Not long ago, a friend with a shiny new traditional book contract (Congrats Pris!) asked for advice on launching her debut. She new Indies like me have had to learn a lot on the subject and have a good finger on what is working. So, could I come up with marketing tips, despite the fact that we’re on different publishing tracks? You bet! I wasn’t always an Indie. I took some of what I’d learned about traditional publishing and gave it an Indie twist. If you’re a traditional debut author or even a newbie indie, I know you’ll be able to come with your own ideas based on these ten strategies!
Back when you landed your book deal, the release date seemed far, far away. Now, that tiny blip on the horizon is looming large. You spent hundreds of hours writing your book. What now? Like a parent, you aren’t done when the baby is born. Your baby has become a product that deserves whatever boost you can give it in the crowded marketplace. And that starts within the publishing house. Even after your book has been contracted, it must compete for the time and attention of the professionals entrusted with its success. You must be part of the process and you must start early. Your book wasn’t written in a day and it won’t succeed or fail in a day.
Here are ten strategies you can use to prepare for and execute a successful book launch.
1) Build a relationship with your publisher-assigned-publicist.
Publishing houses each have their own structure and methods. Even within the house and its methods, they rarely treat all authors in the same way. However, for any mid-size to large publisher, authors can expect to have a publicist assigned to their book launch. It’s important to find out who that person is and establish a working relationship.
Why? As a debut author, you probably won’t be the only author (or book) the publicist is assigned. She will almost certainly have many demands on her time with competing deadlines. We all want to focus our efforts where they’re most likely to pay off in positive results. By making an effort to be involved in the promotion of your book and coordinating your efforts with the publicist, you are telling her that you’re someone who will make the most of any efforts she puts into promoting your book.
You don’t want to call her just to say hi, I am me, please help me. Put a little effort into learning a bit about your market and the most common promotional opportunities. Know how many “author copies” of your book you’ll receive for your own promotional efforts. This information may be in your contract. Ask your editor when those copies are typically provided. Then ask your editor who your publicist is and how best to contact her.
Use whatever method your editor suggests to get the answers to these important questions:
What does the publicist already have planned? You want to supplement her efforts not duplicate them.
Is the publicist able to provide electronic or print copies of your book for giveaways, reviewers, or for speaking engagements that you suggest? She will already be doing some of these things, but you should plan to do more. Don’t assume you are limited to using your author copies. Some publishers are willing to directly supplement your efforts. Of course, be graceful if they say no.
Will the publicist be submitting review copies to reviewers you believe would fit and find favor with your book? Be aware that publicists usually won’t give you their list of reviewers (it’s considered proprietary). Have your list ready and ask her to compare it to hers. Find out if she can add any reviewers to her list or if you need to contact them on your own. Then follow through. If you have any special relationships or connections with reviewers or bloggers that could help get your book reviewed, be sure to share that information with the publicist.
Will the publisher be doing a Goodreads giveaway? I’ll talk more about Goodreads below, but it’s important to know whether your publicist will do a Goodreads giveaway and when. You’ll also want to know how many copies and what format, print or ebooks, will be given away. If your publisher isn’t doing a Goodreads giveaway, YOU should.
Do they have any graphics you can use for Facebook, blogs, other social media promotions, or any advertisements you wish to place? It is easier than ever to make your own social media cards with sites like www.canva.com, but take advantage of professional graphics if they’re available. Ads particularly benefit from professional design. Be prepared with specifics about what you can use and plan to do.
Will she be creating profiles for you online? Where? There are many places that will post an author bio and picture in association with book covers, like Amazon Central and Goodreads. The more places you and your books can be seen the better. In general, the web favors volume and connectivity. The more links back to your website, the more popular that search engines will believe you to be; and that, in combination with other things, increases your search ranking. More specifically, visibility and buzz build upon each other and improve discoverability for books and authors. If your publisher will be doing this, you might want to give them some additional content to use.
Is she planning a blog tour? When? There’s a lot of disagreement on the benefit of doing blog tours. I don’t recommend asking your publicist to add it to her plan if she isn’t in favor of it. Mostly, you want to know if you need to have content ready. You don’t want to get stuck a week before your book release trying to write twenty blog posts.
2) Play to the Amazon algorithms.
