Raise your hand if you waited until you hit “publish” on Amazon to start thinking about how to get the book launch results that author dreams are made of.

If you’re a traditionally published author, you might not have thought about it at all. You expected your publisher to do whatever was needed to make sure readers discovered your book. No need for you to get involved. (Whoops.)

You were probably disappointed with your launch results, too.

Let’s turn that around. It starts with taking specific book marketing steps while you’re still writing.

Discovery is key

I understand the challenge. It’s hard enough to find time to write the book. Making room in your schedule (and mind) for book marketing while writing might seem like too much of a challenge.

But you have to — even if it means it takes a little longer to finish writing.

If you don’t start laying the groundwork you need to sell books before your manuscript is done, your book launch results will be dismal, discouraging, and disappointing.

Your book won’t be discovered on launch day or any other time of the year unless you goose the discovery process. That work starts early.

9 early steps to improving your book launch results

Here are nine steps to take while still writing that will help lay the groundwork for success.

Take on just one at a time. Fit in what you can, when you can.

If you do this, you’ll have several of your book marketing basics in place by the time your manuscript is done. That will set you up for a better, more successful launch.

1. Learn as much as you can about book marketing.

Read a book. Take a course.

Identify the bloggers who are publishing book marketing information you can trust. Subscribe to their newsletters.

In addition to my newsletter, I recommend:

• Kindlepreneur
• Author Marketing Experts
• The Nonfiction Authors Association
• Reedsy

2. Get clear on who will love your book.

That’s your target audience, the people you wrote your book for.

If you’ve written a nonfiction book, your target audience is people who are interested in that topic. But what do you know about them?

Many novelists tell me they wrote the book they’d like to read. It makes sense, then, that their ideal reader – their target audience – is people who are like them. (That’s not always the case – it’s just an example.)

3. Research your target audience.

Learn as much as you can about the person who is most likely to buy your book.

This will help you visualize your audience “avatar” – the one individual who best represents those who will love your book.

Next, do more research to learn where you’ll find them online and offline. For example, do people in your target audience use TikTok? Will you find them on LinkedIn? Do they like Pinterest?

4. Build a following on the social network that most of your audience uses. 

Your research into your target audience helped identify where you’ll find them online. Select one or two social networks that are most popular with your audience and learn how to use them effectively.

After you’ve spent some time learning how they work, start following “the right” people there.

Try this: Find the most popular authors in your genre. Follow them, and follow the people who follow them, too. (If they like the types of books the category leader writes, they’ll be interested in yours, too.)

And, of course, share content that will interest your ideal readers.

5. Connect with bloggers. 

Virtual book tours (author blog tours) are common and popular book launch elements.

When you “go” on a virtual book tour after your book is published, you’ll ask bloggers who reach the people you want to reach to share content that’s related to your book. That might be a:

• Guest post
• Q&A
• Audio or video interview
• Book review

You will be far more successful with bloggers who already know who you are. So, after you’ve identified the blogs you’ll want to visit on your tour, comment on and share their posts regularly.

They’ll notice you.

6. Build an email list.

Start gathering email addresses now. This is a never-ending process and for many, that growth is slow. So don’t wait.

Be sure to offer a downloadable gift – a “lead magnet”– in exchange for each email address. (Get ideas for fiction lead magnets and nonfiction lead magnets and learn how to create them at those links.)

Learn how successful authors use email to communicate with their readers by subscribing to their newsletters. What do you like about their approach? What do you dislike?

I also recommend reading Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert.

7. Compile a list of “key influencers.”

Who is most influential with your book’s target audience? You’ll want to ask them to endorse your book after the manuscript is polished and finished.

Begin gathering names and contact information for them now. That’s all – just figure out who they are and how to reach them, and save it all in a file.

8. Create a Facebook Page.

I’m not talking about a Facebook profile – that’s your personal account where you acquire “friends.” I’m referring to a business Page where you acquire “likes.”

You’ll need a Page to advertise on Facebook, but it’s also a good way to establish your book’s presence on this popular social network without annoying your friends.

