Book Marketing and Promotion

You’ve written your book. You have had it edited to within a hairsbreadth of perfection. Your manuscript has been read by a trusted group of beta-readers. (You don’t have beta-readers? Let’s talk.) Now it’s time to send your baby out into the world. What’s next?

Well – that depends on your goals. Believe it or not, making a ton of money is usually low on an authors list, but you at least want to have your book well read, well reviewed and to break even… amirite?

You need a great cover.

A great cover isn’t necessarily something that fulfills your artistic sensibilities. A great cover sells books. It should be, in the words of Maestro David Gaughran, ‘Uniquely Familiar.’ It should resonate with your target readers who will, indeed, judge your book by its cover.

Good cover designers cost money. Unless you have a brilliant graphic designer in the family, this is not a place to try and save cash. It’s that important.

You need a winning description.

Writing ad-copy is distinctly different from writing a book. Moreover, this book is YOUR book – so if you are a reasonable person, it’s going to be tough to tell everyone how beautiful, marvelous, thrilling, mind-blowingly page-turning your baby is.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. Your book description needs to be lightly loaded with category appropriate keywords and meta-data to appeal to the all-encompassing algorithms that dominate digital space. And yes, we can help.

You need a plan.

This is where we come in. And this is why your goals are so important.

First, we need to identify your readers and analyze the competition. We need to nestle you in the correct genre and subgenre, and then we need to find the right keywords to help them find you. It sounds like rocket science, but it isn’t. It’s computer science.

Next, we need to go and get you some readers, and we need those readers to leave you some 5-star reviews. If you have an established street-team, you will already have reviews the day you launch your book.  An emerging author doesn’t usually have a street-team, mailing lists or a fan base.  So we are going to have to market you like mad. We can do that.

Price Promotions.

Self-publishing gives you control over pricing, and the best platforms give you the option of periodic promotional periods. Your promotional period combined with an aggressive marketing strategy across multiple book-promo newsletters will allow you to sell a stack of books in a short amount of time. Strong sales will increase your visibility on your platform, improve your ranking, and garner the reviews you need to keep on selling.

KDP and Kobo Ad Platforms

As a self-published author, you can open an advertising account on many of the platforms you choose to place your book. You can bid by keyword or impression, target genres or like authors.  Using the ad platforms offered by your book dealer is essential. If you understand how to use these advertising programs, you will usually enjoy a positive return on your investment.

Social Media

I know, I hate social media too. (If you happen to love social media you have a headstart!) The up-side of the intrusive data gathering done by the largest social media networks is this: as an advertiser you can target your readers on a granular level. Do you write occult horror? You can target Stephen King fans. Do you write books about poodle grooming?  You can locate everyone who owns a poodle. Do you write romance fiction?  You get the idea.  The best thing is that the more you use this platform, the more tightly you can target your readers because as they interact with you online, you will be able to target others just like them. It’s evil.  But it works.

Author Platform

There are several good reasons to have a website. If you enjoy writing regularly, plan on building a fan base, and plan to release multiple titles, you really should have your own home on the web. Its main job, however, is to help you collect email addresses.  Email marketing is one of the most powerful things you can do for your book, and a good email program can make the difference between a best-selling launch or a hard climb out of the Amazon basement.

And yes, we can build your platform.

Marketing Services

We can help you with your launch plan, run your campaigns for you, assist you in building your social media networks, help you develop and run your ad campaigns. We can create your platform and even run it for you.

We can also teach you to do these things yourself, supporting you, coaching you and helping you to stay on track.  But first, we need to get your book online. Let’s talk about publishing!