If you are a rookie 1st-time writer and planning to promote your first novel, it might appear as a daunting task. Many experienced and amateur writers make efforts to compose and publish their manuscript, however, their book is preserved on the bookshelf just like a trophy of failure. A vast audience love reading fascinating books, and keeps waiting to hear the new book launching. Inexperienced writers or entrepreneurs who are running a book promotional campaign for the first time make different book promotional mistakes that won’t allow their new book to be discovered by retailers, online bookstores, and extensive writers and book fans.
Before promoting their book, writers should take time and carefully analyze their manuscript including the title of the book and catchy words on the cover of the book. Observe the stunning images in the book. The book blurb and concise book description can attract the reader’s eyes to buy the gorgeous book. A solid knowledge of marketing tactics casts a spell and influences the audience toward the book.
So, if you are planning to promote your book, reading this article will help you embrace the right promotional tone to get your audience to click to the cart to either read or publish your valuable paperback. You will learn about the dos of book promotion that provide authors with new prospects to reach a global audience. Writers can promote their books on social media, websites, and online platforms. Moreover, they will learn about some common book promotional errors that cause delays in book promotion. For instance, authors lack experience in defining their particular market niche, their book cover is unengaging or high price of the book. Sometimes, running a single book promotional campaign might not hook new audiences and avoid promotion of the book on a vast scale.
The article will help authors know the significance of book promotion activities that allow authors to know their audience demographics, preferences, and changing trends. Moreover, writers get a chance to build their network by participating in literary festivals and conferences. They also get connected with the readers on a broader level. Consequently, book sales boost in both physical bookstores and online platforms.
Book promotion: Help Build a Spectacular Online Presence of the Author Leading to Success and Recognition
Identify your promotional objectives and milestones
In today’s digital era, book marketing companies can drive online and offline book sales by initiating actionable and manageable goals. Many companies prefer using short-term solid and tangible goals that help increase the book’s visibility on online platforms. The promotional campaign includes publicizing the manuscript through book launching on the website, social media, and email marketing. Promotional events presented in physical and online bookstores, literary festivals, book fairs, and conferences allow companies to reach new audiences and clients who show genuine interest in reading the author’s genre and unique writing style. Furthermore, self-published writers can improve their fan club as they get a chance to engage with book clubs, forums, online communities, and other book-writing companies. Having strong and persuasive goals increases revenue, attracts more customers, and maximizes the online presence of the company.
Leverage the Benefit of setting up an Author’s Website
If you have recently started your book marketing services, you should consider having an eye-catching and interactive website that makes your name familiar to a broad audience. A well-designed and user-friendly author website should be appealing to the audience. Some businesses choose to create a simple and minimalistic website with alluring color designs that make navigation easier for book lovers. The website should have an author’s portfolio that provides significant information about the writer or company’s present and past achievements. Furthermore, readers also view the sample work of the individual writer or group of authors on the web pages. An engaging website having product pages that upload featured articles and blog posts, quotations, and excerpts from the book also sparks readers’ interest. Consequently, landing pages allow authors to establish a strong network with their fans who help propagate their book on different platforms.
Utilizing Social Media to Explore Book Promotion Options
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube have highly active members who keep browsing social media sites to search for new books. The other way to promote sales on social media pages is by making tweets that highlight different aspects of the book. Sharing blogs, excerpts and attractive social media posts related to the book keeps the audience captivated toward the book. Thus, social media campaigns build a buzz around the book and keep potential readers mesmerized.
Let’s dive into reading the Dos of Book Promotion. How it elevates the exposure of your new book in the book industry
Connect with your readers
Whether you want to promote your book to online viewers or readers who prefer reading traditional print books, you are required to build a deep association with the audience. It implies writers know for whom they are writing and selling the book. They can locate their target market through executing a wide research related to the favorite reading genres of the audience, and the changing reading habits and trends. Knowing about the author’s demography helps book marketers create promotional campaigns that help the audience choose a book they yearn to buy. Consequently, more book lovers visit online sites and retail stores to search for new fascinating publications.
Create a blogging site or individual website
Developing WordPress.com and other blogging sites creates brand awareness in a wider audience. As prospective clients read the excerpts or blogs posted on the site, they get acquainted with the author’s writings and style. Moreover, they get a chance to read a few sample chapters or read the complete book free on the website. As compared to the traditional promotional method, managing a blogging site quickly attracts readers. The links provided on the blogging page help boost the promotional efforts of the company among different audiences.
Create a Social Media Calendar and Hashtags
If you desire your book to reach the audience instantly, employing social media tactics will boost the book’s visibility. For instance, the authors are required to base their social media posts on the themes and different topics of the book. The social media posts on Instagram and Facebook are scheduled to be posted each day. Around 2.5 billion monthly active users on Facebook and Instagram constantly search for engaging promotional content related to the book. The social media posts per day on Twitter act as sales pitches. When the author selects the hashtags with the posts, it drives high engagement. A brief and striking message on Twitter portrays the author’s consistent voice across global readers. The companies initiate incentives, discounts, and promotional gifts as a part of a social media promotional plan to boost book sales on numerous platforms.
