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Five book marketing lessons I learned from my first indie book

By Sonia Frontera

Publishing a book is a rewarding experience. It can also be an asset to your business, a calling card that highlights your expertise and makes you stand out among peers.

If writing a book is on your bucket list, the good news is that the self-publishing industry is making it easy to fulfill your dream. The bad news is that the process can be tricky and, when done incorrectly, your efforts may not deliver the payoff you expect.

With 4,500 self-published books coming out every day (in addition to those that are traditionally published), making sure your book stands out in the crowd is a challenge.

That’s why it’s important to put your best foot forward by creating a quality book. You need a well-written and professionally edited book with a catchy title, professional cover, and solid book description that will convert potential readers into buyers.

Learning the hard way

But, sadly, that’s not enough. I found out the hard way. After doing many of “the right things,” I was disappointed that my book, Solve the Divorce Dilemma: Do You Keep Your Husband or Do You Post Him on Craigslist?, was not selling like hotcakes.

I realized too late that a few changes before hitting the “publish button” could have made a huge difference in my publishing experience.

You can get it right the first time and publish a great first book that sells!

Here are five book marketing lessons from my publishing debut that I don’t want you to learn the hard way.

1. Have a game plan and take the time to do things right.

After dreaming for decades of being published, I decided to take the plunge when I came across a program that guaranteed becoming an Amazon category bestseller in 30 days.

While I devoted six months to creating a professional quality book, I narrowly focused on a quick launch and becoming that category bestseller. I gave little thought to what would happen next and had no strategy beyond 30 days. I became a number one seller in four categories, but was quickly disappointed when my sales and rankings tanked in a few weeks.

Get your ducks in a row. What you do four to six months before launch is key to the long-term success of your book.

I spent months with my nose to the grindstone writing the book. When I was finished, I rushed to publish, neglecting a series of steps that could have kept my book in front of buyers.

Early in the journey, decide where you’d like to sell your book, the requirements of those outlets, and study the tactics used by other successful authors in your category.  Don’t assume free publishing on Amazon through KDP is your best or only option.

2. Put a publicity strategy in place.

Publicity is one of the most effective and affordable tactics for getting exposure for your book.

But successful publicity relies on relationships with the media and developing these relationships takes time. Start building these relationships long before pub date.

I first heard about book publicity two weeks before launch and completely missed the boat.

Give yourself at least four months to connect with the media, bloggers, and influencers in your niche. Start soliciting reviews, blurbs, and testimonials early to boost the credibility of your book. Boast about them on your website to create buzz.

Have your book announcement press release ready to go and start lining up interviews with your local newspapers and radio while your book is hot off the press.

3. Devise and deploy a consistent marketing program from day one.

Your book won’t sell if readers can’t find it. I rushed to publish without giving much thought to devising and implementing a robust marketing plan beyond the initial promos.

Book advertising can be tricky. Research in advance where books like yours sell best and learn the best practices for those platforms. And be ready to deploy your plan immediately after launch. Don’t wait until the sales tank to try to figure it out.

And have a Plan B, C and D, if necessary. Advertising success entails lots of trial and error.

And remember that book marketing goes way beyond advertising. Stay on top of current trends; stay active on social media; blog regularly; and keep your website, sales, and author pages up to date.

4. Stay out of the rabbit holes.

As I found myself scrambling to boost sales, I attended every webinar, watched every video, and read every blog post I could find. I tried hundreds of expert tips with no discernible reward. Most of these strategies didn’t work for a book about divorce, and I felt exhausted and overwhelmed.

With so many experts in the business, you could easily spend every waking minute and every cent in your bank account trying to learn the tricks of the trade. After all this effort, you will realize that most of them say the same things, many contradict each other, and much of what they say doesn’t apply to you.

There is no one-size-fits-all book publishing or marketing formula. Instead of going down every rabbit hole, follow a few respected experts whose strategies apply to your book and whose style resonate with you. Talk to other authors in your genre to find out what’s worked for them.

If you can afford it, invest in coaching. Work with someone with expertise in the areas you need to improve and whose personality meshes with yours.

