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You've got a new release coming out. Congrats!
Now comes the fun part: promoting it.
Whether you've written a short story, novella, or a full-fledged serial—and whether it's your first or your tenth—you need to promote it in order to get it in front of your target audience.
But what does that entail, and is there a truly wrong way to promote your book, or is it all relevant?
What's the Difference Between Promoting and Marketing?
While people often use the terms promotion and marketing interchangeably, they are usually slightly different. In essence, promotion is a short-term activity designed to boost sales. Authors will host promotions when they have a new release coming up.
Marketing efforts, on the other hand, are consistent and ongoing. It's part of a long-term strategy to grow and maintain author sales.
Establish Yourself as an Author
Even if you suffer from impostor syndrome, establish yourself. Let the world know who you are. You can do this before or after you publish your first book, but I'll be honest. Before is better.
Why? Because if someone really loves your book, they're going to go in search of more information about you and to discover what else you've published. Make it easy for them to find you.
Create a Website
Some people suggest waiting until you develop a backlist to create a website, but I believe it should be one of the first things you do right before you publish your first book.
Then, you can use it as a marketing and networking tool, whether for your readers, other authors, or bookstores who might want to carry your books.
Your website doesn't have to be complex or in-depth. You can create one in just a few hours with sites like:
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Weebly
- Shopify
You should, however, buy the domain name associated with your real or pen name, depending on which you use to write. It will make you look much more professional and present you as the business you are.
Build a Newsletter
On your website, you should have a newsletter form, where your readers can sign-up to keep up to date on any new releases or exciting news. Setting up a newsletter is fairly simple using companies like MailerLite, Mailchimp, and Bookfunnel.
Use the newsletters to share snippets of your upcoming book, cover teasers, and any information you think will entice your readers to snap up your book on release day.
Don't overwhelm your readers with emails, though. They'll quickly hit that unsubscribe button. Aim for once a week, at the most, and only if you have news to share. When you're first starting out, you might only have enough material to send an email once or twice a month—and that's fine! Remember: it's always quality over quantity.
Branding Matters
Look at any established author's page, and you'll notice they have a brand. Maybe it's as subtle as the colors, or their cohesive book covers, but it's there. You have to determine what you want your brand to be, how you want your readers to perceive you.
Keep Your Messaging Consistent
Keeping your messaging consistent is important, because if you're always bubbly and then go morbid, that's a drastic shift your readers are going to notice. And many times, this will be a turn-off, because they're expecting one thing and getting another.
I would highly suggest if you decide to switch up the genres or niches you write, that you do so under another name. It's a great way to keep branding separate and readers happy.
Put Social Media to Work For You
Your readers are likely hanging out on social media, waiting to discover you. But you have to know how to market yourself there first.
Create Author Page
Whether you're using your real name or a pen name, you should create a Facebook page for your author persona as soon as you know what it is. Do your research first, though. If someone else has that pen name and writes in a similar genre, you're setting yourself up for some confusion.
Use your author page to promote your upcoming books and post regularly. These posts can be snippets of your book (keep these to pivotal moments that don't give away the entire plot), character profiles, or cover and image teasers. Get creative! The more you tease, the more your readers will be invested, especially when you've become established.
Be Strategic
You do NOT need to be on all social media platforms. In fact, you can run yourself ragged even trying. Even if you have a full marketing team, you'll want to be strategic. Instead of creating a page and leaving it to sit on the vast web untouched, focus your efforts where your readers are.
The most effective platforms will depend on your genres. Romance readers, for example, are all over Instagram and TikTok. Sci-Fi readers can be found on Discord, as well as Reddit, though Facebook is quite the draw, as well.
Encourage Reader Engagement
Reader engagement will help build up your social media following fast. The more they engage with your page(s), the more the platforms will promote them. That means you have the potential to land in front of prospective readers who follow other authors in the same genres.
One of the best ways to promote reader engagement is to be active yourself. It's another task to add to the endless list, but this is one that will pay off in spades. Trust me. Readers love interacting with authors and feeling like they're part of an inside group.
Pre-Launch Promotions
Promo, promo, promo!
Before your book comes out, you want to have several promos in place. The bigger push you make, the more chances you'll have to get it in front of readers, new and established.
