Ways to promote a book in only a few minutes
Hey Guys - As you know learning
how to market a book is one of the challenging tasks in the publishing process,
but it doesn’t need to take hours of your time.
However,
it is worth taking a moment to recap and define what it means.
In
brief, any action you take to bring your book to the notice of potential
readers is of high value. Whether it be an expensive advertising campaign or a
simple social media post, the aim is exactly the same.
It
is to encourage as many people as possible to consider your book, but
importantly, it is not a means of finding people to buy your book.
Think
of it this way. Attracting social media followers is all about finding people,
connecting, and then communicating. It’s a very slow and time-consuming
process.
Online marketing
or promoting your book is about getting your book out to the world in as many
ways as possible and to as many people and places as possible. The more eyes
you can attract to your book, the better your chances of making book sales.
Ideally, the
various means you use to do this should be both time and cost-effective, as
well as having a long-lasting effect.
With these goals
in mind, here are 20 ways to help your book sales that will each only take
around ten minutes for you to do.
Before we offer you the typical ways to market yourself and your book we are going to suggest that you place an add in The Scribe - the Breaking Rules Publishing online and hard copy magazine.
Also - Breaking Rules Publishing is currently accepting manuscript submissions. Breaking Rules works with our authors to help market them and their books. Look to the Breaking Rules Publishing website at www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com for additional information.Last
Now for the real work -
1. Re-Post one of your 5-star
book reviews
You can add your
review on Facebook and Twitter along with your book cover image and pin it to
the top of your feed so every visitor will see it – for weeks.
To get the link
to your review on Amazon, go to the review, and click the permalink button.
Then copy this address from your browser.
2. Open a Pinterest account
Pinterest helps
you to gain image search traffic to your site or blog. It’s an ideal social
network for your book covers.
3. Add a comment on a popular
book blog
Look for articles
on three high traffic book blogs and post a comment.
You’d be
surprised how many people click on comment links, which will lead readers to
your profile, author website or blog.
It’s a bit like a
book tour, but it is much easier and quicker for you.
4. Add a comment to a newspaper article
Look for a major
newspaper lifestyle article. Make sure it is a non-topical article though.
Avoid politics! Once again, your profile link as a published author will be
valuable in gaining some traffic to your blog and books.
5. Check your author bio again on your website - don't have one? GET ONE!
Carefully read
your bio or profile on your social media sites. Has it been exactly the same
for a very long time? Does it need refreshing to make it more appealing to
readers? Can you improve it? I am sure you can.
Authors hate
writing bios, and would much prefer to write a book instead. But, it’s a task
that has to be done.
If it has been a
while since your book launch, perhaps you could check your book trailer again
too and improve it.
6. Publish to Medium
Open an account on Medium and
re-publish your best-performing blog posts.
It’s a very easy
process to import articles from your blog and Medium can help you gain a lot of
new readers. Remember to put a link at the end of the article to your author
website.
7. Do you have a Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn - Instagram pages?
If not, create
one and then invest a little money in gaining Facebook Likes for your page.
On average it
costs about 8 to 15 cents per Like. That’s cheap, and also a wise
long-term investment to get people to read your book as Facebookers very rarely
unlike a page.
8. Open a short URL account
You can open an account on bit.ly and shorten all your commonly
used book links so they look far more attractive when you post them on social
media or add links to your blog posts or comments.
Tip! You can edit
these short links to reflect a little of your book title or author name.
With bit.ly you can change
this very ugly book link:
https://www.amazon.com/One-Last-Love-never-late-ebook/dp/B007L5C424/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1499424937&sr=8-16&keywords=one+last+love
https://www.amazon.com/One-Last-Love-never-late-ebook/dp/B007L5C424/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1499424937&sr=8-16&keywords=one+last+love
Which one do you
think will work better and attract more clicks?
9.
Run an ad
You can run ads
on Facebook or on Amazon if you are enrolled in KDP Select. But with either, be
prudent and stay within your budget.
10. Place an ad on your blog
Find your three
best-performing blog articles and place your book cover image as a text-wrapped
ad, with a link to Amazon, or use a universal link to all your book retailers.
11. Find three high traffic book,
writing or publishing blogs and write an article
Make contact and
ask if you can write an article for them.
Many sites have a Write For Us or guest posting page,
so keep your eyes open for opportunities to promote your writing to a much
wider audience.
Tip! In fact, some writers don’t even
bother with having their own blog, because having articles published on popular
sites brings far more traffic, readers and importantly, social shares.
12. Set up a free ebook promotion
It’s a lottery,
but hopefully, someone will read your free Kindle books and be kind enough to
post a review. Online book clubs often use free ebooks, so it’s worth a try.
On this point, I
discovered I had a new book review today, which I think came by way of a free
Kindle copy of an ebook I last offered for free over a year ago. Now that is
long-term book promotion!
13. Is your book cover absolutely
fabulous and eye-catching?
Now, be brutally
honest with yourself, or better, ask people what they think. If you don’t have
a top-shelf killer book cover, take a few minutes to search for a reputable
book cover designer and get one.
14. Buy affordable long-term book
promotion
Whizbuzz Books offers one year of book promotion for only
$49.00. There are many book promotion sites offering different book promotion services.
15. Read an article about SEO
Read an article about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and
put one or two ideas into practice for your blog or website.
Search engine
traffic is by far the best way to attract new potential readers and book
buyers, day in and day out.
16. Check your book metadata (SEO
for books)
Check your keywords and categories for your book on Amazon KDP or
any other online retailer you use.
Can
you make a few small changes to your categories or keywords that would help
readers find your book more easily?
17. Is your book in KDP Select?
If your book in not
enrolled in KDP Select, why not try it for 3 months to see if you can
attract Kindle Unlimited readers.
Or, if you have
been in KDP Select for quite some time, perhaps try open publishing for a
while.
18. Change your book price
Is your book too expensive, or
even perhaps, too cheap? Try changing the price for a few weeks.
19. Use the Amazon book widget
Add Amazon’s embedded book widget on your website or blog. It
looks fantastic and gives visitors a chance to read a preview of your book and
buy it, directly on your site. It is one of the best widgets to help you sell
books.
20. Create your Amazon author
page
Every bestselling author has
one. If you haven’t done so yet, create your author page on Amazon Author Central. You can add your
blog feed, change and improve the look of your book descriptions, add editorial
reviews and much more.
Tip! You
can create your author pages on Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Germany.
Bonus Tip – Update your email
signature
You use email a
lot or have an email list, this is as close to word of mouth advertising as you
can get.
Add your, blog,
Amazon Author page or even a thumbnail or your book cover to your email
signature.
Breaking Rules Publishing Monthly Book Club
Check out the new Breaking Rules Publishing Book Of The Month Club on our website - www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com
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