Marketing your book can often times feel overwhelming. There’s so much to do and it’s difficult to know where to start. In part two, of the three-part series: Marketing for the Novice Author, we’re forming a step-by-step plan to guide you towards successful book marketing.
The First Step – Identify your Target Audience
Before anything else, identify your target audience. This will give you direction for your book marketing strategy. Determine who is likely to buy your book and learn as much about them as possible. Establishing who they are and why they might buy your book is essential to your book marketing strategy.
It will take some time to establish your target audience but after you have, your goal is to reach them. Reaching them won’t guarantee that they buy your book, but if you reach the right target audience, you’ll have greater success.
In today’s online world your reach is limitless (we touched briefly on this in part one). Take what you’ve learned about your target audience and create your social media presence.
The Second Step – Build your Brand
The main goal of book marketing is to sell books, but that is not your ulterior motive with social media. It’ll never work if you’re directly promoting your book. Through building communities and your brand within those communities your book will begin promoting itself.
Each form of social media is different and it’s important to understand these differences to optimize the usage.
Still the most used social media site. It’s great for promoting brand awareness and has great user diversity, meaning it can market to essentially anyone. It allows you to target your posts to specific audiences based on their interests or demographics.
Users are highly engaged compared to other platforms. However, posts are highly visual, and pretty much limited to pictures and short videos. If you can find creative ways to showcase your book, this is a great source of media.
Top platform for professionals and it’s a highly international network. It’s great for networking with professionals and establishing credibility.
Goodreads
Social platform for books and book lovers. You can sign up as an author and add your books. Find groups that fit your genre and target audience and get involved in the community. Readers have the ability to review and rate books which makes it a great source for word-of-mouth.
Keep in mind that while not all forms will be the right fit for you, you’ll likely use more than one platform, and you’ll want to be consistent through all of them. Not posting the same thing across all forms, but making one clear and unified brand.
Social media takes time. Be patient and consistent and it will begin to take form.
The Third Step – Manage your Author Website
Your author website is the base for everything you have online. Your social media will be linked to your website, so once there’s consistent community on your social media, your website traffic will increase as well. Fans should be able to find everything they need on the website.
Every website will be different but they should all have these essentials:
- A nice design that gives a good first impression.
- A contact form that allows fans to get in touch with you.
- A clear way to purchase or download your books and other works.
- Social media icons to direct fans to your different platforms.
- Relevant information on upcoming events or news regarding your books.
- A simple way to subscribe to your emailing list.
- A detailed bio telling about yourself and your work.
We’d love to hear if we can help you further. Email your availability to john@ebooks2go.net to schedule a free consultation.