Create a launch calendar that begins slowly before your release date and builds to a crescendo about a week after your book has been released—this is perhaps the simplest and most powerful strategy I can recommend. Amazon book rankings are not a simple numerical indicator of what book is selling most. Many factors are taken into consideration, everything from how other books are selling to how long your book has been available on the Amazon store. Rankings are weighted in favor of new releases. That will be to your benefit in the first 30 days after release. Amazon rankings, also favor momentum over a spike in sales. Focusing all your launch efforts on release day can be counterproductive. A one-day spike of sales is likely to yield a lower ranking than the same number of sales distributed across three days.
Why are rankings important if they don’t directly reflect sales? Amazon wants their customers to find books they will buy and enjoy. To achieve that goal, they favor highly ranked books in everything from search results to also bought recommendations. They are also more likely to be recommended via Amazon emails to their customers. The top 100 books in any category are displayed from special bestselling links. Your publisher may also negotiate special “placement” for your book on Amazon and other retailers or in brick-and-mortar stores, but don’t rely on that. Amazon is the largest online retailer. It’s worth focusing your efforts there.
3) Make Goodreads a part of your plan.
Goodreads.com is a social media site for readers. It isn’t the only one, but it is the biggest and it’s now owned by Amazon. You should have an author profile on the Goodreads website. Your publicist may already be planning to create one for you, but if you plan to do any promotion on Goodreads, I’d recommend doing it yourself. You will also need to ‘claim’ your book. This is a pretty simple process and it associates your book with your profile. At minimum, your profile should include a bio, picture, and author website link. Goodreads is feature rich and has information posts and advice for authors on how to take advantage of those features. Be as active or absent as you wish, but be careful not to be too aggressive about promotion. Goodreads members will report authors they perceive as behaving badly. You don’t have to review books and join groups to reap the benefits of a Goodreads membership.
The most valuable tool there for authors is the Goodreads Giveaways. I strongly recommend it! Giveaways are particularly powerful on this platform, because they make your book more visible to other members. When someone enters a contest or adds your book to their virtual shelves, it can appear in their ‘feed’ and be seen by their followers and friends. If your book is on someone’s shelf, that person is likely to get notification of new books by you in the future. Giveaway winners are encouraged, but not required, to review the book they’ve won. Giving away a single copy can get your books seen by hundreds of readers, but I recommend giving away as many as you can reasonably afford.
Here are a few tips for your Goodreads giveaway:
- Consider giving away 5 – 10 copies, if you’re paying for the books and postage or 20 if your publisher is supplying the copies.
- Plan your giveaway to last 2 – 4 weeks to maximize the benefits of being seen on the giveaway list.
- If you have advanced copies available, set the giveaway to end a week or two before your book launches. This will help you get some early reviews. If you don’t have early copies, set the giveaway to end launch week and get the books out to winners as soon as possible.
- Limit your giveaways to match the locations where your book is available. If your publisher is only publishing in North America you don’t want to ship books to Europe or Asia.
- Promote the giveaway on other social media.
4) Focus your Facebook efforts for the launch.
You’re already on Facebook. That’s great! You know you’re way around. How to find and make friends. What your friends like, love, and share. More importantly, you have a track record with Facebook. They know you are the kind of person that people like and want to receive posts from. All good, but not enough.
You need an effective Page. The transition from a friendly profile to a professional Page feels awkward at first, but it is critical in the long run and comes with lots of valuable tools. One way to help move people to your page is to share Page updates with your profile and add a note to encourage friends to become fans. Facebook is all about social interactivity and momentum. The sooner you can move that to your Page, the better. The key word there is social. Keep your promotional efforts to no more than 25% of posts, on average.
Schedule and post regularly. I recommend scheduling picture posts, memes, and teasers for your book to appear in your Page feed automatically. This will help make sure you don’t lose momentum when you’re busy. Supplement that with more personal posts when you have time. Pay attention to which topics and types of posts are popular and do more of that!
Plan a brainstorming session. Come up with three or four topics or themes for your Facebook posts. Pick things that work with your brand. Focus on those things for most of your routine posts. You want spontaneity and genuine social interaction, but you are also trying to draw in people who will like your books. Don’t forget that your Facebook Page is a professional tool.
