Step-by-Step Guide: How to Plan a Book Marketing Strategy

To become a published author, you must learn how to plan a book marketing strategy to boost sales. Marketing is no doubt the most difficult phase of becoming an author. Creating a marketing plan might not be that tedious. However, building a plan that drives the book’s success needs effort.

In essence, marketing a book revolves around telling people why your product is necessary for them and providing an effortless channel for them to get it. Although the concept of marketing is very simple, it has some complex aspects.

In this blog, you will find a complete breakdown of the details regarding the marketing of a book. Following are the steps on how to plan a book marketing strategy to make your job easy.

Find Your Target Audience

When an author commits to paper and finishes the whole story, they want the world to enjoy their world. Nevertheless, that is not the case with any book. Every reader has different preferences, so one might find your genre interesting, while the other might choose to skip it.

Having said that, there is always a chance to attract readers with different tastes to your book. To make that happen, you must know how to plan a book marketing approach that focuses on a wider audience.

To grab the attention of the audience, you can use this technique:

Find Relevant Keywords

Once you decide on the target audience, you can begin using keywords that match the interest of your potential readers. Based on that, you can start a campaign for marketing using the right keywords. According to the book’s style and genre, you can search on Google. This will help you determine the words related to your book. Finding different keywords can allow you to put up digital ads for people who might take an interest in your book.

Find Communities that Search for Your Keywords

You don’t always have to build a new community to market and sell your book. Another way of doing this is by targeting an audience that already exists in a community. When you learn how to plan a book, you can find a community where your potential readers get together to discuss their interests. 

These communities can be anywhere, like Instagram, Tumblr, or Facebook. There are also local book clubs that meet up to talk about science-fiction books, non-fiction, or young-adult fiction books. You can attend such meetups to reach out to your audience and get an insight into their views.

Choose Your Budget

Before you start implementing the steps of how to plan a book, you need to set a budget. To prepare for the marketing strategy, you should know how much money you can spend on the marketing of your book. 

Your marketing plan solely depends on the type of audience you want to attract. You need to create content according to the people you are going to engage. For instance, some people make a video or audio trailers for the launch of their books. Others opt for Facebook ads to maximize their reach.  

If you are printing a book, you have to bear that cost as well. In addition to that, a considerable amount of money goes into travel for book signings, conferences, readings, podcasts, or speaking opportunities.

To estimate these expenses, you can make a spreadsheet that includes all the potential costs. That will help you in determining the budget that would go into the promotion of your book.

Establish an Online Presence

Many people think about the marketing of their book once the book is completed. However, it is always better to start marketing when you are halfway through your book. The marketing of your book before it’s published gets your book the exposure necessary for sales.

You can research the social media platforms that your audience uses and start posting there. For instance, if you are focusing on the social media platform, you can share about the progress of your book, sneak peeks of your work, or content that relates to your genre. 

With constant social media posts, your following will start increasing. Your posts have to be genuine and exciting for the viewers to engage and share them.

Another idea to do this is by creating an author website that contains your bio and previous work. On that website, you can share content like social feeds, blogs, press releases, sample chapters, or podcasts. You can encourage the audience of your website to sign up for the newsletter. Email marketing is a fruitful method to build excitement and keep your audience hooked for your launch.

Use Hashtags to Grow on Social Media

Social media platforms have many popular hashtags that people search for. As an author, you can use such hashtags. In this way, you can connect to other writers as well. 

Make Advertising Content

When you start marketing your book, you need to advertise your content on various marketing channels. These channels include accounts on different social media platforms and ads. You should post the content on a daily or weekly basis. When you have to post this frequently, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. That is because you have to generate content continuously. Rather than creating new content every day, prepare content before you start advertising. 

Take some time to come up with the type of content you want to share with the audience. Then, finalize the content based on the type that will get the most engagement. After that, establish a calendar to line up the posts that you are going to share. Here is how you advertise your content:

• Plan giveaways where you can distribute some of the copies of your book for free. If you are promoting the giveaway on social media, you can encourage the followers to tag the people in their friend lists.

• You can make a teaser of your book cover design and gradually do a book cover reveal through the channels you are using for advertisement.

• Create a media kit that includes all the marketable information about your books, such as a press release, back-cover blurb, places to buy your book, and the publication date. These media kits are generally for bookstores.

• For blog posts, you can find the topics of the blogs first and make a template for your email list. By doing this, at the time of marketing, your work will become straightforward.

If you think that it is hard for you to manage the advertisement for your book, you can always find book marketing services in the USA. They know how to market your content on multiple channels for the best outcomes.

Study Promotion Tactics That Boost Sales

After you publish your book, you can put it up on sale at a promotional price. You have to run ads through book promotion services. These services can help you rank on Amazon and increase your book’s visibility even after the promotion phase of your book ends.

Secondly, you can use Amazon ads on both the product page of books by different authors and the search results. You can make many people spend on your book by correctly using advertisements.

Get Readers’ Reviews

There are thousands of books that get published on a daily basis. When readers have so many options to pick from, you should give the readers a reason to try your book. On that note, book reviews can be useful. By reading the reviews about your books, most readers are convinced to buy your book. For customers who are buying your book for the first time, reviews mean a lot.  

To get reviews, you can contact influencers, bloggers, the avid readers of your genre. Also, you can search for famous reviewers and send them a copy of your book. Such honest reviews on Amazon, your website, and other platforms where you are selling your book help significantly with the sales of your book.

When you have feedback and reviews on several places, the viewer starts thinking that your book is being talked about. If you start getting reviews before the launch of your book, viewers will find it impressive once it is published.

Avail the Speaking Opportunities

If you want to sell books, you need to grab all the opportunities to market your book. For instance, you can go for interviews, so people can hear your views. Readers like to see the authors in person. That makes them more excited about the book. Plus, you can visit bookstores, libraries, schools, and other places for guest lectures. 

You can also go for media outlets like newspapers, literary journals and magazines, and well-known websites to do an interview for your book.

Final Words

These are the steps on how to plan a book marketing strategy. With these steps, it will get simpler for you to sell your books. Additionally, effective marketing is when you make your book available on as many platforms as possible.

When you don’t have a marketer, your book marketing, distribution, editorial reviews, book launch and signing events, book fairs, and writing blogs are all your responsibility. In case you can’t find the time to go ahead with the marketing process of your book, you can contact experts to market your book with their effective techniques.