Book Marketing: 4 Essential Things to Get Right

[Please note, this post, like every post at The Self-Publishing Coach, was written by a human – me! – Alexandra Amor.]

“How can I sell more books? Should I try ads on Facebook or Amazon?”

I get these questions frequently from authors who are naturally proud of the books they’ve written and want more readers to find those books. The first thing I ask in return is this: Is your book marketing foundation in place?

What’s a Book Marketing Foundation?

It doesn’t matter how adept an author is at ads or other marketing strategies if the foundational elements for their book are not in place. Ads won’t work if the pieces that make up a book’s marketing foundation are sloppy or ill positioned.

So how do you make sure that doesn’t happen for your book?

Reader Behaviour

First you need to understand how readers behave when they’re scrolling online, looking for a good book. Online sales are where most of your book sales will come from and there is a sequence of events that happens:

1. The reader sees a bunch of covers and stops at one that appeals to them.
2. Then, if the cover holds their attention for a second or two, they’ll read the book’s description.
3. Next, if the description has interested them, they’ll check out the price of the book.
4. And finally, if the book still appeals to them, they’ll look at some of the reviews.

(Sometimes # 3 and 4 are swapped in order.)

Four Foundational Elements of Your Book Marketing

Given this behaviour, here are the absolutely essential elements that must be in place and be skilfully presented in order for your book to sell. Ideally, these things should be in place as you’re publishing your book; they are not something to be worked on after publishing has happened. 

I’ve listed these elements in order of not just their importance but in order of when they will hit a potential reader’s eyeballs.

1. Book Cover Design

I’ve been writing about this recently and you can read about the most important element of a book cover and why your cover is your most important marketing tool. Bottom line: your book cover needs to SCREAM that it belongs to the genre it fits into. It needs to meet the expectations of the potential reader who is searching for their next great read. Get this wrong, and nothing else will work. Seriously, this is your most important piece of book marketing.

2. Your Book’s Description

A book’s description should not just be a synopsis of the plot. It needs to grab the reader, hook and tease them. I recommend Bryan Cohen’s book How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis to learn more about writing a book description – often called a ‘blurb’ – that will help sell your book.

3. Book Price

As an independent author you can, of course, charge whatever you want for your book. And you’ve probably seen that traditional publishers will charge $15 or more for an ebook. However, as an author who’s not a household name, you’re not going to get away with charging the maximum amount for your ebook. I recommend you find other independent authors in your genre and do some research about what they’re charging for their ebooks. 

Print book pricing, of course, depends partially on what it costs to print the book. The retailer you’re working with (e.g., Amazon and/or IngramSpark) will give you that number and you can then work up to the retail price from there. But, again, your price is likely going to be lower than what a traditional publisher would charge for a comparably sized book.

4. Reviews

Social proof is important for anything you’re selling online, including a book. Readers want to know if others like your book, just like you want to know if others like that expensive rain jacket or dehumidifier you’ve been thinking about buying. 

There are a number of ways to get reviews for a brand new book, including submitting the book to a service that provides reviews in exchange for a complimentary copy of the book. (Book Sirens is an example of this type of service. You’re not paying for the review, which is against Amazon’s Terms of Service, you’re paying for the distribution of your book to those who provide reviews.)

Another idea is to ask for a review at the end of the book. Sounds corny, but it actually does work.

There is no magic bullet

Book marketing is an octopus

Your efforts to ensure your marketing foundation is solid will reward you down the road. Get those elements in place, and then, if you do decide to try advertising your book, those ads won’t be going to waste on a book that isn’t clearly communicating the right messages to its potential readers.

This post, like every post at The Self-Publishing Coach, was written by a human – me! – Alexandra Amor.

^{Construction photo courtesy Josh Olalde on Unsplash}

^{Key photo courtesy Calvin Hanson on Unsplash}

^{Octopus illustration by Tetiana Gutnyk on iStock Photo}