Go for it during Launch week. If you’ve built up your Page audience and you’ve been posting regularly with fun, interesting and social content; it’s okay to let promotion take over on Launch day and even through the week. People have liked your page because they are interested in you and your books. They expect you to be excited about your debut. Just be sure to share that excitement in a personal, social way along with your announcements, teasers, and “call to action” posts.
Try paid promotion. Simple ads are a great way to increase followers for your page on Facebook before your book launch. For promoting your book and increasing sales, I prefer boosting posts. Be sure to target your ads for location, demographics, and interests.
My super simple strategy:
Start small.
Use Facebook insights tools to see what works.
Fine tune and try again.
Plan a Facebook Party? Facebook parties are a “hot new trend” that works great when done well and can be a huge waste of time if you don’t have the connections, skills, and time to pull it off. Your friends may encourage you to have a party and offer to help. If you have no experience with Facebook parties and you want to do it as a learning opportunity, and your friends are offering to do the work for you, consider your time and then do it if you have plenty. Honestly though, to be very successful, as a debut author you need to party with authors than can bring YOUR potential readers to the dance. You won’t gain readers by partying only with your writing friends and their writing friends. Sorry, just truth. While every reader you win is important and valuable, there may be a more effective way to win them.
5) Build and use your email list!
This is so important and universal that you have probably already heard it a few dozen times. Your email list is valuable because it is a way to speak directly to YOUR readers. Sending out an email announcement about a book launch should provide your highest rate of conversions to book purchases. The gravy is that you aren’t relying on any retail or social media platform. No one can take your list away from you. So, your biggest question is probably how to build that list BEFORE your book is out.
First, a caution. Remember that the list is valuable because it is targeted to people who like or have a high probability of liking your book. Growing your list with unrelated and out-sized prize giveaways can be counterproductive.
A few strategies for finding and capturing the right people for your list:
Make your email list sign-up easy to find. It should be prominent on the front page of your website. Link it up with your Facebook page. Include it anywhere you can associate it with your author profile. Periodically, post a reminder to sign-up on your social media channels.
Offer a free early look at a chapter of your book for a newsletter sign-up. I recommend posting the first chapter on your website and offering the second chapter free with the newsletter. This helps vet the reader before they’re added to your list. You’ll need to make sure this (giving away a chapter) is acceptable to your publisher.
Participate in a group “newsletter” cross promo with appropriate authors. This is usually done with a group of authors cross-promoting a group sale—each promoting it with their newsletter. But you can try to get a group of debut authors to cross promote with free chapters for newsletter signup or some similar idea.
Manage your expectations. Most debut authors don’t have an extensive list when their first book launches.
6) Optimize your website and messaging.
As soon as your book is available online, hopefully as a preorder, make sure your website includes links for each of the major online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. If you have a sample chapter, include links at the end of the excerpt. If someone is visiting your site, make it easy for them to buy at whatever retailer they prefer.
Make sure that any communications you provide to potential readers includes contact information and links. That doesn’t mean you need a “buy my book” link in every Facebook post. It does mean your Facebook Page should include contact information and a link to your website. Do include a link in any promoted or “boosted” Facebook post. Sometimes, it makes more sence to include a single link to your website. Other times, it makes more sense to link directly to a retailer. If you are in promotion mode, include a call to action. Make it clear to your audience what you want them to do: buy the book on Amazon, visit your website to read the first chapter, join your mailing list for updates on book releases. Of course, you will want to phrase the call to action as an offer or as if you are providing information rather than demanding action. As long as you do that, you’re unlikely to annoy your audience.
7) Get listed everywhere you can, including BookBub.
I mentioned earlier that visibility, volume, and linking were all part of building online discoverability for your book. A simple, no cost way to do this is to create an author profile with links to your website on any reader targeted site that is appropriate for your genre.
One important site that allows authors to post a profile is www.bookbub.com. You don’t have to place an advertisement to be listed.
For sites like Goodreads, you can go ahead and get signed up as a member then associate your book when it is published.
Similar to Goodreads:
Romance Specific Sites:
Google your genre and the phrase “book reviews” to find more!
8) Be smart about how you tap into the blogosphere.
There is an avalanche of book blogs on the internet. It’s tempting terrain to traverse, but proceed with caution. Arm yourself with knowledge and strategy or you could get buried in the pile.
