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Feeling like you're late to the party with your book marketing strategy? Is a drop in initial sales post-publication leaving you feeling deflated?
Don't worry. If you didn't get the pre-launch book marketing memo, it's not too late! Here are some great ways you can boost sales and implement a book marketing strategy even after your book launch.
Run Giveaways to Boost Book Marketing
This is a great way to raise awareness and increase the excitement and buzz around your book if things have gone a little flat. Or even if they haven't!
Think about what you want to give away and run a competition for it. Maybe you want to keep costs low and offer a signed copy of your book, but bear in mind, if you are an unknown author this might not be tempting enough.
Use the competition entries to gain something useful to your book marketing strategy such as mailing list sign-ups, social media shares and tags etc.
Or to boost book sales directly, you could run something like "buy my book within these dates and be entered into the prize draw to win a £100 Waterstones voucher".
Get imaginative and work to your budget. But remember not to spend more than you expect to make on book sales!
You can even collaborate with similar authors to do a joint giveaway. This also enables you both to piggy back off each other's social media following.
Utilise Social Media
Use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok to your advantage post-launch.
Work out which platform your audience is hiding in and hone in on that one. For example, I've found young adult fiction is better off aimed at TikTok whereas the literary fiction genre slots in nicely on Facebook.
It's true that the pre-book launch would have been your ideal time to build a following, but it's never too late to start.
If you haven't got any of these set up as author accounts yet, it's time to get at least one of them now.
Keep on plugging away with organic methods to grow your audiences. For ideas of what to post on your author social media account, click here.
Guest on a Podcast
The online scene is literally littered with podcasts at the moment; the world has gone a bit podcast crazy in my opinion! We're a society that's constantly "too busy" to do anything, so the accessibility of being able to listen to a podcast on-the-go has become very alluring to the mass population.
Find a podcast that is relevant for you and apply for it. Make sure the podcast has a decent enough following and check how many YouTube views its getting.
You might find author podcasts, or podcasts for your specific genre. Maybe a business podcast if you've written a book within your business field. We run a Wellness Authors podcast and our guests are exclusively published non-fiction health and wellness authors (more details about our podcast here).
And when you do get that guest feature slot, make sure you are given the opportunity to sell yourself and plug your book!
Boost Your Social Proof
In general, we are a society who like to do what other people are doing, because if enough people are doing that thing, it must be right, right?
For example, when it comes to books, the more reviews a book has, the more likely we are to buy it.
Take two similar non-fiction books; one book has four 5-star reviews and one has 209 5-star reviews, it's clear which book is most likely to be bought, regardless of quality or how long the book with less reviews has been out for.
Instagram account popularity works in a similar way - you're much more likely to buy from a service provider with 25k followers than a smaller business account with 2k followers, despite the fact that the account with the larger following could even have bought their followers and the smaller account could be much better at what they do.
(By the way, I'm totally not condoning buying followers as a conducive way to succeed in book marketing!)
My point is, social proof isn't fair, but it exists. So use it to your advantage where you can.
Book reviews are a great place to start - use sites such as NetGalley and GoodReads to boost your reviews
Post photos of yourself with other professionals within your industry and readers
Network your arse off and post the hell out of it!
Attend conferences, book fairs, exhibitions where you can bring a load of your books
Host talks in libraries
Get out and about and make a name for yourself
Editorial Reviews
Following on from social proof in the book marketing world, what better way to prove yourself to the public than with a review from a famous or an expert in your genre?
If you're writing romantic fiction, why not look up Colleen Hoover's agent? If you're writing a kid's book, maybe Tom Fletcher would give your manuscript a short quote? I'm not saying you'll be able to snag a celebrity to review your book but imagine if you did, and if you don't ask, you don't get.
Other people you can ask for reviews from are recognised professionals in the book world. Editors, publishers, newspapers, magazines, big named bloggers.
And finally, you can always ask other authors who write within the same genre as you.
Your aim from receiving an editorial review is so people can see on your sales page that your book has been accepted and championed by someone who IS somebody in that world. Which, with the theory of social proof will make your book more appealing to buyers.
Here are just a few ways you can use book marketing to promote your book after publication. There are plenty more where these came from in our Marketing Strategy pack which you can find here.
And finally, remember, your book is amazing and is totally worth all the promotion you can give it!
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