Use it to solicit opinions on your book’s topic, share progress updates, ask fans to vote on cover options, and so on.

9. Add your book title to your e-mail signature.

It doesn’t get any easier than just typing “Author,” followed by your book title.

Which one of these will you start doing today? Will you pick the easiest or the hardest?

Do what works for you, but whatever you do, be sure to do it now.

What’s the most important thing you did before you launched your book? Please tell us in a comment. 

You want to know how to get reader reviews. You need to know where to start.

And you probably want to discover the “secret sauce that will help you get those reviews.

The secret sauce

That’s simple: Give books away.

You just have to give a copy of your book to people in exchange for an honest review.

But who do you give books to? Where do you find those people? And how do you make sure they review it?

Follow these five steps to getting reviews from people who will love your book.

Step 1: Give your book to people in your target audience.

Think of those in your target audience as your ideal readers. They’re the people you wrote the book for, so they’re going to be the most interested in reading and reviewing it.

Giving them the book is the easy part. Finding readers to give it to is harder, isn’t it?

That’s why I created a list of nine places where you can find readers who write reviews. You can download it here.

You might be concerned that giving your book away in exchange for an honest review will cannibalize your sales. I understand that, and I can’t say that it won’t.

But I will say that you can’t count on people (especially strangers) who bought your book to review it, either. And you need reviews if you want to sell more books. So, you have no choice but to lose just a handful of sales to gain a whole lot more of them.

Step 2. Make it easy for them to review your book.

There are a few ways you can do this. One of them is to include a copy of my Build Book Buzz Reader Book Review Form with your review copy. It’s a fillable PDF file that walks them through the process. They can type their review directly into the form, then copy and paste it into a review template on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere.

You can also offer a few review ideas when you send the free copy. Share information about what you’ve heard from endorsers or other earlier reviewers as subtle prompts for their own reviews.

Be sure to include a link to your Amazon review page in the back of your book, too. I show how to do that in this video.

Step 3. Follow up to get reader reviews.

Follow up with the people you’ve sent review copies to. Remind them that their review will help other readers decide what to read. And, give them a link to the review section of your Amazon and Goodreads book pages (here’s how to do that again).

via GIPHY

Email follow up isn’t always possible because you might not have email addresses for everyone who’s downloaded a review copy. But when you do, check in with them.

People are busy. They forget. We all need and appreciate reminders.

Step 4. Follow up again.

Just one more gentle nudge.

Step 5. Start the process over again.

Unfortunately, most aren’t going to write that review, even though they accepted your book fully intending to do so. You know why that is – you have the same problems when you have a “want to do” versus a “must do” on your to-do list and can’t do both.

It’s a numbers game, so you have to continue to get those review copies into the right hands until you get at least 10 to 20 positive reviews posted. To do that, you need to continue to work on this until you’ve got enough.

Don’t expect reviews to appear organically. Create a plan to get reader reviews – when to ask, who to ask, how to ask – and work it.

Then work it again.

Your book deserves the support offered by reader reviews. Please do your best to make that happen.

How do you get reader reviews? Please give us your best tip in a comment!

I was surprised by a recent email from someone who provides book marketing advice to authors.

“Do you want to sell more books?” the marketer asked in a message sent to subscribers. “Then create a daily or weekly podcast.”

They make their case for this approach to podcasts and authors by citing statistics about the increasing popularity of podcasts. The numbers are compelling.

But for the majority of you, creating a daily or weekly podcast doesn’t make sense.

Here’s alternative advice: Become a podcast guest.

Let me explain why.

Hosting a podcast is a lot of work

There are two big deterrents to hosting a daily, weekly, or even monthly podcast: time and technology.

Let’s start with time.

One of the biggest complaints I hear about book marketing in general from authors is, “It’s hard to find the time to do it.”

via GIPHY

Many authors have full-time jobs that make it difficult for them to find time to write their books, even. Eking out time for book marketing is equally challenging.

Others struggle to write a weekly blog post, send a monthly email newsletter, or maintain an effective social media presence. “I just don’t have enough time for it,” they say.

