When I was a kid, I was “forced” to go to summer camp three different times. Painfully shy, I hated it, and whenever a particularly social activity came up, I’d ask my counselor, “Do I have to?”
“You don’t have to,” she’d say. “You get to.”
Now, “get to” implies that there’s some part of the activity I would find enjoyable. When it came to camp, not so much. And you may be thinking the same thing, that there’s no part of marketing you would ever enjoy. But what about the license to talk about the book you love?
Think of all the times you wanted to talk about your book and couldn’t. Marketing gives you that opportunity free and clear, and if you can shift your perspective in this way, if you can make the task something you get to do, it probably won’t feel like the scary beast you’ve imagined in your head.
If you’re reading this post, then I’m guessing you’re a fellow small press author, a self-published author, or someone considering going down either of those roads…but perhaps the concept of marketing your book stumps or scares you. Maybe you’ve seen a few too many people doing some Dirty Dancing routine on Instagram or TikTok with a paperback and thought, Hell no. Not for me. The good news is you don’t have to. It is still possible to sell books without doing a dance number or even being on camera…though it helps.
Honestly, I can sum up my marketing approach for you in three words: Content, Consistency, and Community.
First, a few disclaimers:
1.) I am NOT an expert at marketing. There is no research or data behind any of this.
2.) I am NOT a bestseller, at least not at this time. I make no promises or guarantees that, if you follow my advice, it will make you a bestseller or even work for you.
3.) I AM providing my observations, experiences, and the opinions I’ve formed both as a writer who handles most of her own marketing and as a reader. They may be unique to me, and you are free to take or leave whatever you like.
4.) I do marketing part-time, so my experiences are limited.
5.) I’m going to focus on online marketing, which is what I do most. If you’re interested in my “offline” efforts, I discuss those more in my newsletter. You can subscribe on my website’s homepage, and old issues are posted on my blog.
So, if you’re still interested in my take on marketing, let’s dive in!
CONTENT
In my opinion, effective content that generates interest in your book includes the following:
· An amazing book cover
· Tropes
· Characters
· Snippets
· Wins (reviews, awards, progress, good opportunities, etc.)
· Personal/relatable material
Book Covers
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard it, but I guarantee you we all do it. And so do your prospective readers. A cover that catches the eye and gets the reader to look at the blurb is huge. That means, if you’re signing with a small press, you need to like the covers they’ve made for their other books. They may seem great in other ways, but if they give you a poorly designed cover, they have set you up for failure. If you’re self-publishing, you need to find a high-quality cover artist…and pay what their work deserves.
As a reader, I look at the books that catch my eye. Covers that don’t, I skim right past. And worse, covers with poor art quality may make me wonder if other areas have been shortchanged too. That may not seem fair, that people could judge the inside by the outside, but what other products do you buy that lack aesthetic appeal? Would you buy a car covered in dents and scratches? So, that’s our first job…to make sure the cover attracts people to the book. If you’re not sure, you can always run a poll or ask a group for their honest opinions.
And doing a cover reveal post or video can be really great content too, especially if you hype it up.
Tropes, Characters, & Snippets
During my teacher licensure program, I lived with a roommate in a small house. We were watching TV one night, and this commercial came on for the Dairy Queen brownie batter blizzard. I kid you not, we were out the door in under two minutes.
You know what was in that commercial? Brownies. Chocolate. Ice cream stuffed with all the goodies.
What didn’t they do? Show us a picture of their cup and say, “Come buy one if you want to know what’s in it. We promise it tastes good.”
And yet…I see authors do this. They show the cover. They give the tagline. And that’s it. But in order to get a brownie batter blizzard reaction, you have to show the insides. Sure, you might get some weaker readers with a book-buying problem by just listing a trope. But the rest of us need some sense of what we’re getting. We need tastes.
Sometimes you don’t get the brownie batter blizzard reaction right away either.
I joined Instagram after I’d pretty much decided to stop querying agents and focus on publishers. So, I knew marketing was in my future. I paid a lot of attention to what the indie authors were doing on that platform and was surprised to find myself saying, “Oh, I could do that,” over and over again. Especially when they were posting tropes and snippets.
One author that I followed did this really well. Almost every day, she had a post where she hit the tropes in her book and/or shared a snippet. I read her posts every day. I looked forward to them. If I didn’t see her post something in my feed, I’d go to her page to see if I’d missed it. I loved her writing. Her snippets showed her talent, the quality of her work, and her characters seemed like real people. I did this for two months. Then I bought not one, but five of her books all at once.
My own reaction here really defined my own approach to marketing. Her covers caught my eye, and her snippets were interesting. They gave me just enough to see how well she wrote relatable characters, and she always provided her big tropes in the captions. I knew what I was getting, but I didn’t know the story. That gave me the confidence to pull the trigger and buy her series.