Keep your fans hooked by building a loyal fan base through book signings, author events, and online interactions
If your books have been published earlier, you must have attended book signing events at bookstores or joined different promotional events. During the book signing event, the authors should keep the session captivating by creating interesting promotional events. They comprise organizing concerts, writing contests, book exhibitions, and book fairs. The event-based promotion is visited by both loyal fans and new audiences who are unfamiliar with the author and his brand. Therefore, the authors should impress new clients by offering promotional gifts including business cards or postcards. The other incentives include buying a signed copy of the book or delivering discount copies of the book to a vast audience. Magnificent promotional campaigns enthuse loyal customers to boost their marketing on online bookstores, websites, and among other stakeholders.
Crafting an Interesting Visual Book Trailer
Many online book marketing companies have adopted different digital methods of marketing for book fans who spend more time browsing online sites. The companies create short promos based on the book. The visual trailer of the book demonstrates the storyline, important scenes, and events that thrill the audience to read the whole book. Moreover, the high-quality sounds and visuals allow new readers to know the author, his genre, and his style of writing. Circulating the book preview in videos mesmerizes the reading experience and keeps a wider audience hooked.
What Are the Don’ts of Book Promotion for an Author?
Having no idea about the Target Audience
Let’s suppose, you have composed your book but you fail to identify the targeted audience for whom you have written the book. It might be possible that the theme or topic of the book does not resonate with the audience’s perceptions and interests. Therefore, the readers will not enthusiastically respond to your book promotion activities. Thus, without having a clear understanding of your potential clients’ reading habits and trends makes it difficult to create effective marketing messages that prompt readers toward the book.
Overlooking the significance of a well-designed book cover
The importance of book covers in book marketing cannot be denied. It appears to be the essential feature of the book that tempts every reader to buy the book. Many book covers are unable to captivate the reader’s attention due to their weak composition. For instance, the cover designs contain many images that seem disordered and do not harmonize with each other. Moreover, the inappropriate color scheme, font choice, topography, and unappealing visual concepts give an unprofessional and uninviting look to the book. Many readers just scroll through the books on websites and fail to come up with the decision whether to purchase the book due to unalluring covers.
Do not overspend on book promotion without assessing the return on investment.
Before running your promotional campaigns, inexperienced book marketing services do not carefully measure their promotional expenses. Many of them hastily invest in activities that lead to loss. For instance, if a company accepts retailers or service provider prices without making negotiations, it means they have missed out on potential cost-saving opportunities.
Small companies should evaluate their marketing budget. Instead of using cash inflow, businesses can promote their marketing campaigns by engaging in organic marketing. It includes email marketing campaigns. It involves companies sending promotional emails to an extensive audience. The newsletters, flyers, excerpts, and quotations from the book are displayed on websites and social media pages that also entice readers. Furthermore, blog posts and social media posts keep the audience engaged. Thus, avoiding overspending on extraneous services will help companies save amount to utilize promotional resources to excel in their marketing efforts.
Never underrate the power of book reviews
Let’s suppose your book hasn’t received any reviews or your book is critically reviewed by numerous audiences. It signifies that your book has faults that make it unappealing for book fans. An unengaging storyline, boring plot, monotonous characters, or slow pacing of the book might not attract potential readers. Conversely, if you have created compelling content that is relevant to the reader’s interests, but you haven’t taken notice of the positive reviews related to your book. It might slow down your promotional campaigns since loyal customers expect companies to promptly respond to their feedback. Furthermore, helpful reviews help book promotion services to expand their promotion on different platforms.
Avoid spamming potential readers with excessive promotional messages or advertisements.
In experience, marketers disseminate excessive promotional messages about the book and the author which brings a negative perception to the author. Such messages are often regarded as spam by the audience. The audience ignores the spamming messages or unsubscribes such companies. Consequently, it reduces the marketer’s reach and is unable to attract new readers. Therefore, book marketers are required to build a positive and trustful relationship with potential readers through collaboration and building a network. Employing successful book marketing strategies will foster book engagement and value on promotional platforms.
To recapitulate
If you are a new author and planning to publish your dream book, you must know the benefits of setting solid book promotional goals. It is also significant to gain knowledge about the common mistakes that the authors make due to a lack of experience in performing book promotional activities. Before you plan to promote your book, build an author platform. It signifies creating an author website, blogging site, or establishing a social media page that allows authors to collaborate with other authors and clients. Having a broad network establishes a strong online presence for the author and his publication. Many authors have inadequate marketing reach that adversely impact their promotional plans. Effective branding suggests authors propagate their consistent brand voice among all online platforms. Some inexperienced authors get involved with spam or negative promotional activities that damage the advertising campaigns. Another benefit an author can avail is to disseminate the book among clients, agents, retailers, and online publishers. Attending literary festivals, book fairs, podcasts, discussions, and seminars will help authors and companies establish their niche in the publishing industry. Consider giving promotional giveaways, incentives, and discounts as a part of your campaign. It helps generate buzz around the book to reach out your book to potential readers and target new ones.