5. Don’t be discouraged.

As a new author, you’re bound to make mistakes. While I regret every one of my publishing blunders, I don’t regret bringing my book into the world. And I will do it again — the right way the next time.

Do not despair! These errors can be fixed by relaunching your book, adjusting your strategies as you increase your knowledge, or by starting over with a new book. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and to not give up on your dreams.

What’s your best book marketing lesson? Tell us in a comment. Let’s discuss! 

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.

This month, it’s BundleRabbit, a service that lets you create book bundles with other authors in your genre.

With this resource, you can create the bundle, invite other authors registered with the service to participate, and publish it on e-book retail sites. The curator receives five percent of sales; participating authors receive a combined total of 70 percent.

BundleRabbit also provides a way for dividing royalties among collaborators for a bundle or other types of shared publishing projects. Learn more and browse books at BundleRabbit.com.

The Goodreads blog recently published a detailed case study about how Celeste Ng’s second book became a best-seller. “Case Study: How Penguin Press Made ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ a Roaring Success” outlines the publisher’s marketing support, which includes Goodreads activity.

It would be easy to dismiss this article as irrelevant to you and me and most other authors. The vast majority of novelists – regardless of the publishing model used – simply aren’t enjoying Ng’s success.

Your books aren’t New York Times best-sellers and don’t achieve more than than 16,000 reviews on Goodreads. You don’t ink TV series deals with Reese Witherspoon, either.

I don’t think it’s irrelevant, though. In fact, I think you can learn a lot from this case study.

Even after you take into account that you don’t have her fame and success (yet) and how much Ng’s reputation played into her second book’s success, there’s still lots to learn from this case study.

Here are six book marketing lessons for novelists from the Goodreads article.

1. Write a damn good book.

You can’t be certain you’ve written a great story unless strangers tell you that.

So do your best, pay a professional editor to improve it, and get feedback from people who won’t be concerned about hurting your feelings.

This is important because so much success in fiction is driven by good word of mouth. People don’t recommend bad books to their friends.

As the Goodreads case study concludes, “Ultimately, though, all the great book marketing tools in the world would not have worked without an amazing story.”

2. Start early.

The Penguin team started marketing Little Fires Everywhere nine months before its publication date.

While you might not use the same strategy and tactics that Ng’s publisher did nine months out, your book would benefit from efforts that begin long before your publication date, too.

3. Work to build a fan base, then nurture and leverage it.

This is your platform – your built-in audience that’s waiting for your book to come out. You don’t build a platform overnight. It takes time.

If your audience is young and female, figure out Instagram and Goodreads, because that’s where they’re talking all things books.

Follow the followers of the top authors in your genre. Then give those readers value. Maybe you involve them in your process so they feel invested in your work. Ask their opinions on storylines, character names, or titles. Comment on what they’re doing.

The point is: Find the right readers and talk to them.

4. Distribute as many advance review copies – ARCs – as possible.

The case study doesn’t say how many ARCs Penguin gave away through NetGalley and Edelweiss, but there were 23 reviews up on Goodreads by the end of May (for a September publication date).

Many authors remain reluctant to give away review copies. They think it diminishes their book’s value or they’re worried about piracy.

Just do it.

If you’ve written a good book and you’re getting it into the right hands, ARCs will help boost the number of reviews, especially on Goodreads.

As for piracy, NetGalley has a mechanism that protects against that.

5. Identify and connect with key influencers.

In Ng’s case, several top Goodreads reviewers got early copies and reviewed the book. Who influences your readers? Find them on Goodreads, or find Gooreads reviewers who have reviewed books like yours.

Look for them on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, too. Develop and nurture relationships with them.

6. Let reader feedback guide your marketing messages.

Penguin’s team used early reader reviews to shape marketing messages. You can do that, too.

Even less-than-favorable reader reviews can give you information you can use to change your book’s description so that people don’t expect X and get Y.

Study reviews to identify words used to describe the book. And, if your writing is compared to author X’s books more than once, work that comparison into your book’s description and keywords.