If you aren’t already blogging, don’t start now. It is a lot of work to start a blog and rarely shows immediate results. However, you can use the blog feature of your website, if it has one, to post short updates. Label it News instead of Blog. Post a line or two about your next promotion, where you’ll be, and so forth.
Go big with guest posting. On the other side of the equation, if you have a desire to blog during launch week, target the most popular sites in your genre for guest posting. For romance, that would be RT Book Reviews, Heroes and Heartbreakers, and the USA Today HEA Blog. If you are inclined to blog, I recommend pitching each of these an idea for a post.
What about a blog tour? As I mentioned before, the effectiveness of blog tours is controversial. In my opinion, they can be useful, but not always in the way you expect. The number one outcome for blog tours is rarely book sales, although a few sales will happen.
I consider tours a form of outreach to bloggers. It’s a way to get to know them and, in the long-term, they are undeniably influencers. The tour post may not win you readers, but the blogger tweeting out that she loved you and your book will. Obviously, this is not a one-to-one guarantee or immediate reward strategy, but appearing on a blog and giving that blogger a good experience can make them more likely to try your book. If you can’t get a straight-up review scheduled before your book launch, doing a blog tour a week or two after book launch might be a good alternative.
I recommend doing a blog tour only:
if your publisher requests it or
if you have time after your book launch.
The one exception might be the cover-reveal blog tour. This is less of a tour and more of a publicity blast. It usually requires little effort on the author’s part and produces a nice prelaunch buzz.
If you do have the blogging bug, I recommend making occasional guest blogging, one or two sites per month, part of your long-term strategy instead of doing a blog tour at launch.
If you decide to do a blog tour, here are a few tips:
- Choose sites that are targeted to your readers.
- Choose sites with a following. Some authors feel a site with less than 2000 readers is a waste of time, but for a debut author I believe a few targeted sites with 100 engaged readers is worth cultivating as long as you are smart about your time investment.
- Create a body of content such as short anecdotes, interview questions with answers, top five lists related to your book, and one to two paragraph excerpts with a bit of explanation or set-up. Mix and match these to make your posts. Think of it like coordinating your wardrobe to make more outfits possible. You want to give the blogger and her readers content worth reading, but you must minimize the amount of your time and effort expended.
- Be friendly, reliable, and prompt. Put your best foot forward with the blogger.
- Respond to comments and engage those readers. Make sure your post has material that asks a question or provides something readers can react to.
- Don’t do a giveaway unless the blogger requests it. It’s more work and doesn’t lead to a sale. Giveaways with a low number of entries can be embarrassing to everyone. Instead, be sure to let readers know about your free chapters available on your website and with newsletter signup.
- Promote the appearance. The blogger is lending you her audience and hoping you will introduce your friends and readers to her blog.
Mentions. Another possible alternative to blogging is requesting mentions. Some book-bloggers do a round-up of new releases and are willing to mention any new debut appropriate to their readers. Some of the community sites will mention it on social media. Policies change frequently, so it requires a bit of poking around to find where this is happening. Google can be your friend. Search for new book release roundups. One that is great for Romance is www.maryse.net.
9) Rethink advertising.
I think it is universally accepted that print advertising is really only appropriate for the biggest names in the business. With the exception of Facebook promoted posts, advertising in general, is more effective for established authors. For debut authors, advertising might provide some visibility and discoverability boost, but only if you have a lot of money to invest.
If you want to give it a try, there are many places online that sell advertising space. In addition to Facebook, all of the sites I mentioned earlier sell advertising or featured posting. Many blogs sell display ads. BookBub has recently started selling advertising space in their newsletters. This might be a good choice to try, since they have a proven track record, but their audience is accustomed to discount books, so maybe not.
For a debut author, my advice about advertising is the same as my advice for gambling, spend only what you can afford to lose.
10) Make it fun!
Whatever you do, be sure to include fun into the equation. This is a special moment. You deserve to enjoy it. Promoting yourself and your work can feel uncomfortable. Adding in fun will make you more likely to put in the effort. You might even enjoy it!
I hope this has been helpful!
I’d love to hear you comments below or send additional feedback to CharleeAllden@gmail.com.