Writing a book for the first time? Which segment is your book for? Have you thought out the strategy for putting it across to your readers? How do you propose to put it across bookstores? Surprised! Are you? Strange as it may sound, answering these questions are as important as writing a book or conceiving a plot for a novel. A publishers’ work is merely to publish your script, maybe some distribution. But they certainly do not market it for you.
Even before its inception, a book needs to be thought out how it will reach its readers. And therefore, it is the individuals’ undertaking how it is brought forth to its readers. In a nutshell, to the arguments that these questions are likely to raise, the book’s marketing is as important as conceiving a good plot for target segment that may be looking for thrillers, autobiographies, or mysteries or simply couplets from the author.
Thankfully, marketing across borders today remains an easy ball game. Thanks to the several social media platforms that allow so much room for just about anything to come across as a ‘bestseller’ leave alone the book you finish. Yes! The tactics remain to be smart for finishing the product as the best seller marketing.
Here we share a few self-promotional, marketing tips suggested for making the book one of the front runners for achieving the Booker Prize ahead, the only thing that you need to do is push it with conviction, with the following measures, and they are:
1. Give Up On Old Tactics For Marketing
Instead of resorting to older tactics like going on the radio or a national network program or shooting out emails to all and sundry for the launch of your book, try devising some realistic marketing, social marketing approach for a book promotion before launch. For the niche, targeted marketing will yield better book promotion than adopting the old foggy ways of promotional campaigns like sending simple mailers to school and college libraries on why they should buy your book. Get it?
2. Have A Blog Or Website
It is always advisable to start your blog about the product that you intend to launch. And you are pure luck if a celebrity author like William Dalrymple or Shobha De takes to blog about your book in their forum. In that case, you need to send a prayer to the mannas in heaven that favoured your luck for book promotion.
Such is the empower of having your blogging site for the book before it hits the stands, writing gist about what it is likely to entail, or what plot you have already covered, leaving behind the air of doubt for readers, your buyers, to come back to read your blog more till the suspense is overcome when the book launches.
Nothing, though, can ever have the potential to boost sales better than a blog either your blog or someone else’s blogging site. A simple blog posted can perform much better than several weeks of tiring traditional promotions adapted. The links provided and shared in the blogs go a long way in making promotional campaigns with as little effort as possible.
3. Make The ‘Title’ Of The Book A ‘Headline’
Before stating more of anything about how to pitch sales of the book that is about to launch, the first step in that direction would be to name your book title so that nobody misses it even if the concept seems negative in the first place. An example of it could be, “Don’t Read the Crap in Here” believe it or not, everyone is going to read the name of the title, and your work is half done.
A good title can be tested immediately – that is a headline in the newspaper grabs the eyeballs much before the rest of the news, this is what works, a catchy title of the book, even if it’s slightly affirmative. It helps promote sales. And the Google Adwords can be rearranged with the best words that can make it as the title of the book to promote sales in the first place.
What is insisted here is, be different in your approach for putting across something with new devices that are in concept, however ‘schemey’ they may look in the first place. Using powerful words or headlines boost your chances of book promotion and sales success.
4. Create A ‘Halo’ And Sensationalise To Benefit
The Halo effect is for real. Believe it! As mentioned earlier if you have a famous author vying for your product; you are bound to sell from the ‘halo’ the individual has and promote the product in hand. For instance, if other Australian authors like Kate Grenville, Helen Garner, and Tim Winton or even other overseas authors like Jeffrey Archer or Oprah Winfrey decides to promote your product, you have made the halfway mark through, promoting sales of the book that is the first launch.
In a gist, the ‘celebrity halo status’ is as important to a brand promotion for pushing sales as is blogging about the subject. It is one of the reasons the ‘halo’ status that Apple has over Microsoft makes their computer, so niche over the other brands and gives outstanding sales. Sensationalising a product remains an important part of brand promotion, creating a ‘halo’ around it overnight. The other better way to be featured is by using podcasts and radio shows that have listeners while driving to work or home that genuinely help pitch sales.
5. Use Social Media To Increase Online Presence
Making your presence felt is essential on all the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Promoting sales on social networking sites by tweeting and re-tweeting or sharing the page helps a great deal in pitching for the clients you want to put your book across.
6. Seek Your Target Audience
With the promotion on social media, putting a link for carrying forward the post on other pages through ‘links’ makes people talk about the product. Connectivity on social networks is faster as the world is hooked on it fearing FOMO. That helps pitch sales in general. And it’s beneficial for seeking the target audience or demographic that will read the book.
7. Create A Visual Book Trailer
Among adapting the new methods of marketing small promos made as visual trailers help promote the product in several ways, some of them are:
- Sharing in videos is a popular form of promotion
- Videos are easy to share
- A reader gets to know you better
- Circulating the book preview in videos keeps the availability of the book fresh in everybody’s mind
- It is a straightforward form of investment
8. Aim To Get Rave Reviews On Your Product
Getting reviews as much as possible on papers, radios, book blurbs, and social network platforms can help promote sales in a big way. Research studies indicate 80% of the sales consider positive reviews for making a book the best seller.
If you have sought place inappropriate reviews like Amazon, you are bound to have the best distribution for the book.
9. Network On Promotional Schemes
The best is to network on promotional schemes like book discount websites or a platform known for all writers to be together like the Goodreads Author’s program. Book Gorilla and more. With all this done and a little more, you are bound to see your name on the bestseller list, as it has genuinely been summed by some wise authors themselves, ‘authors can’t afford to write anymore simply,’ and that is true.
A traditional way of going only through a book publisher has lost its charm. There can be only distribution and editorial reviews arranged by the publisher’s end. To market, the book a pre-launch has to be made before the launch to give the fillip.
Understandable, it’s not easy. The ultimate sales come only with the way you push the product, and it takes a lot of effort to see it through. The book that you write only then becomes an international bestseller. And that is entirely your call!
For some tips on what promotions and writing careers check out these recent Marketing.com.au articles: