Ahhhh, August.

It brings with it the last 11 days of the 2024 Summer Olympics and the dog days of summer.

For many Northern Hemisphere families with school-age children, it’s also back-to-school shopping time.

August is when many in Europe enjoy holiday time off, too. The same goes for the U.S., where people take advantage of a typical business slowdown before things kick back into gear in September.

August also offers lots of quirky and unexpected holidays and occasions you can use to have more fun than usual with your book promotion.

How to take advantage of August book promotion opportunities

What’s the best way to take advantage of so many fun August book promotion opportunities listed below?

Once you identify those occasions that are a good fit for your book or promotion goals, how can you use them?

Here are a few examples to get you started.

August is Romance Awareness Month

If you’re a romance writer, this is your time to shine!

Think of the potential! How about polling your social media connections and newsletter subscribers about their most romantic experience ever? One of them might even inspire a book!

• Ask them to tag you in a written post or in a social media video where they describe it, or to reply to your email newsletter request.
• Turn snippets of their responses into social media quote graphics you can sprinkle out for days or over coming weeks.
• Use what you learn from trends in responses to create a tip sheet about how to be more romantic that you send to the media, bloggers, and podcasters.

August 4, International Forgiveness Day

Are you a yoga or meditation instructor, or a lifestyle coach?

Is forgiveness a theme in your novel or children’s book?

Use this occasion to help people learn how to forgive those who have hurt or harmed them. Here are a few ideas:

• Create a short, instructional video for social media.
• Host a short, live training webinar.
• Create an Instagram carousel post with the steps to follow.

August 17, National Thrift Shop Day

Is one of your novel’s characters uber-thrifty?

Are you a financial advisor?

Do you write about upcycling, re-purposing, or sustainability?

According to the 2024 ThredUp Resale Report, the global used apparel market is growing three times faster than the overall global clothing market.

Leverage this trend to:

• Create social media images and posts about how to shop at thrift stores.
• Share images of your favorite thrift store finds.
• Create a YouTube video showing how you upcycled a thrift store gem.

Keep in mind, too, that variations on what you might do to link your book to National Thrift Shop Day might also apply to National Garage Sale Day happening a few days earlier on August 10.

Your August book promotion opportunities

Here’s a partial list of the august August marketing opportunities you can add to next month’s book promotion calendar. Get the full list on the Holiday Insights site. (And while you’re there, look ahead to other months.)

• Romance Awareness Month
• August 1 Mountain Climbing Day
• August 1 National Girlfriends Day
• August 1 Mahjong Day
• August 2 Find a Four Leaf Clover Day
• August 4 Friendship Day
• August 4 International Forgiveness Day
• August 4 Sisters Day
• August 5-11 National Simplify Your Life Week
• August 6 Wiggle Your Toes Day
• August 8 Happiness Happens Day
• August 10 Lazy Day
• August 10 Middle Child’s Day
• August 10 National Garage Sale Day
• August 12 National Vinyl Record Day
• August 12 World Elephant Day
• August 13 Left Hander’s Day
• August 15 Relaxation Day
• August 16 National Tell a Joke Day
• August 17 National Thrift Shop Day
• August 17 Neighbor Night
• August 20 World Mosquito Day
• August 21 National Spumoni Day
• August 22 National Tooth Fairy Day (and/or February 28)
• August 25 Kiss and Make Up Day
• August 26 National Toilet Paper Day
• August 31 National Eat Outside Day

Be sure to check out the list of book-related occasions during August in our 2024 literary calendar, too.

Which of these crazy August occasions speak to you? How will you use next month to help generate conversation and call attention to your book in a lighthearted way? Please tell us in a comment.

Retailers are offering more and more deals well before the Friday after Thanksgiving, so shopping on that formerly magical day is less necessary and even less appealing.

What’s more, the marketplace is crowded. You’d be hard-pressed to find a retailer that isn’t participating in some form, both instore and online.

There’s too much noise around Black Friday for me and other people with books and other products to sell. I recently turned down two opportunities to participate in group Black Friday promotions because it’s hard for small players like us to break through.

But the fact that everyone else is so focused on Black Friday (whether it makes sense for them or not) leaves Cyber Monday wide open for you.

More people are shopping online on Cyber Monday

This is good news because Cyber Monday — November 26 this year — is getting a bigger share of the e-tailing crowd.

According to the National Retail Federation, 81 million people shopped online on Cyber Monday in 2017 while 66 million did so on Cyber Monday. BestBlackFriday.com is predicting that the Cyber Monday number will increase to 95 million this year.

In addition, a Deloitte study reports that this year, while 44 percent of people will shop on Black Friday, 53 percent will do their online spending on Cyber Monday.

Don’t you want a piece of that?

How to use this for holiday book marketing

How can you leverage this huge online shopping event in your holiday book marketing plan? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Get thee on Amazon.

You know . . . on the off chance you aren’t there already.

This is important because NetElixir predicts that Amazon will be getting 40 percent of the online holiday sales this year. That haul is worth $38.8 billion.

How does that compare to other online retail sites? Last year, all the other online retailers sold a combined $3.6 billion. Ahem.

2. Drop your book’s price on Cyber Monday.

Price it at $.99 — that’s a deal price for most books.

If your publisher controls the price, talk about doing a price drop now. Don’t wait.

3. Promote your deal price.

Use email — tell your newsletter subscribers about it.

Shopify reports that last year, email marketing brought in more buyers to that site than other lead-generating options — search engines, typing in the URL directly, and social media.

Send messages in advance and again on Cyber Monday. People often need to be reminded a couple of times before they take action.

Work to get your special price offer into book deal newsletters.

Advertise on Amazon and, if it makes sense for your book, Facebook.

To support your social media efforts, create a deal price graphic that you can share with your Amazon sales page link.

Remember that people are often shopping for gifts. If your book makes a good gift — and you can explain why — play that up in your promotional campaign.

Make a choice

More people are going to be shopping online on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday. Rather than split your efforts between the two, pick one and focus on it.

Make that choice Cyber Monday. People will have their credit cards out . . . and they will want to use them. Take advantage of that.

Are you planning a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale, deal, or promotion? Tell us about it in a comment.