If ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ is your mantra for book marketing then it’s time to replace that with ‘Just do it’. You know it needs to be done, yet day after day it’s there at the bottom of your to-do-list and you haven’t started on it. We all have tasks we procrastinate on, jobs we should be doing but search for any excuse not to. We tell ourselves we’ll do it when we are in the perfect mood, the right time of day, when we have oodles of time for the task. Well that time is now! Let’s get rid of that guilt and get started on your book marketing.
Promoting my book felt like showing-off at a time when I was especially vulnerable. I’d put my name to a novel. Telling people about the work was tantamount to suggesting they buy a copy. Describing it as Romantic Comedy not only suggested I thought I could tell a story but that I was funny. Who did I think I was? As you can tell, I was apologetic, and, I’ll admit, slightly neurotic, and yet I really wanted people to read the story.
Your Instagram bio only features one precious link. One chance to direct your readers where you want them to go. So, how can you best optimize this link to make it as easy as possible for your readers to get to your best content?
Twitter has been the social media author platform of choice for years now and despite competition from newer social media (Instagram, anyone?) Twitter’s popularity continues to increase. Twitter now has 330 million monthly active users and that number is growing by 4% annually. With so many people in the literary community on Twitter it’s a fantastic place to connect with fellow authors, agents, publishers and industry professionals. In this post we look at the top Twitter tips to increase your tweet visibility and connect with more readers than ever before.
Dream of being able to have adventures in exotic lands while simultaneously writing your book? Trip coming up and worried about it clashing with your book marketing plans? Or already working overseas, laptop perched precariously on hotel pillows? It’s a blessing to be able to travel and work at the same time and it brings it’s own set of challenges. Here are my top tips for maintaining your book marketing and writing momentum on the road.
Every day we are bombarded by a constant stream of book marketing tools, techniques and trends. Added to this is the highlight reel of social media, making us feel that everyone else is hustling so much harder and smarter than we are. It’s enough to make even the most persistent author feel like giving up. So how to succeed in book market when it feels like you are trying to eat soup with a fork? Here are our straight-forward strategies for beating book marketing overwhelm.
As a writer your book marketing to-list can seem endlessly long. Often authors are already juggling multiple roles with full-time work, writing, childcare and other responsibilities. You may be navigating the steep learning curve of self-publishing, on top of which you are expected to do all your own book marketing and now maintain a regular presence on social media as well. How to fit in time for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram when it all seems too much? Let’s look at how you can work smarter instead of harder by simplifying your social media in three easy steps.
If you’ve already successfully launched your website but are finding there are barely any visits and even fewer purchases of your book, it may be time to reassess your website strategy. Here we run through some quick ways to boost your traffic and reach new readers.
Looking for the best hashtags to grow your readership? Wondering how many to use for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? Hashtags remain one of the most effective ways to grow your visibility and increase reader engagement. In this post we look at the golden rules of hashtag usage on every social media platform and essential hashtags for writers.
Social media is an integral part of your book marketing strategy but how long do your posts remain effective for? How many days or minutes until your content no longer appears on your reader’s Facebook feed or Instagram stream? All authors can benefit from knowing the average lifespan of their social media posts and how to extend post visibility to reach more readers. So let’s examine the major social media platforms further.
You’ve slaved over every word, edited mercilessly and added an eye-catching cover. You’ve posted and promoted on social media, done author interviews and grown your email list. So where are the influx of readers? Why aren’t you getting more sales for your books? It’s beyond frustrating. What can you do? Is there a way to reach more readers? Where are they?
There is a simpler, easier way. Try this exercise to reach more readers today.
Your book content is edited and polished to perfection, your cover art is on point and all that is left is to capture your reader's interest with a concisely crafted book blurb. Your blurb is your big chance to draw your readers in with your compelling storyline, evocative characters and cleverly-written plot twists so that they feel that they must (yes, absolutely must) purchase your book. Here are some top tips (with examples) to help you write a reader-attracting blurb in no time.
Video has been dominating marketing for some time now and going live leverages the benefits even further. Live streaming on social media is a fantastic way to stand out from the author crowd and connect with your readers in real time. The average adult consumes more than five hours of video per day and over a fifth of that amount is on mobile devices. With live streaming being available on almost every social media platform it’s becoming easier than ever to connect with your followers in real time.
If you are keen on trying out live streaming keep these tips in mind.
Facebook remains the world’s largest social media platform with over 2 billion monthly active users, many of whom use the site on a daily basis for both work and business. This number still continues to grow, with Facebook reporting a 14% audience growth annually. With such popularity surely Facebook should be the number one social media platform on which to promote your book? Dig a little deeper however and a different picture emerges.
With over 800 million users, Instagram is a massive marketplace that writers can’t afford to ignore. A solid Instagram following means more readers, more book sales and stronger connections with your audience.
So how do you grow your Instagram following? Here are 11 top tips that will help you grow your influence and reach more readers.
Don’t be scared of making mistakes. Never stop learning. Highlight what makes you unique. Identify your voice early on. Read widely. Write voraciously. Cultivate a love of writing.
We asked authors for their number one piece of advice to novice writers. Here’s their answers.
Our authors’ answer to their most overwhelming struggle was unanimous: Market Saturation. Their secret weapon? Instagram, Book Bub, email newsletters, and bloggers were amongst the most popular. We also chatted networking and approaching publishers with many authors stressing the need to consider all publishing options before going the traditional publishing route.
Your author website is the center of your online marketing. A hub for connecting with your readers, engaging new fans and ultimately selling more books. A successful author website helps build your author brand and credibility while promoting your work. To ensure that your site is magnetically attracting readers we’ve put together a list of essentials so you can quickly review what is working, what is missing and what can be improved upon.
Build your own buzz with a virtual book tour, a two-week blitz of blog and social media appearances to reach new readers and connect with current fans. You don’t need a professional to do all the networking for you. Organize your own online promotional whirl-wind by following these steps.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques designed to push a site up the list of results returned by a search engine, increasing the site’s visibility and maximizing visitor numbers. It’s easy to get bogged down in the jargon of SEO but the overall goal is simply to make your site user-friendly, search-engine friendly and full of relevant and useful content that can be easily shared.
