So, you’re an author. That’s great. But, just writing books isn’t enough – you’ve got to promote you and your books.
The first step to doing this is to have yearly, monthly, and weekly book marketing goals. With goals, you know where you’re heading and can work toward that end.
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Marketing goals can be considered a marketing plan and it will have a number of steps or objectives that must be set in motion and accomplished.
To market your book. You need to generate visibility for you and your platform. Six of the bare basic online marketing strategies to increase you visibility are:
1. Create a presence and platform
Creating an online presence and platform is initiated by creating a website. First though, you’ll need to be sure of your niche because the domain name, site title, and content should reflect your niche and/or your area of expertise.
Remember, plan first. Choose a domain name and title that will grow with you. As an example, if you choose a site name, Picture Books with [Your Name], you’ve limited yourself. What if your next book is a chapter book or young adult, or other?
As part of your book marketing strategy, you should also create a ‘hub’ site that will act as the center to your offshoot sites, such as the individual sites for each of your books.
Leave room to grow; it’s always advisable to use your name as the hub site’s title, or part of it.
In addition, with today’s gone-in-a-second attention span, it’s a good idea to keep your site simple. Marketing expert Mike Volpe of Hubspot.com points out that it’s more important to spend time, and money if necessary, on content rather than a flashy website design; simple works.
Google verifies this ‘simple is better’ strategy and notes that milliseconds count in regard to your page load time. In fact, Google gives a ‘poorer’ score to pages that are slow to load.
Sites that take a few seconds or more to load may also cause you to lose potential subscribers and buyers.
TIP: You should have an author website up and running before you start submitting you manuscript to publishers or before you self-publish.
2. Increase visibility
Writing content, blog posts, for your readers/visitors is the way to increase visibility – content is definitely still King. Provide interesting, informative, and/or entertaining content that will prompt the reader to come back and, just as important, to share your article.
Also, be sure your content is pertinent to your site, and keep your site and content focused on your platform.
3. Draw traffic to your site with blogging
To draw traffic to your site, promote your posts by using social media. You should also include guest blogging. This will increase your visibility reach.
This is considered organic marketing; it funnels traffic back to your site with valuable content and free offers.
TIP: When using social media, choose two or three networks and ‘work’ them. It’s important to be active on the networks you promote your books on.
You can learn more about using social media at:
The Social Media Marketing Smorgasbord
4. Have effective call-to-actions
Your site must have call-to-action keywords that will motivate readers to visit and click on your links. Keywords and phrases to use include:
- Get your Free gift now for subscribing
- Free e-book to offer on your own site
- Buy Now
- Get Access Now
- Get Started Today
- Join for Free
- Don’t hesitate, take advantage of our expert services
- Be sure to Bookmark this site
- Become a better writer – tips right to your inbox
- Are you blogging wrong? Find out how to do it right!
- Know what email marketing is? Find out here!
You get the idea, motivate the reader to want what you’re offering and give him/her a CLEAR and VISIBLE call-to-action. Make it as simple as possible for the visitor to buy what you’re offering.
You can also check out this article from Hubspot for more ideas on CTAs:
Great Call-to-Action Examples
5. Develop a relationship with your readers
It’s been noted that only 1% of first time visitors will buy a product. Usually, only after developing a relationship through your newsletter, information, and offers will your potential customer or client click on the BUY NOW button or other call-to-action you have in place.
While it will take some time and effort to implement and maintain these strategies, it will be worth it in the long run. Think of it as a long-term investment.
6. Create an ebook for increased visibility and opt-in enticement
Another strategy is to offer your readers an ebook relevant to your niche. This will help to increase your usefulness to the reader and help establish your authority.
As an author, you might offer a chapter or an excerpt of your book in ebook format.
So, there you have it - six tips on boosting your book marketing results.
This is a revised reprint from 2013.
Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, children’s ghostwriter, and online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing. For must-know writing and marketing tips, get free access to The Writing World.
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Basic website tips, blogging smart, email marketing basics, and tips on social media marketing.
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