Find a popular book that’s similar to yours and study what the author and publisher have done to market it. You might be surprised by what you uncover — and how you can use that new knowledge.

What’s the one marketing tactic you know works for your book? Please share it in a comment.  

It’s hard to escape information about Olympic results, drama, and personalities on news sites, in newspapers, during TV news, on the radio, and in social media. For example, if your Facebook newsfeed is anything like mine, you know which of your friends took the day off to watch track and field or you’ve got easy access to video of an event you couldn’t watch live because one of your friends found and shared it.

There are many book marketing lessons for authors in all of this. You can, in fact, apply some of what you’re seeing and experiencing — including your emotions — to your book marketing.

Here are five book marketing lessons from the Olympics. What would you add to the list?

1. Stand out.

Who was everybody talking about after the opening ceremony?

Tongan flag bearer Pita Taufatofua.

Because his shirtless torso shone with coconut oil, he was hard to miss.

What can you do in support of your book that will make your book hard to miss? What can you do to stand out in the midst of overwhelming competition?

Or, what if you named your characters in a way that helped them stand out? Do you really think everybody would be cooing about Michael Phelps’ baby Boomer if he was named Chad?

2. Find your human interest story.

In the early days of the Olympics broadcast last week, one of my Facebook friends wrote, “What makes NBC think we want to hear all of these tear-jerker stories about the athletes?”

Research.

People love stories — and they especially love stories of how someone who is doing something exceptional overcame adversity to succeed.

But your story doesn’t have to be about overcoming adversity. Maybe it’s about how you found your calling, or heartache changed your world view, or a business trip to a Third World nation got you volunteering back home.

It doesn’t really matter what it is — what matters is that you know what it is and you make it part of your backstory. Because people really do like stories.

3. Take a stand.

The unexpected star of the 2016 Olympics in the U.S. is comedian and actress Leslie Jones. Her opinions in her narrated Twitter videos are so laugh-out-loud funny that NBC brought Jones down to Rio for in-person fun.

Had she just tweeted the usual commentary as she watched, she wouldn’t have gotten the attention that got her a ride to Rio. But Jones took a stand as she live-tweeted from in front of her TV set, and that got her noticed.

If you’ve got an opinion that’s counter-intuitive or bucks the trend, share it. It’s more likely to get noticed than one that blends in with everyone else’s.

4. Set goals.

No surprise here, right? When you know what you want to accomplish, you can create a plan for how you’ll make that happen. One of the winning athletes commented in an interview that when she reaches a goal, she sets another one.

Research shows that goal-setting improves performance. When you set reasonable and realistic goals for your book marketing, you’ll be more likely to reach them.

No goals? Don’t be surprised when you don’t achieve the success that other authors enjoy.

5. Don’t give up.

There are countless stories of Olympians who wanted to quit but didn’t. Who didn’t give up.

Many authors think writing the book is hard until they learn that they have to market it, too. It feels like you’ve shifted from one job — writing — to another — promoting. And that’s exactly what happens.

Marketing isn’t easy or intuitive for everybody. But you have to learn how to do it and implement what you learn because if you don’t, you’re giving up on your book. Nobody will know about your book and how it can help or entertain them if you don’t do what it takes to get it discovered.

Follow the lead of the stars we’re watching in Rio this week and keep working at it. Don’t give up!

Get inspired!

Let me inspire you every day with a book marketing tip in your email inbox. “365 Daily Book Marketing Tips” will give you the inspiration, motivation, and information you need to do something specific for your book every day.

What have you enjoyed the most about the 2016 Summer Olympics so far? Please tell us in a comment.

Guest post: How smart book marketing got me a second publishing contract

By Heather Shumaker

In the months leading up to my first book’s publication, I worked with Sandy Beckwith to come up with a promotion plan. She was ever professional, ever polite, but the words that stuck in my head were when she said kindly, “I’m amazed you got a book contract with absolutely no platform.”

It was true. I had nothing to start with. No credentials, no fans, no Facebook Page, no blog. All I had was hope and hard work.

