How to market your book

So, you’ve finished your book and you may feel like you know the story and characters inside out, but do you know what kind of person your book is for? To market your book to the full potential, you must grasp its target audience so that your marketing can be more refined. Try to visualise who your reader is and write it down. What age group are they? What gender? What experiences have they had? Or what other books would they be into? If you launch your book without knowing your reader, your book won’t have the reach you desire.

It’s said that 80% of authors don’t earn a living from their work, but don’t let this be off-putting. A good way to start your marketing plan is to figure out how much you’re going to charge for your book; both e-book and paperback, then calculate the amount of audience you need to reach your target goal. Try to aim for an achievable goal to start with and then adapt the marketing as you test out different plans. It helps to research what other books, similar to yours, are selling for. You want to be competitive in the book market, not too expensive but not too cheap. There are also book profit calculators online that can help you figure out what earnings you could be making - baring in mind that Amazon will take a cut of these earnings.

Social media marketing can seem like a rabbit hole but is a key way to market a self-published book. Each platform; be it Twitter or Facebook have their own way of reaching audiences. For example, Twitter relies heavily on interaction from users liking and retweeting posts and also the use of hashtags. Facebook, on the other hand, can be more refined to a page about you as an author, video content or live feeds. You can also put money into social media marketing, but this takes an understanding of your audience to be successful. Try putting a small amount of money into your first campaign to check that you’re reaching the right market. Learn as much as you can about popular hashtags that other writers are using and connect with them too. The writing community are very supportive of each other so following them is a really good way to grow your online presence.

As well as using social media for marketing you can also build a following. Start a Facebook page or website about your work and allow your audience to get to know you. Being personal with your audience is a great way to get them on your side. If they are invested in you, they’ll invest in your book. Write blogs and create a mailing list to keep readers up to date with your writing journey and try out competitions for readers to win a free copy.

There are countless blogs, videos, podcasts, and interviews about this subject. More and more writers are turning to self-publishing so there are plenty of pieces to watch so that you can make sure you’re ready to push your book out there. We highly recommend the blogs on https://self-publishingschool.com/ they have interviews with successful self-published authors as well as detailed information on how to perfect your online marketing with correct hashtags.

Remember, this all takes time. You can’t expect your first campaign to be a raging success. Sometimes reaching your right audience is about testing the waters before diving right in.