There are thousands of ways to market your book. And after months of marketing my book, I came up with a list of the most effective and important tips for getting the word out about your book on a budget.
Tip No. # 1: get a website:
Have a website ready to go by the time your book is published. And then connect your website directly to your book’s page on Amazon (and other sites, too).
Tip No. # 2: write the discussion guidelines:
Have discussion guidelines available to download as a PDF from your website. And if you’ve written an adult book, consider including a teen question section.
Tip No. # 3: Provide Free Chapters:
Have the first few chapters available as free PDF downloads from your website. This is a great way to “hook” readers on reading the rest of the book.
Tip No. # 4: read some books on promoting your book:
Some of the books that I found particularly helpful are:
Sell Your Book on Amazon by Brent Sampson (Great Ways to Establish an Amazon Presence)
Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny C. Sansevieri (you can sign up for free information by email at amarketingexpert.com)
Plug Your Book by Steve Weber (Subtitle: Online Book Marketing for Authors)
1001 Ways to Market Your Books (6th Edition) by John Kremer (huge book, so for now I only read chapter 12: “How to sell books via computer”) (you can sign up to receive free information by email from him at bookmarket.com)
Tip No. # 5: Collect all the advertising tips you can and take advantage of the opportunities:
Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound (sign up for free email information at publicityhound.com) has great PR advice. And sign up at helpareporter.com to receive email updates on the news sources reporters need.
Tip No. # 6: Start a blog as soon as possible, preferably before your book is published:
Unfortunately, I only learned this wisdom right before my book was published, but I did it right away once I learned it.
Tip # 7 – Optimize your presence on Amazon:
Be sure to take full advantage of the authoring tools on Amazon, including your blog entry in your AmazonConnect feature on your book page.
Tip No. # 8: Ask book bloggers to review your book:
And if they say yes, be sure to give them a free copy for them, as well as a free copy for a contest related to your book. Book giveaways on book blogs attract the attention of people who are reading. (And if book bloggers really like your book, they are often willing to post their blog review on Amazon and other book sites.)
Tip No. # 9: Take a virtual tour of a book:
I used pumpupyourbookpromotion.com to take a month-long virtual book tour (your book is blogged with a review, an interview, or both), and found the experience extremely effective in building relationships with book bloggers.
