How to Start Marketing Your Book Early: 6 Steps for a Successful Book Launch
As an up-and-coming author, it can be difficult to know when exactly you should start marketing your soon-to-launch book.
You don’t want to leave it too late because you’ll start twiddling your thumbs as the campaign sets off.
Instead, you want to start as early as seems right. This means you can build up a huge following of interested people so that when your book does come out, you’ve already got a massive audience to promote it to.
Not sure how to sell a product that doesn’t actually exist yet? Don’t worry; here are six steps you can take for success!
1. Choose When to Start
As a rule of thumb, it’s best to start marketing your book around 6 to 12 months before you actually plan to release it to the public.
This way, you’ve got more than enough time to finish your book and run your marketing strategy, and it’s enough time to build up a loyal band of followers.
During this time, you’re going to want to set up a calendar so you can plan your content posts and your content release dates.
“You can also plan any dates that you’re going to attend events where you’ll promote your book, as well as creating all the little things, such as email signatures and getting a professional author’s photograph taken,” explains Nancy Chandler, a book marketer and columnist at Huffington Post.
2. Create a Website
One of the most important tools you’ll have when marketing your book is an author website. This will be the hub of all your author activity and will be the foundation of your marketing project.
It’s a place you can post your content (such as the content created by writing tools like Resumention), share details about your upcoming events, and communicate with your fans and let them get to know you—a great way to build up your following. Here, you’ll want to create your image and brand as an author.
To generate content for your site, you can use writing tools like Essayroo. Once you’re posting regularly, boost your search engine page ranking using SEO content tools like UK Writings.
Just like in your book, you’ll also need to make sure that all the content on your website is accurate. If you’re sick and tired of spending your life proofreading, you can use tools like Write My Paper to help you out.
3. Start Creating Posts
Now that all your basics are set up, let’s fast-forward to about 4-6 months before your launch.
This is around the time you really want to start creating some hype about your upcoming release. You can do this in many forms—feel free to get as creative as you like!
An easy way to start drawing interest for your book and your broader work would be to create blog posts on topics that are relevant to your book. These can be hosted on your website and shared with your social media accounts for your followers to enjoy.
You can also use writing tools such as Revieweal to create compelling content specifically for your social media channels.
You can even start creating posts using videos and photos from the events that you attend to build hype and to get more people to attend.
As an author, you’ll benefit from building social proof—showing that others like your target readers have already read and loved your work. A great way to grab people’s attention is by posting reviews from people who have read your book already and enjoyed it. Repost glowing pre-publication reviews from influential publications, early beta readers, bloggers, and others.
4. Ramp Up the Strategy
Fast-forward once again to around 1-3 months before your launch. Now things are starting to get really exciting and really busy! Be sure to keep a level head and don’t freak out…that comes later, after your book has been released and you can finally put your feet up!
During this period of time, you’re going to want to ramp up your efforts in obtaining reviews. With books, many people will choose to buy based on other people’s recommendations, so if you have some solid reviews in place, your success is almost guaranteed when it comes to securing sales.
To do this, hand a few free review copies of your book out to trusted friends and family and get them to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other sites where you’ll be selling your book.
Additionally, you’ll want to create and write up a press release so you can send it off to publishers and news outlet to report on the release of your upcoming book. Be sure to have a media kit ready to go when these news outlets show interest!
Towards the end of this period, you’re also going to want to define how much money is in your paid advertising budget.
You can use an assortment of tools to help you do all this. Australian Help provides a press release copywriting service to help you out; or, if you’ve already creating your own, you can edit it using services like UK Top Writers, who can edit on your behalf.
Most authors will also want to set up interviews with radio shows and bloggers to once again promote the book release in a different format and to different audiences.
5. Launch Strong
The time has finally come, and you’ve reached the week before your launch. It’s important to remember that this is your most important week!
Make sure you update everything on your website, blog, and online stores so the book is readily available and accessible without any problems for the user.
Run giveaway contests on your social media for free copies of your book, and be sure to publish and format your book on e-reader platforms such as Kindle.
Everything is now ready to go!
Time to celebrate your successful book launch!
6. Keep It Up Post-Release
So, the release day has come and gone, and the chances are, if you were well organized, it was a huge success. However, there are still some things you need to do to keep that success going well into the future.
First, start implementing your paid-advertising strategy. Now that the book has been released, it’s an ideal time to market it to the rest of the world, rather than just your immediate followers.
You’ll also want to start submitting guest posts on authoritative websites where you can talk about your experience and your book. Alternatively, you can use copywriting tools such as Elite Assignment Help to create guest posts on your behalf.
All in all, whatever you do after launch, it’s all about getting the word around that your book is out and ready to go!
And don’t forget to take a well-deserved break for all the hard work you’ve done!
As you can see, you don’t want to leave it till the last minute to get your marketing campaign started. Start early, get organized, and you’ll thank yourself later when the sales are rolling in and the hard work’s paid off!
About the Author
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