest blog post, then, over time, you’ll feel more and more at ease with being in the public eye, and you can work on booking podcasts, magazine features, and more.
Attend Book Events & Host Your Own!
There are two types of important events you should be using to your advantage to network, grow your reader fanbase, and promote your book.
First, you should always attend as many “bookish” events as you can possibly find and get to.
For this purpose, we’re not talking about writers’ conferences or author events but rather book fairs and festivals…basically any events at all that showcase books and sell them.
Many offer opportunities for you to set up a seller booth, where you can (and should whenever possible) set up shop and sell both regular paperbacks and signed/special edition copies of your books.
But even if you don’t yet have a book launched and ready to sell, you still want to attend as many of these as you can and use these opportunities to chat up as many people as possible and get them to sign up for your newsletter and follow you on social media.
PRO TIP:
The best way to make networking at events fruitful is to have a digital author business card saved on your phone. CLICK HERE to snag my Canva template for a digital card that features a QR code and makes it super simple to ask people to scan and follow you!
The other type of event you should be leveraging is your own book signings, where you can meet readers face to face, showcase your book list, and sell your newest release (and don’t forget signed copies and to grab my original, exclusive Signed by the Author book stickers by CLICKING HERE!)
The bottom line here is to attend very possible book function you can, so you can network like a crazy person, grow your fanbase quickly, and promote your books!
Cross-Promote with Similar Authors & Collab with Influencers!
Yet another strategy that is overlooked way too often by most authors is working with others to spread the word about your books.
Think about it.
If you rely only on social media and maybe even your newsletter, not only are you relegated to reaching only your “bubble,” you are also doing all the heavy lifting yourself, and there’s only so many people you can reach solo.
However, if you work with even just one other person in our community, that one connection alone will at least double your exposure to readers!
The first and easier path is to find and connect with other authors who write in your genre or niche, reach out to them, propose a potential cross-promotion opportunity, and when the time is right, you and that author can do a number of different things, including:
- Newsletter swaps
- Joint live events on TikTok
- Social media takeovers
- Writing short-story anthologies
The ideas are almost endless!
The other path requires a bit more work and a little more nerve, but a highly effective strategy is to also approach influencers on TikTok, Intagram, and YouTube, and ask them to promote your book for you to their followers.
Granted, this option is one that requires a bit of an investment since most big influencers will expect to be compensated for their time, either monetarily or with gifts.
But the good news is that the author influencer market is still relatively new, and most influencers don’t really expect a large fee for each post.
Either way, working with others in our community not only exposes you to their built-in audience (but be sure their audience matches yours), but you’ll also see your own following grow quickly because that author or that influencer has the trust of their audience, and if they tell their followers to buy your book, they are much more likely to do so than some random stranger off the internet.
Before closing, I want to emphasize that these 3 strategies, even when combined with a strong social media presence and a complete email marketing system in place, still do not completely cover all the bases when it comes to ways you can and should be out there promoting your books.
And at the core of every single strategy you implement is the fact that, in order to be successful in self-publishing, you must first grow your readership as much as possible, then, you should never stop growing your following.
If you would like me to help you successfully launch your book and your author career, and you want to hear how I teach all this and more to my private coaching clients and how I can teach you everything you need (and more) to establish yourself as a bestselling author, then let’s chat.
I offer totally FREE, no obligation, 30-minute consultations to all authors who are ready, willing, and able to invest in their future and their careers in self-publishing.
All you have to do is CLICK HERE and request your free call now!