Even the authors I coach who are writing in retirement tell me they don’t want to spend all of their time writing and marketing. They need and want time away from a computer screen.

Which leads to the next obstacle for podcasts and authors.

Podcasting requires tech skills.

Any author who needed help setting up their book on Amazon will understand this immediately.

If you haven’t yet embraced email marketing because you’re intimidated by the technology involved, you get it.

Hosting a podcast requires you to be comfortable working with technology. You need to use the right equipment (recording via telephone or your webcam microphone won’t cut it) and edit audio files. You’ll also have to:

• Upload your recordings to multiple podcast platforms so you get the reach you need to make it worth your effort.
• Create and maintain a website that hosts the recordings and show notes.
• Promote your podcast so people know it exists (as with books, this isn’t an “if you build it, they will come” situation).

Which loops us right back to the time issue. If you don’t have enough time to write and market your books, how will you find time to host a daily or weekly podcast?

Become a podcast guest instead

It’s a whole lot easier to be a guest on somebody else’s show than to host your own. That’s why it makes sense for you to take advantage of the growing interest in podcasts by becoming a guest, not a host.

via GIPHY

The numbers support that strategy. A recent survey of 2,000 monthly podcast listeners by podcast platform Acast revealed that:

• 52 percent say they increased the amount of time they spent listening to podcasts in the previous six months
• 45 percent started listening to podcasts in the past year
• 70 percent enjoy listening to guest interviews
• 65 percent are focused on the show’s content when listening

It only makes sense if your ideal readers are podcast listeners, though. So who’s listening to them? PodcastHosting.org reports that in the U.S.:

• 51 percent of podcast listeners are male, while 49 percent are female
• 48 percent are ages 12-34
• 32 percent are ages 35-54
• 20 percent are ages 55 and older
• 63 percent are white
• 41 percent have household income greater than $75,000
• 25 percent have a four-year college degree

In addition, there are podcasts for nearly all topics and interests, so you’re likely to find shows that can help you connect with your audience.

How to become a podcast guest

Now that you see why becoming a guest rather than a host makes sense, you might be curious about how to do just that.

Here are resources that can help:

• The ULTIMATE Guide to Getting Booked as a Podcast Guest from The Content Factory
• How to Become a Podcast Guest from Digital Marketing Lab
• How to Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast from The Podcast Host (and be sure to read the site’s guide to being a great podcast guest)

Once you see what your hosts do to schedule and promote your podcast appearances, you’ll have a better sense of the effort required to host your own show.

And . . . you might decide that it’s exactly what you want to do.

Thinking about hosting a podcast?

If you decide that hosting a podcast is a solid book marketing strategy, consider taking a course on how to start a podcast before fully committing to the concept.

Just as you became educated about how to write a book, get it published, and market it, you’ll want to learn how to create and sustain a successful podcast.

I often turn to Udemy for this type of training. A quick search reveals plenty of options. (User ratings and course curriculums can help you make a solid choice.)

Finally, as with all marketing tactics, whether you hope to be a host or a guest, first determine whether the people you want to influence listen to podcasts (the stats above are a good starting point). If they don’t, podcasts don’t belong in your book marketing plan.

Do you host a podcast? Have you been a podcast guest? Please tell us about your experience in a comment.

Authors often think that writing the book is the hard part . . . until they discover they have to market it, too.

This comes as a shock to many — especially those with traditional publishing contracts who expect the publisher to take care of it.

It doesn’t work that way.

Regardless of the publishing model used, all but the very top-tier authors have to invest significant time and energy into book marketing. Once new authors realize this, they inevitably ask, “Where do I begin?”

Start your book marketing with these 5 steps

You begin by understanding that your goal is to figure out what works for your book and what doesn’t. Do more of what does work and less of what doesn’t.

In addition, know that book marketing requires the same slow, steady, and consistent effort that went into writing your book. You might not see instant results, but if you’ve written a good book and you’re supporting it with the right tactics, you’ll see progress and results.

Here are the first steps to take to make sure you reach the right readers with your book’s messages, whether you write fiction or nonfiction.