You don't have to go all out, though! There are a few tried-and-true methods that work beautifully, and many authors use them for every release.
ARC Teams
ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. It's just as it says: it's an advanced copy of your book that goes out to specific readers (your team) a few weeks before its actual release date.
The idea behind an ARC is that your readers will have had time to devour it and will be waiting on release day to post reviews.
So, where do you get an ARC team?
Your reader groups. If you're a new author releasing your first book, it makes sense that you won't have a team just yet. If that's the case, head over to Facebook, join some ARC reader groups (trust me, they're very easy to find), and put out an inquiry. The best way to do this is to create a form for interested members to fill out.
In the beginning, it's okay not to be as selective, since the goal is to build up a team. However, as you grow your backlist and popularity, it pays to be selective and choose only those with a solid history of following through.
Cover Reveals/Teasers
Tease them! Tease your readers on your social media author pages and in your newsletters. Build up that anticipation for your upcoming story.
Teasers can be a partial cover reveal or a snippet of an emotional, angsty, or funny part of your story. Get creative and pull out a few different sections of the book to use in the weeks leading up to release.
Launch Day
You did it! Launch day is here. Now, it's time to ramp up your promotion efforts.
Launch Your Ads
Release day is the day to launch your ads, especially if you're a first-time author. If you're already established, you can run them several days before in hopes people will pre-order (if you offer this) or bookmark it for release day.
Amazon and Facebook are the two major successful platforms, but if you can only afford one, I highly recommend Facebook.
Newsletter Swaps
If you do newsletter swaps, which can be extremely beneficial advertising, ask your partner to release one the week your book goes live. They likely won't go live on your actual release day (unless that's the day the newsletter goes out), but the same week can still have amazing effects on your book's standings on Amazon.
Put Books on Sale
The week of release, you have a choice. You can put your book on sale temporarily, or if your new release is part of a series, put the first book in the series on sale. You'll be surprised at how many people snatch it up at a discounted price.
And you know what having more sales means? More visibility. More reach. Your book in more people's hands.
The most common sales technique is to discount the first in the series to $0.99. But, only temporarily. It'll lower your royalties, but the point in this strategy isn't to boost royalties, but your presence.
Cross Promote
Authors love to see other authors succeed, because while we may consider each other friendly competition, the reality is we love when our readers discover someone new and fun to read, too.
When I launched my first novel, I was lucky enough to be able to post in a popular, established romance author's Facebook reader group, and it gained me some new readers and followers.
But, here's the thing: reciprocate. If another author includes you on their social media or in their newsletter, return the favor. It's the right thing to do, no matter if they are more established than you. The author community, as large as it seems, is actually quite small and word will spread fast if you're not a team player.
Host a Giveaway
You know what engages readers? Free stuff. In this case, the free stuff will be your book and any other promotional materials you choose to include. This could be artwork, stickers, or a fun bookmark.
Ongoing Efforts
One of the beautiful things about releasing a book is you can continue to earn royalties from it for the rest of your life. But just because your release day is over doesn't mean you should give up on it.
Continue to push your promotion efforts into marketing, a longer-term strategy to keep the sales rolling. Once the book is in your reader's hands, though, you have a few options to keep them reading and to get them to sign up for future updates, if they're not already subscribed to your newsletter.
Reader Magnets
The keyword here is free. A reader magnet is a free story or novella sent to your readers who sign up for your newsletter. It helps build your email list and bring in new readers.
If you don't have something to offer your readers, maybe now is the time to write something to bring them in.
Or…
Epilogues
You could write an extended epilogue. I've actually probably signed up for dozens of newsletters this way.
The way it works, after you write the coveted words "the end," you write an extended epilogue. But… it's not available in the book itself. Rather, it's something your readers have to sign up for in order to read. Then, the link to read the extended epilogue is sent to their email, where they can download it.
Of course, they could unsubscribe after signing up and reading, but many (myself included) often choose not to because they either forget, or they were so enthralled with the book—they did want to read more after all—they want to stay in touch and see what other books come out later.
Looking for interesting ways to promote your upcoming book? Check out how Sudowrite can help you brainstorm and put into effect new promotion techniques.