Marketing Primer: Getting Started with Promotions

Maintaining a consistent schedule of promotions helps authors remain in the forefront of readers’ mind.

Before you start scheduling promotions, make sure you make quality promotional graphics ready!

Preparing Promotional Materials

Give readers something to remember you and you book both in-person and online. This starts with high quality graphics and professional design. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. Using graphic editing software like Canva or Book Brush allows anyone to create eye-catching graphics for print or online use for a reasonable monthly fee. There are also design services that are very affordable (many are authors running side businesses).

Physical materials you may need for in-person events and sending or selling to readers may include: paper bookmarks, business cards, post cards, book plates to sign and mail, banners and posters, and flyers.

Virtual materials for social media promotion and digital advertising may include: teasers, quotes, digital autographs, posts to save/share, videos, book trailers, social media banners, 3D cover art, or logos.

Unique promotional materials can make you stand out. Consider options such as book-themed jewelry, ribbon bookmarks, book plates, mugs, t-shirts, pens, etc.

Personal materials you want to have prepared include: live reading selections, Q&As, chat sessions, etc.

Setting up Cross Promotions

Cross promotions are all about help other authors while expanding your readership. Here area few ideas to consider getting involved with:

Newsletter Swaps: You agree to feature another author’s book in your email newsletter and they share yours in their newsletter. The author with the smaller newsletter gets the most benefit, but both authors are exposed to new readers. This works best with the features books are in similar genres.

Combined marketing pushes: These are especially common and effective around themes or holidays. All authors promote a group of books, usually with a single landing page. This can work for free or paid books.

Guest post/Interview trades: Share guest posts, promos, or interviews on each others blogs/websites. This increases your general exposure and opens you up to new readers as well.

Multi-author events: Join other authors in celebrating a theme, holiday, or just to have fun. Consider hosting Facebook parties, Twitter chats, a group sale, an author panel Q&A.

Box Sets: In a box set, each author contributes a book and all the books are sold as one unit in an ebook format. All authors MUST agree to promote and share any advertising costs. Be sure to vet the other authors involved before signing a contract.

Free Marketing Avenues

Next week I’ll discuss paid marketing options, but don’t forget about the many free avenues available for marketing a book. Free marketing opportunities are often time consuming, but can be very effective. Here are a few ideas to consider:

Facebook: Join some of the many marketing groups and share links to your books. Post to your author page on a regular basis. Make sure to keep promotional posts to 25%. Run a giveaway on your author page for an ebook or signed paperback. Host a Facebook party to celebrate a new release, book anniversary, your birthday, etc.

Twitter: Use the Pinned Tweet feature to highlight a buy link or promotion. Tweet daily with interesting content and occasional promotions. Follow readers and authors and start book-related conversations.

eBook Submission Sites: There are a wide variety of submission sites, many genre specific. While many do charge a fee, there are some that are free to submit to. It can be time consuming to submit individually, but can gain you new readers and sales.

Cross-promote: Team up with other authors to share each others posts, tweets, pins, or links. Some author groups do this regularly, such as ChickLitChatHQ on Fridays.

Free ebook offer: Offer readers a free ebook, novella, excerpt, etc. on a permanent or temporary basis. Many authors use a free product as a reader magnet to increase newsletter subscriptions.

Video and Audio: Make use of YouTube for Vlogging, book trailers, author readings, or a weekly check-in or chat. Start a radio show or podcast to talk about books, writing, or whatever you’re interested in.

Creative Marketing

The more creative your marketing efforts are, the more memorable they will be. Try to match marketing to the theme or a unique feature of your book(s).

A great example of this was the launch of “The Girl on the Train.” On release day, the publisher deployed dozens or more employees onto subway trains with copies of the book. They rode around on trains for several hours reading copies of the book and engaging in conversations about it.

Other examples include “The Liar Society” authors and promoters wearing pink wigs to match the hair of the main character, a photography-themed book author ran a camera giveaway and Pinterest contest, an author/musician offered a free digital music album with purchase of his book.

Don’t be afraid to try new ideas!