There are thousands of ways to market your book. And after months of marketing my book, I’ve put together a list of what I’ve found to be the most effective and important tips for getting the word out about your book on a budget.
Tip #1 – Get a website:
Have a website ready to go by the time your book comes out. And then connect your website directly to your book page on Amazon (and other sites too).
Tip #2: Write Discussion Guidelines:
Have discussion guidelines available for download in PDF format from your website. And if you’ve written a book for adults, consider including a question section for teens.
Tip #3 – Provide free chapters:
Have the first few chapters available as free PDF downloads from your website. This is a great way to “hook” readers into reading the rest of the book.
Tip #4 – Read some books on how to promote your book:
Some of the books I found particularly helpful are:
Sell Your Book on Amazon by Brent Sampson (Great Ways to Establish a Presence on Amazon)
Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny C. Sansevieri (you can sign up for free email information at amarketingexpert.com)
Plug Your Book by Steve Weber (subtitle: Online Book Marketing for Authors)
1001 Ways to Market Your Books (6th Edition) by John Kremer (huge book, so I only read chapter 12 for now: “How to Sell Books Through the Computer”) (you can sign up for free email information from him at bookmarket.com)
Tip #5 – Collect all the advertising tips you can and take advantage of any opportunity:
Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound (sign up for free email information at publicityhound.com) has some great PR advice. And sign up at helpareporter.com to receive email updates from the news sources reporters need.
Tip #6 – Start a blog as soon as possible, preferably before your book is published:
Unfortunately, I only learned this wisdom right before my book was published, but I jumped in once I learned it.
Tip #7 – Optimize your presence on Amazon:
Be sure to take full advantage of the authoring tools on Amazon, including feeding your blog into their AmazonConnect feature on your book page.
Tip #8 – Ask book bloggers to rate your book:
And if they say yes, be sure to give them a free copy for themselves, as well as a free copy for a contest related to your book. Book giveaways on book blogs attract the attention of people who read. (And if book bloggers really like your book, they’ll often be willing to post your blog review on Amazon and other book sites.)
Tip #9 – Take a virtual tour of the book:
I used pumpupyourbookpromotion.com to conduct a month-long virtual book tour (your book gets blogged with a review or interview, or both), and I found the experience extremely effective in developing relationships with book bloggers.