1. Identify your ideal reader.

Who will love your book? (Pro tip: It’s not everybody.)

You can’t skip this step. Most of what you do to promote your book will be a waste of time if you aren’t promoting to the people who enjoy books like yours.

If you wrote the book for yourself, then your ideal reader might be people like you.

Learn as much as you can about that target audience.

You want to know your ideal reader’s:

• Demographics — age, gender, marital status, geography/location, income range, etc.
• Psychographics — lifestyle, life stage, hobbies/interests, etc.

Use this information to learn where you’ll find them online and in the real world.

For more on this, read “The formula for more sales” on this blog.

2. Learn as much as you can about book marketing.

Most authors skip this step. (Bad move.)

Instead of studying how to promote a book and what tactics will reach their book’s ideal reader — their target audience — they copy what they see others doing.

As a result, unless the author you’re mimicking (a) writes books that your target audience reads and (b) is successful, that approach won’t get you very far. You want to do what works for your book, not anyone else’s.

The process for that is:

• Know who will love your book
• Know where to find those people
• Know which book marketing strategies and tactics will help you reach the right readers where they are

To give you a head start, my just-updated and revised “Book Marketing 101 for Fiction” and “Book Marketing 101 for Nonfiction” e-courses teach you all of that — and more. Each course relies on my hands-on experience as well as my work teaching hundreds of authors how to save money by learning what to focus on for their book — and what they can leave behind.

Whether you learn it from one of my courses or somewhere else, your goal is to be clear on what will work for your book and your audience — not what works for anyone else.

3. Pick one tactic and master it.

After learning as much as you can about how to market your book, pick the one tactic you think is the best fit for you and your book based on:

• Your ideal reader/target audience
• What you do best
• Your personality
• The amount of time you have available

For example, I might tell you as your book marketing coach that public speaking will help you sell more copies of your memoir. But, if the thought of public speaking frightens you more than snakes frighten me (and that’s a lot!), then that tactic won’t work for you.

But, if I suggest that you use guest blogging to promote that memoir and you enjoy writing, that might be where you start.

There’s no point in putting your effort into learning how to do anything you already know isn’t a good fit for your time, interests, or skills.If you don’t like doing it, you’re not going to make the time for it, right?

4. Track your results

Once you’ve mastered the tactic and begun implementing it, monitor your book sales.

Is it working? Are you selling books?

If it’s helping you sell books, do more of it.

If it isn’t, there are two likely reasons:

• You aren’t executing it properly.
• It’s not the right tactic.

For example, I see many authors complain that Facebook ads don’t work.

I also see their ads.

Trust me, it’s not the tactic.  It’s the execution.

If you’ve nailed the execution and it still isn’t working, try another tactic.

5. Take your time.

Many authors mistaken believe that they need to achieve category best-seller status on Amazon within the first week of publication.

If that doesn’t happen, they feel like failures.

The only way you can fail with your marketing is if you sit around expecting your book to sell itself.

It won’t.

You need to make things happen. And that takes time. Plan for that.

It also requires that you make book marketing a priority. Schedule time to do it every week, then stick with that schedule.

Stuff happens

Finally, don’t worry about making mistakes. We all make mistakes. It’s how we learn. What matters most is that you try. Because if you don’t, the people you wrote your book for won’t learn about it. They won’t read it. They won’t love it.

Give them the chance to discover your book.

Do one thing right now that will contribute to your book marketing. You won’t regret it.

What do you need to learn how to do to market your book effectively? Tell us in a comment. 

Tip of the Month

I like to share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors, on the last Wednesday of the month.

In the May 30, 2018 post, you learned “How to write an op-ed column or essay.” Now I’ve got a resource that will help you place that op-ed.

This list at the Op-Ed Project website (a wonderful resource for authors who understand the value of this communications tool) provides submission guidelines and an email contact for more than 100 print and online publications that accept opinion essays.

While you’re on that site, be sure to explore all that the Op-Ed Project can offer you. A well-written op-ed can have an impact on the people you want to influence.