Tropes
Tropes are the common parts of your story that people may see in other stories and enjoy, like “enemies-to-lovers” or “found family.”
This is a really great way to begin marketing and find your audience. I’m a sucker for misfit heroes forming their own little family. I prefer urban fantasy over big epic fantasy. I like YA slow-burn romantic subplots. So, when I see authors advertising those elements, I may like their posts so I can see more of their content. Covers are a great way to grab attention, but tropes are how you help your true audience connect with you…the people who are more likely to love your book, not just go, “Meh, three stars.”
There are a lot of ways to do tropes too. You can list them in the captions on posts, or the arrow trend is still fairly popular (see above). That’s a fun way to show off your cover and give people a feel for the book at the same time. I’ve also made videos in Canva, using different clips to show each trope, or made “slides” as separate Instagram posts, then turned them into a slideshow video with a TikTok template.
Characters
Introducing your characters is another fun way to do marketing. A lot of authors accomplish this through snippets, but you can set them apart and show them off like your tropes too. I like the variety this gives me in my content.
This is an example of a slideshow video that I made via Canva and TikTok. I think relating to and empathizing with the characters is pretty important to readers. By highlighting traits, strengths, flaws, and weaknesses in a marketing post, you may attract more potential readers who like or relate to the kinds of characters you describe.
Snippets
To be honest, snippets make the biggest difference for me. They help me decide whether or not I’m going to buy an indie book, but unfortunately, not all authors provide them or do so often enough for me to get a feel for their story and characters.
It can be scary to put your writing on display. What if you get a bad response? What if you get no response? But here’s the thing. Well chosen snippets can prove your book is a quality product. They also draw potential readers into the story. You give them just enough…and then leave them hanging. The same way you might end a chapter.
Snippets can be a variety of lengths. They can be a simple sentence that packs a punch, a paragraph that shows character development, or a short scene of dialogue. It helps to vary it up. Here are some tips I’ve learned from posting snippets and from scrolling on social media.
1.) Videos are fun and flashy but harder to read. Save them for your shorter snippets. Don’t put a lot on the screen at one time, and make sure you give people a reasonable amount of time to read.
2.) Photos to swipe through are easier to read, especially for longer snippets. I get way more engagement on TikTok and Instagram when I post photo snippets. Yes, TikTok too. That’s how frustrating not keeping up with a video can be.
3.) Don’t post long snippets all on one slide. Break them down into shorter chunks on multiple slides and use at least a medium sized font. If I see a huge snippet squeezed onto slides in small print, my eyes will glaze right over it.
4.) Pick interesting sections that leave the reader wanting more. Some fun banter or the lead-up to a kiss. A terrifying situation before someone takes action. Drop the reader in the story, but don’t give them the part they really want.
In a nutshell, make the snippet as easy—and fun—to read as possible.
When it comes to tropes, characters, and snippets, remember that you can reuse, recycle, or revamp what you create as well. That helps a lot with consistency. I spent about a month doing nothing but making content, but I don’t do that anymore. I can go back to old posts and videos, which gives me more time to do what I really want to do…write!
Wins
This is pretty straightforward. Did you get a glowing 5-star review? Win an award? Make writing or editing progress on another WIP? Get an opportunity to do a book event or speak at a school? Share those. Any little success is not only inspiring to other writers, but it also tells potential readers that other people have liked your book. That’s encouraging to anyone thinking about buying it.
Personal/relatable material
It’s always nice to see the face behind the book. No, you don’t have to. And no, you definitely don’t have to dance around if you do. But, if you can push yourself a little here, it’s helpful. As part of the indie writing community, posting about yourself helps people connect with you. Any fans of your books might find those posts interesting as well.
These posts can be a picture of you doing something you enjoy, an unboxing video, or even just a video of you typing. My mind tends to go blank when I’m in front of the camera, so I find the trend of recording myself and then adding text to say what I want to say helpful.
And you don’t even have to show your face to accomplish this. Posting updates on your writing or taking pictures of your environment helps you connect too.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend downloading the CapCut app. These templates are great for creating relatable content when it comes to the writing and publishing experience. When I’m low on time or out of ideas, I can usually scroll through and find something to help me maintain my goals with consistency.
CONSISTENCY
Now that I’ve talked about what to post, let’s talk about when. When should you start posting and marketing your book?
NOW. ASAP.
If following big Instagram accounts has taught me anything, it’s that building a platform happens over time. There are Bookstagram accounts that started with a writing idea and have been posting about their writing—and now publishing—journey since that inception. A couple of them have recently self-published and are doing really well because they’ve been posting day in and day out for a long time. Their followers are invested in their progress and their stories.
But what if I’m still querying? What if I don’t have a publishing date yet? What if I still have a ton of work to do before I can publish it?
Doesn’t matter. Letting people get to know you and your writing on a daily basis is essential for building interest for when you do eventually release a book.
