3 Highly Efficient Ways To Market Your Self-Published Books
Try these three strategies for marketing your next book
You are the marketer of your book. Many self-publishing authors know this, but they never truly embrace reality.
So, they do a basic launch plan and sell many books upfront. Then sales die down with their marketing efforts.
After your sales die, they either give up or move on to the next book. Leaving the old one to sit on the Amazon shelves collecting internet dust.
However, that doesn't have to be the case. Those old books should continue to make you money and sell. Even after the launch phase is over.
But how do you do it without burning yourself out, posting about your book day after day? Today, I will share what I have learned from some of the best self-publishing authors.
Before we do that, we need to look at a few that are good but not great.
Marketing Strategies That Work, But Aren't Efficient
There are some book marketing tactics that are a grind. They help sell books but don't help you sell when you sleep.
Most of them require a lot of your time and effort. And while we love our books, we don't want to be burdened by them as time goes on.
Social Media Marketing
Alright, I am not convinced that constantly posting about your book on social media is worth wild. Here's why:
Unless you have a considerable following, 10,000 people or more, you probably won't get a wide enough reach to see huge sales.
Your niche may not get a lot of attention. The majority of my books are Christian Faith books. Those don't get much attention on social media platforms right now.
Most posts are forgotten after an hour. If you spend time creating a beautiful post about your book, but no one remembers it, that stinks.
Some people have a lot of success with social media marketing, and you can build your email list with it. But sales take a lot of work.
Sharing Your Book on Your Blog
Honestly, I have all but abandoned my blog/personal website. Unless you constantly point people to your blog, you must depend on SEO.
This can take time to establish a strong SEO on your blog to get tons of organic views. The other day someone suggested that you publish a hundred posts as fast as possible and then two a week after that.
That's a lot of work. If you don't have a portfolio of that kind of work built up yet, your organic views on your blog will be minimal, and sales of your books will be even less.
Ads on Social Media
If you are a non-fiction writer, social media ads aren't very effective. I have been hearing more about fiction authors having success this way.
But that makes sense. If people are escaping to social media with distraction and find a book with a story to jump into, that will help.
However, I don't write fiction, and all of my ads for social media have blown up in my face for my non-fiction work. It's like they always get the opposite of my target market.
Marketing Strategies that Work
Okay, now we know what doesn't work. Let's take a look at three that do work. These are strategies that I have implemented and have seen other self-publishing authors thrive at in their marketing efforts.
Email Marketing
There are two ways of doing this: the first is to treat every email like a sales opportunity. Or the second is to treat every email as a connection point and mention your book.
If someone has opted into your email list, you can guarantee a few things:
They are interested in your work.
They are willing to hear about what you might be selling.
You have a relationship with them already.
Most of all, you ultimately control how you reach your reader. You don't have to depend on an algorithm. You can know that your email is showing up in front of the person who subscribed.
When that happens, you can grow the relationship with your reader and, at the same time, share your latest book with them.
Amazon Ads
This is my next frontier. I have played around with Amazon ads but didn't understand how to do this well. So, I paid more than what I made. But, I did get consistent sales while I had ads running.
However, the difference between social media ads and Amazon ads is that Amazon has a better idea of how to reach book customers.
Their ads system is set to sell books. With that being true, they make it easier for you to target your potential readers.
There are authors making tons of regular income with their Amazon ads. So, this is why I will be digging more into this marketing avenue over the next year.
Write More Books
The authors getting hundreds of sales daily or weekly, have a healthy stable of books. Having more books puts you in front of a lot of people.
Plus, every book you put out with links to your other books will help you continue to expand your sales.
Many successful authors on Amazon tend to have at least one or two series of books. This series has three to five books in them.
Each time one book is purchased, this increases the likelihood of others in the series being bought.
The other thing is that Amazon boosts your book's appearance during the first 30 days of publication. So, you get a boost with every newly published book as they buy the new one and go back to look at your old ones.
Final Thoughts on these Marketing Strategies
While there are many options out there to market your book, if you are doing it on your own, it is essential to find the most efficient ones.
Also, if you want to be writing books all the time, it makes sense that you would write more books, use Amazon ads, and continually develop your email list to be able to move books.
The other thing that works well in marketing is overlapping your strategies. Maybe you are sharing your book on your socials. Share your socials with your email list.
And when you sell a new book, ensure there is a way to capture email lists in that book for the future.
If you can create a web of marketing strategies, you will be able to find success as a self-publishing author, sell books, and get your books into the hands of people who want them.
How do you market your books? What's worked well? What hasn't? Share in the comments below!
J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon who loves helping people grow in their faith and help writers become authors. You can connect with him on Medium, his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Substack!
Thanks for such a thoughtful response! This is really helpful.
These are helpful tips. I've self-published two books in the past and didn't have a strategy. I'll keep your tips in mind going forward.
I'd love to learn more about how you grow an email list without growing a massive social media following.