You’ve worked hard to write your book.
After all the writing, editing, formatting, perfecting the title, getting the cover design just right, it’s finally out in the world.
You sit back and wait for the phone to start ringing.
And you wait.
And you wait some more…
What happened?
Why doesn’t everyone recognize your expertise?
I’m not trying to diminish the amount of hard work that goes into writing and publishing a book. I wrote and published my own book, and it took about four times longer than I thought it would.
But writing it is just the first step.
Publishing it is the second step.
Now you need to get the word out about your book.
Yes, it helps to be able to say you literally wrote the book on your subject. And if you all you want to use your book for is bragging rights, that’s fine, but that’s not getting the most out of your book.
For that you need to do some book promotion to help the wider world find your book so they can see how brilliant you are at what you do.
So, let’s talk about some book promotion tips you can use to sell more books and get more business.
Table of Contents
- Craft the Perfect Title
- Maximize Your Description
- Category
- Promotional Discounts
- Reviews
- Book Tour
- Newsletter
- Social Media
- Need Help with Your Ebook?
Craft the Perfect Title
No matter how much time and effort you put into writing your book, the most important part will always be the title and the cover.
No matter how many times we’re told not to judge a book by its cover, we all absolutely judge books by their covers.
That means you have to make sure the title and cover of your book:
- Catch the reader’s attention
- Give an accurate idea of what the book is about
- Pique the reader’s interest
Once they’re interested, they’re going to read the description, so let’s talk about how you can get the most of that bit of your book’s real estate.
Maximize Your Description
Like your title and cover design, your description needs to do a lot of different things in order to convert browsers into buyers.
First and foremost is making sure your description is accurate, not just in the information it gives about your book, but in the feelings it evokes about your readers.
For example, I was just talking to someone who wrote a book designed to help people in a bad financial situation get out of it.
The person she hired to write the description used the word “exciting” in the book description, and the client was appalled. It’s not exciting to be in a situation where you could find this book useful.
It’s not an exciting topic, either, and it’s not intended to be exciting.
Once you’ve made sure your description is accurate and in line with your brand, make sure it has relevant keywords sprinkled throughout. Search engines scan the description to get an idea of what an item is about. If someone uses a search term that is not included in your title or your category, but it is included in your description, that can help them find your book when they’re looking for it.
Category
Categories are equally important for helping people find your book. It’s one of the first things search engines consider when trying to match someone’s search with the product they’re looking for.
They’re also useful in that many people will go straight to a category when they’re looking for a book on a certain topic. If your book isn’t in that category, they won’t find it.
Last, but certainly not least, is improving your chances of calling yourself a bestselling author.
If you encounter someone who calls themselves a bestselling author and you know for a fact they’ve never been on the New York Times Bestseller list, it’s a good bet they are claiming that title because they reached the top spot in a particular category on Amazon.
If you do manage to reach the top spot in your category, not only is that an excellent source of bragging rights, it also increases your chances of getting found by the people who are looking for you. If they go straight to a category and yours is the first book they find, many people will buy it (or at least give it more consideration) simply because it’s in the top spot.
So, let’s talk about how you can get to the top spot.
Promotional Discounts
Temporarily selling your book at a discount — or even free — for a limited time is a great way to boost sales, especially if you are successful in spreading the word about that sale. People love a sale, and lots of people will download a free ebook they might not have gotten at full price.
Amazon will also boost your book’s visibility during the sale because they want people to buy cheap stuff.
If enough people download your free/discounted ebook, you might get enough of a boost to reach the top spot in that category. You can then use that position — and the title of “bestseller” — to get more sales at full price.
Reviews
Once potential readers have checked out the title, cover, and description of your book, they’re going to look at the reviews. Personally, I always look at the average rating and the number of units sold. If an item has a slightly lower average rating, but many more units sold, I’ll give that more weight than an item with a very high rating, but only a few sales.
And while you might be tempted to try to maintain a streak of all 5-star ratings, keep in mind no one believes that everyone will be 100% satisfied with your product, no matter how good it is. You’re actually better off having a few lower reviews because that makes it more believable.
So ask for reviews every chance you get. Even something as simple as putting a request for a review at the end of your book can be surprisingly effective.
Raffles are also a great way to encourage people to leave reviews of your book. You can say everyone who leaves a review before a certain date will be entered into a raffle to win a prize. Extra points if the prize is related to the topic of your book.
Just make sure there is no contingency for the rating of the review. Anyone who leaves an honest review should be entered into the raffle. If you only enter the people who left 5-star reviews, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
Book Tour
The traditional book tour was a physical tour in which an author traveled around the country doing readings and signing books at book stores to promote their new book.
Some publishers still pay for their authors’ book tours, but they’re not cheap, and the more publishing houses have been tightening their belts, the choosier they’ve gotten about which authors get a book tour.
Digital Book Tour
What those of us in the self-publishing world mean by “book tour” is a digital book tour. That means guest blogging and guest podcasting.
Guest Blogging
When looking for opportunities to write guest blog posts, look for websites with a good following of people who might be interested in your book.
That is not to say the blog post you write for them should be straight-up promotion for your book. That’s a great way to make sure your guest article never gets published.
What you can do instead is write an article on a topic related to your book, then let people know that, if they want more information, they can buy your book.
You can even choose to make a sample of your book the guest article you submit. That makes it even easier to lead in to the call to action of people buying your book so they can finish reading.
Whatever type of guest blog post you choose to submit, just remember the cardinal rule of blog posts, especially when you’re a guest on someone else’s blog: provide value.
The majority of the blog post should provide value for the blog’s following. The promotional section of the article should take up no more than a paragraph at the very end.
Guest Podcasting
Guest podcasting is even easier. Just look for podcasts talking about topics related to the topic of your book, let them know you’ve published a book on the topic, and ask if they’d be interested in having you on their show.
If they accept, they’ll come up with a series of questions to ask you, and all you have to do is answer them. They’ll usually offer to at least mention your book in the course of the episode and provide a link in their show notes.
If you’re not already familiar with Matchmaker.fm and Podmatch.com, I highly recommend using both of them to find podcasts looking for guests.
Most guest blogging and guest podcasting opportunities are free, but some do require their guests to pay for the exposure. Whether or not you choose to go that route is completely up to you, your budget, and your goals.
Newsletter
Anytime you have anything to promote, you should use your newsletter to let your fans know about it, and that’s especially true of your book.
One of my favorite ways to do this is to put the first chapter of the book in the newsletter, then a link where they can buy the book for themselves so they can read the rest.
Keep in mind this is not a one-and-done type of activity. While the majority of your book promotion should be done right before and after publication, there really is no time to stop promoting your book, especially when it comes to your newsletter and social media.
Social Media
Don’t forget to let your social media followers know you’re an author. Just don’t put out a post saying, “I have a book now. Here’s where you can buy it.”
No one cares.
Instead, talk about why you wrote the book. What are the benefits people will get from reading it?
As with guest blogging, social media promotion is usually more effective if you can find some influencers in your industry or a related industry who might be interested in talking up your book to their audience. You can offer to send them a free copy of your book for them to review so they have a better idea of what they’re promoting.
As with any time you ask for a review, keep in mind it will be an honest review. Don’t send them a book with the requirement that they give it a good rating, because that will turn them off before they even know what the book is about.
Need Help with Your Book?
Like I said, I know how much work it is to write and publish a book because I wrote and published a book.
Did I mention we also help our clients write their ebooks?
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