I try to post to my priority socials at least once a day (and that’s a pretty low goal to be honest). Twitter is once a day, unless some news comes along, but I don’t do a lot of marketing there. Since it’s a text-based platform, I post more about what I’m working on and try to connect with the community. TikTok is also once a day because prepping those videos or photo reels is the most time-consuming marketing task on my plate. Instagram is twice a day for a few reasons.
1.) The videos I make on TikTok also post well to Instagram.
2.) I participate in the #writerfriendschallenge daily prompts to help me connect with other writers and give me content ideas.
3.) It’s the platform where I’ve received the most support on publishing my books, from finding ARC readers to friends sharing posts or reviews.
Am I on other platforms? Yes. But since I only have a limited amount of time to do marketing and maintain my presence online, I’ve had to prioritize. I can’t spend hours scrolling through six different socials. I chose these three because they work the best for me. If you’re also on a number of platforms and aren’t going to be writing full time, you may have to prioritize like me. I’ve seen writers go all in on one or two, so they can post multiple times throughout the day. I can’t swing that, but it does help you reach more people who might be scrolling at different times.
Daily posting is important for the algorithm. It reminds readers of your content. And for people like me who may be seeing it but waiting two months to buy the book, it makes a big difference. People may give in over time. You may have to experiment to find the right time to post. I’m still not sure what mine is on all my platforms.
COMMUNITY
The biggest piece of advice I can give when it comes to marketing is this: Make sure you’re an active member of the writing community on at least one of your platforms. The connections that you make with other writers are everything. You may think you have a pretty supportive group of friends and family…until you start marketing. At some point, you are going to need the support of other writers because we all get the highs and lows of this crazy business.
This is where you’ll find your beta readers, your ARC readers, your reviews, your support, your adds on Goodreads, and people who will engage with your content. They’ll like, comment, share, and support you if you let them get to know you and the stories you love to tell…because writers are readers. And the really great thing about that is we all just want to read a great book and get sucked into its world. Having the opportunity to do that is, generally, payment enough.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t come across people with an ulterior motive, people who may read and review your book and expect you to do the same for them. Let me be clear. I am not telling you to do that. In fact, DO NOT DO THAT! There are far too many people and insanely large TBRs and crazy schedules to hold that expectation.
If there’s someone you admire and would like to read and review your book, especially as an ARC reader, you can ask them. It’s not rude. It’s flattering. But if they tell you they can’t or aren’t interested, let it go and move on to the next person. Asking someone to consider reading and reviewing your book is okay. Asking them to market for you is not. So, if they agree to read your book, they get to choose how they review and if they post about it.
I like to think of the community as a collective of sorts. We’re not always able to pay a favor back, but we absolutely should—and often do—pay it forward. As an indie, you should be reading books by other indies at least some of the time. And you can always support your fellow authors by liking their posts, commenting, and sharing…even if you’re not able to read and review. Do I move books by people I connect with most to the top of my TBR? Absolutely! But I won’t read a book I don’t want to read. And you shouldn’t either. That doesn’t do anyone any favors.
Find your brownie batter blizzard books and read those, regardless of whether the author decides to return the favor. Enjoy them. Post about them. Because don’t we all secretly want that? To find those people who will love our books enough to share them? It’s the golden rule of book marketing: Do for others what you’d like others to do for you. No strings attached.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
Other writers aren’t your competition. If they’re in your genre, they could be sources for comps. If not, they could be your teachers.
When it comes to reviews, it’s almost more about quantity than “quality.” What’s better than a 5-star book with 7 reviews? A 3.5-star book with 100. Because it’s selling, even if it’s not everyone’s favorite.
It can actually be a good thing to have a rating below 5-stars because it shows that people you don’t know are reading the book and giving their honest opinions.
Think of the last product you bought on Amazon (not books) that had no reviews or only a handful of 5-stars. Can you think of one? I can’t. We want some assurance that a lot of people have tried a product and thought it was good. The same is true for books. That’s why getting a team of people to read and review your book before or shortly after your launch date is so important. It’s kind of a Catch-22, but it tends to be easier to get reviews if you already have some.
The good news is I don’t think it’s ever too late to start marketing, but it may be a little more work. You may have to reach out to people in the writing community and ask them if they’d be willing to read and review your book.
But never pay for reviews. Watch out for scams in your DMs.
Personally, I stay out of my reviews. I check the count every now and again, and I’ll read any new 5-stars. But that’s it. I don’t consider it my space but the readers’. I do that for my mental sanity, and I highly recommend it.
If you need advice, ask. We’ve all been on the receiving end at some point, and most of us are happy to pass those pearls of wisdom on.
I hope at least some of this was helpful or encouraging. I wanted to be pretty honest because publishing can be brutal. Marketing is a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be scary. And when it pays off…when you find those readers who fall in love with your characters and go crazy over your stories, it’ll feel like it’s all worth it.
I promise.
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