Are You Making These Shocking Mistakes With Book Promotion?
Seriously, are you making these shocking mistakes with book promotion? These mistakes could mean the difference between your book selling well and not selling at all. So read on and discover whether you are making any of these mistakes.
Mistake 1: Not Promoting Your Book
This mistake should be obvious, really. But it’s all too common for promotion to be seen as an optional extra. Especially for first-time authors.
Some believe that after writing your book, that’s it. It just sells. The truth, unfortunately, is very different!
Most authors find that after an initial flurry of sales to friends and relatives, sales dry up. Sadly, without reminding people that your book exists — ie promotion — you won’t make any more sales.
Use AIDA
Consider the marketing acronym AIDA — Awareness comes before Interest, which can lead to Desire then the Action of buying your book. In promotion, you should be working on one of these areas at any given time.
Your readers won’t buy a book they’re not even aware of. Therefore start with raising awareness in your potential readers, then pique their interest.
Mistake 2: Paying a Fortune in Ads
Some people pay for ads to promote their book. The trouble is, unless you know the advertising medium you’re using well, it’s really hard to make ads pay.
Why is this? Why don’t ads work for books? Well, the trouble with books — even hardback books — is they have the perception of low value. And this makes it hard to charge more than say £10–15 at the most for a book.
And if you’re paying £10 a day or £100 per ad campaign, it’s all too easy to lose your shirt.
So paying for conventional online (or offline) ads usually just doesn’t work.
Mistake 3: Not Getting In Front of Your Readers
This is the most important part of marketing communications — getting your book in front of your readers.
Again, most authors — and indeed publishers — are negligent in doing this.
You absolutely have to know where your potential readers are, and how to reach them cost-effectively. This may be in person, or, increasingly, online.
Readers do congregate on certain sites like Goodreads or any of the book announcement and review sites. The trick is knowing which ones are worth your time.
You should use email, assuming you have an email list. And Social Media of varying types can be useful in getting the word out.
What To Do Instead
There are things you can do to promote your book that are either free or very cost-effective. You can do some of them yourself.
The challenge is that it can take a huge amount of time to find the right sites that work effectively. Discovering which ones are not a rip-off. And then even more time in learning how to use them.
Want The Short Cut to Success?
Check out this short article to see what you can do today to promote your book.