That hard work paid off. Since my first book, It’s OK Not to Share (a renegade parenting book), was published in 2012, I’ve earned out the advance, my sales are still steady four years later, and was I invited to write a sequel by my publisher.

Defying the odds

As I’ve learned, that defies the odds. My agent tells me the average traditionally published book sells 3,000 copies total, and sales drop off dramatically after the first six months.

My goal was to be a writer, not just a one-book writer, but a career writer. It took me four years or so to get an agent and secure a publisher for my first book. I devoted the year after its publication to continual promotion. As I’d heard, publishing a first book was hard, but publishing a second book could be harder. Publishers might be willing to take a chance on a new voice for a first book, but after that you had to have a track record of sales. I wanted my book’s track record to be strong enough so I could write a second book.

I tried to do everything when I first started. That resulted in feeling that promotion was a big, black hole. No matter how much of my life and time I poured in, there was always more that could be done. I wasn’t writing. Promotion drained me.

So here are seven things I learned that led me to my second book contract.

1. Limit social media.

Unless you absolutely love it and social media makes you feel fulfilled, don’t try to do all social media. Pick the ones that fit your personality best. For me that ended up being a blog and a professional Facebook Page.

Concentrate efforts on social media venues you mostly enjoy. Don’t try to be everywhere. Besides, you might already be in more places than you think. By the time I explored Pinterest, I realized my book was already there: Readers who like Pinterest best had already pinned my book cover and pinned blog posts.

Focus your time on selected social media that fits you. Then make it easy for readers who like other venues better to post in their worlds (ex: add Tweetables at the end of your posts. That makes it easy for Twitter fans to spread the word).

2. Collect email addresses.

This is a tip I learned from Sandy and it’s proven its worth time and again. I’m doing this when I’m speaking. At each event I passed a clipboard and collected emails. When my second book came out I had easy access to 1,000-2,000 people who cared about my writing. Now I’m moving to a digital clipboard and passing a tablet – no data entry!

3. Speaking pays.

I was told “First you write your book, then you speak your book.” So true. I started speaking for free at libraries, then charged $100 for an appearance, then moved up to bigger events. Three years later I’m keynoting at national conferences and speaking brings in half my income.

4. Keep your book “new.”

Publishers move on to the next book when your book is barely a month old. News media like things to be “new,” too.

But your book is always new to readers who are just discovering it. Word of mouth has its own timeline.

When I speak to a new audience, it’s as if the book were published yesterday. People are on fire with the novelty. This probably works best if you decide to do long-term speaking, but it also works well with book clubs. Book clubs don’t just choose newly released books. Often it takes years for a title to work its way in and get chosen. Go ahead and contact book clubs or online read along groups and suggest your book as their next pick. Guaranteed to be new again.

5. Write a good book.

Of course, we can’t sit on our laurels, thinking “I wrote a great book, now readers will find it.” Helping people discover your book takes effort. But if your book finds true fans, it will have staying power. People buy multiple copies and share them with their friends. Readers suggest bringing in an author to speak.

My early book promotion was a never-ending time of reaching out to people. People often contact me now because they like the book, and promotion takes much less work.

6. Go gradually.

If you have nothing to start, the way I had, take one step at a time. Today I have the Starlighting Mama blog, weekly Renegade Rules podcast show on iTunes and Stitcher, business fan Page on Facebook, a Twitter account, an email newsletter, videos on YouTube, and an active speaking calendar booking up more than a year in advance.

I started with only a website. I would have been overwhelmed to do everything at once. Since every new step added on gradually, it doesn’t seem hard to balance.

7. Set a deadline.

Give yourself a timeframe to devote your best effort to promotion. Then stop and get back to writing. Once you have a book out you should never go cold turkey and banish all promotion, but give it a discrete time to be top priority, then shift it down to maintenance level.

My second book, It’s OK to Go Up the Slide, comes out this week. I’m offering early bird gifts as part of the launch: Order a copy before March 13, 2016 and receive free gifts (special edition one-hour podcast taking you behind the scenes plus a set of inspirational quotes for your fridge). Simply buy the book before March 13, then send me an email saying where you bought it.

I’m excited to share its newness with the world but I also have confidence it will continue to find new readers years from now.

What’s the most important thing you learned while marketing your book?

5 book marketing lessons from an author who is getting royalty checks

By Laura Laing

So let’s get one thing straight from the beginning. I wrote a book about math. Yes, math. And I’m proud to say that sales are churning along, and I’ve gotten some great media attention. In fact, I’ve discovered a quirky little niche, writing articles about math, giving interviews about math education. Who knew?

If a book about math can sell, you’ll have no trouble making the most of sexier topics, say caring for your elderly parents or a science fiction novel featuring the microscopic inhabitants of Pluto who are pissed off at its downgrade to dwarf planet.

In the year since Math for Grownups first hit the bookshelves, my professional life has completely changed. And it’s fair to say I’ve learned a few a few things along the way.

1. Go in for the long haul. 

Old-timers tell me that before Amazon and the internet, a book’s success was determined within two months of its birthday. That’s because brick-and-mortar bookstores handled all sales and publishers took care of all promotion.

Those days are over.

I’ll be promoting Math for Grownups until it goes out of print—and then I might very well take back my rights, have it republished and go for another round. These days, sales don’t end and neither does book promotion.

Because of that, you’ve got to pace yourself. Come up with a doable plan that won’t put you six feet under within three months. Be very realistic about the number of hours in a day you have to devote to this project, and then give it all you’ve got.

2. Make the most of your publisher’s publicist. 

Even though your book could conceivably be on the shelves for the next 100 years, your publisher isn’t going to offer you undivided attention, even if your name is Malcolm Gladwell.

First off, be nice to your publicist. This person is handling several titles at the same time, so don’t expect it to be all about you. But second, milk that relationship for all it’s worth.

I sent my publicist weekly reports detailing the promotion I did and media mentions I received. These reports included guest posts for other blogs, interviews and reviews. In return, she sent out copies (for reviews and blog contest prizes), handled most of the press inquiries and pitched me to the major media outlets.

My goal was to be the easiest author she worked with, so that I was front-of-mind when she wondered whom she should pitch next.

3. Invest in promotion.

These days, you need a blog, headshot and more. Don’t skimp. When I developed my blog, www.mathforgrownups.com, I ponied up for a dedicated URL and a great designer. When I held my book launch at a local bookstore, I sprang for cookies and iced tea from a fantastic local café.

You want to look like a professional? Act like one.

You can also make your promotion work double duty. My web designer recommends me when his clients need writing. The café owner did a Math at Work Monday interview with me for my blog and promoted my book launch in her café.

4. Stay on message.

Mine was simple: Math doesn’t have to be your BFF, but you do have to get along in public. Once you have that message, find the different angles and make sure that everything you do circles back.

The worst day of my book promotion was last fall, when USA Weekend unexpectedly ran a piece about everyday math—based completely on my book. Should have been the best day, right? Problem was the poor writer got the math wrong. Readers noticed. And they blamed me.

I posted a comment to the web version of the story, explaining that the math is right in my book. Then I started promoting the heck of out of the story. Already, Huffington Post had blogged about it, and it was mentioned in Daily Kos and the Columbia Journal Review’s blog.

When I wrote my own blog post, I chose my message carefully: We all—even fancy reporters at USA Weekend—make math mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are scary and public. But the world doesn’t end.

In the end, the error played beautifully into my own message: Math is hard, and it’s worth it to get it right. The story became a great example of why my book is important.

5. Don’t be afraid to fail.

You will make mistakes in your book promotion. You will miss opportunities.  You will get tired and take a break. And all of that is a-okay. Take some risks and cut yourself some slack if things not working out.

It’s just a book, not world peace (unless your book is a solution to world peace). Plenty of other people out there have much harder jobs than ours. And if you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know what could have happened.

What lessons did you learn while promoting your book? Please share them by commenting!

If you’re ready to learn how to promote your book, actually use what you learn, and get all of your “how do I do it?” questions answered, join us for the next Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz e-course June 4-29, 2012.