How to Promote a Book: 6 Powerful Tips for Self-Publishers

If you write, only because you love to write, then you don't have to bother about marketing. However, if you want your target audience to read your book as much as possible, and you are self-publishing, you have to learn an additional skill - marketing. For authors, marketing primarily draws target audiences, and engaging requires them to share details about their book and themselves. However, this involves some hard work as you are self-publishing and not taking any particular help from any promotional services. 

So here are some effective promotional ideas that can increase your book’s visibility and attract more readers. If you are wondering how to promote a book, here are 6 dominant tips. 

1.   Have an author blog or website 

You can help the potential readers, or your target audiences to find your book even before you are finished writing it. You can do it by setting up your own blog and author website. On the blog, you can update the site with articles that will come up in the organic search results of your target audience. For example, if you are writing fiction, you can review the most memorable characters or most popular books in the genre. If you are writing about how to manage emotional well-being, then you can cover topics like the latest scientific developments in the field that you can intersperse with insights from your book.

The author's website is a bit different, which gives your author profile a more professional look. Once you have your book ready for publication, update everything on your website so that the visitors can have every detail. 

2.   Eye-catching cover 

You will hear many people saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" but in reality, the book cover creates the first impression on readers. So, make it attractive so that the potential readers get immediately engaged. The right cover design sets the expectations for the readers. To make this successful, think like a reader. When was the last time you picked out a book because you wanted to reward the author for their hard work? Exactly. People buy books to get what they expect out of them. Hence, you need to create a book cover that tells people what they can expect from what's inside. 

3.   Increase online presence and usage of social media 

In today's world, the internet is the most trending and happening place. It is also the reason that has absolutely changed the marketing game forever. When you are self-publishing, use this advantage to reach maximum target audiences across the world. Hence, it is time to increase your online presence and usage of social media to promote the new writing. There are several ways you can do that, such as publishing your articles mentioning the book on popular websites that gain organic heavy traffic. You can also request popular blogs for a feature or interview. In this journey, use social media to strengthen the promotion. Create an author page on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Start by observing what kind of author posts get the most interactions with your target audience and create similar posts with your book. 

4.   Gather useful reviews 

Reviews and testimonies from readers that will create a positive impact on your target audiences. One of the quickest ways to get reviews for your writing is by approaching reviewers of any of your previous books. If this is your grand debut, you can look up Amazon's top reviewers and then shortlist the ones who have previously reviewed your genre. You can also create an email list of reviewers and ask them to give your writing an honest review. 

5.   Goodreads account

Every writer doesn't need to set up a Goodreads Author page, but creating an account there will give you access to multiple working tools. The site has a network of over 65 million members and will help you with great promotional tools such as a widget to embed your book's reviews to other platforms. As Amazon does not let you feature reviews on pre-orders, you can use this feature for pre-orders. On top of that, you can also get these reviews transported to your author's website. This, at the same time, encourages readers to share the book and in return, you will receive some good old mouth-to-mouth advertising. Goodreads also gives you access to various other tools such as giveaways which is a very effective paid way of advertising.  

6.   Bloggers and influencers 

When previously you read the internet changing marketing forever, this is one of the ways. Due to the popularity of social media, you can get help from bloggers and influencers to advertise your book. In this way, you will get the right people talking about your new publication. Now remember, these influencers and bloggers do not have to be famous, they just have to be well-known in the community featuring your target audience. This might be a form of paid advertising, but this works like magic. In no time, through these people, you will see your target audiences talking about your content. 

So, use these ways the next time you plan on self-publishing your new book and see the growth immediately.