What is the best way for an author to market a book? Market multiple books!

Authors should be promoting their first book before it is even published—and long after it is released. Writers are always trying to establish their brand, obtain readers, build up social media followers, increase a mailing list of fans, and generate sales.

Then comes a second book, and a third, etc. Book marketing is a continuum. You never really stop promoting, but at times you increase or change the specific type—or level—of activity that you are involved in.

Repetition of effort and constantly talking about your books is what leads to them getting sold and read. We see this with advertising and social media. Not only to do you promote the heck out of one book, you can do so for each and all of your books. Diversify your marketing, repeat and rinse, and always be promoting.

The biggest payoff to your marketing efforts will happen when you have a lot of books to promote, especially if they are in a series or connected in some way (same genre, for example). This does not mean that you don’t promote your first book or second or third book; it means that you promote each book knowing that will help promote all future and past books.

To be a successful writer, ideally, you want to stick to a single genre and, if possible, to have a series or some thematic connection among your books. Here’s a proven three-book marketing strategy.

Paid Book Reviews

Submit to four to six paid book review outlets for book one. You need to establish the series with positive reviews. For book two, go to another four to six paid review outlets—none of them being the same as the first book. Do the same for book three. This allows you to get 12 to18 different review outlets saying positive things about a book in the trilogy (doesn’t matter which one). This is better than getting, say, 12 reviews from the same four outlets (three times each). All of these reviews can go on your website, social media, back of book covers, press releases, etc.

Ads

For each of your first two books, do not pay a cent for any advertising. It does not pay off. Pay-per-click or display ads on Google, Facebook, or Amazon will lose you money. Kirkus Reviews display ads? Same. But, once your trilogy is published, it is worth dabbling to see if it works. Why? You will spend a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on your ad. It will take a certain number of clicks to lead to a book sale. Most authors do not sell enough books to justify their ad spending. But if you have three books out there, then people may buy one book, and after reading it, they may explore what else you have published and decide to buy your other books. Now the ad is looking better.

Book Awards

For the first book, apply to as many awards as you can find and pay for. Apply in multiple categories at each award to increase your chances of placing as a finalist or winning. For the second book, only apply to those that you did not previously pursue, or ones that you had applied to last time and didn’t get any recognition from. For the third book, follow the strategy for book two. This allows your writing to get a lot of awards—all different ones—so that you can rattle off an impressive list. Many awards come with feedback or analysis. You can quote from it and highlight the positive feedback. There’s no reason to win the same award twice, such as once for book one and again for another book. It’s better to win four different awards over three books than to win two awards twice.

Rights

Authors can sell many rights to their content. For instance, you can sell the rights to publishers to sell your book in another English-language nation, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, etc. You can sell foreign language rights. You can also sell other formats; if you released just e-book and paperback format, you can sell the audio rights or hardcover edition rights. The book can be turned into a movie, a streamed television series, a cable or network TV show, a cartoon, a play, etc. Don’t waste your time trying to sell any rights until you publish the trilogy and have a track record of reviews, sales, awards, etc., to present.

News Media

There is lots of news media that an author can pursue, depending on the timing of the book’s release, the subject matter, the author’s background and brand, and the type of media outlet you seek to approach. For any of the books, especially the first one, you want to approach local media and position yourself as a human interest story of “local resident publishes a book.” You may want to try to get on podcasts and interviewed by radio shows. Perhaps you will seek to write articles that get published on blogs, websites, or in newspapers, magazines, trade publications, and newsletters. You can pursue the media if your book’s subject is in the news, if you win awards, or if the book has a message that ties into an honorary day/holiday/anniversary. Getting publicity for the first book is most important, but you can keep trying with book two. The trilogy, since it wraps things up—and by then you may have critical acclaim and awards under your belt—will afford you your strongest pitch to the news media.

Conferences

Authors can attend a book festival, display their book at a book convention, or have a booth at a book fair. None of them are worth doing, if at all, until you have the trilogy published, for the same reason as with selling your rights. Still, even with a trilogy, I would limit how much time/money you put into this area. This area of marketing is really about winning the lottery—trying to get discovered in a random way.

Social Media

Authors generally hate social media, but it is the one area that costs nothing (except your sanity) and can potentially reach the most people. I recommend not going crazy by being on four to six platforms. Two can be enough, and you should be proficient and very active on one of them. Over time, social media gets easier. You will have more followers and connections by book three than by book one, and you will have learned the ropes of what works and what doesn’t. Initially your goal is to make as many connections as possible and to introduce your books to as many potential targeted readers as possible. You will be experimenting with what to share and how often. You will join groups, such as on Facebook. You will not just focus on posting but on directly communicating with people who identify as your likely readers.

Speaking

Authors should always be scheduling public appearances to promote their book. Whether you speak at a bookstore, library, church, or school, or in front of a nonprofit, business, or government agency, you will help promote the readership of your book and the notoriety of your brand. Initially, nothing should be too small to do, even if three people show up. Each event builds on the previous one. By speaking, you gain exposure for your book. Book one is hard because you have no track record, but you try. Book two is easier to promote, and by book three, you can convince people to have you speak because you have more to talk about and by then you hopefully can show lots of third-party validation, such as other places where you spoke, reviews, awards, etc.

Website

For the first book, you seek to introduce yourself as a writer and to present the book’s themes, so use what is at your disposal. Create videos for your site. Launch a blog. Create a podcast. Share a sample chapter for those who want to see your writing. Have a great gift offer so that you can begin to build up your mailing list. Show which social media platforms you are on. If you make public appearances or get book reviews/testimonials, showcase them on the site. As book two publishes, you will hopefully be able to add more media or public appearances, awards recognition, etc. Once the trilogy is out, you can sell each book on its own—and you can package the three together as a unit. Some people, after releasing the trilogy, will make the first book available for free, both as an inducement for capturing people’s emails at your site, and to feature the series and lure people into buying the set or the other two books separately. A site is not stagnant—you continually update, expand, edit, and revise it.

Good luck in promoting each of your books, but know the best is to come after the trilogy is released.

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