The sad truth is that there is no magic solution to promoting your book. No one course of action will get it to sell consistently but there are lots of individual actions you can take, some quite complex, which will help. You can spend a fortune on promotion and get nowhere. There are expensive courses available to teach you how to be a 'bestseller' but you'll be lucky to make more money than you've spent even if you
are a 'bestseller' (
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/beware-word-bestseller.html). The most important factor in author success is one you can't buy—Luck. Despite that, the old saying, 'The more I practice, the luckier I get' applies.
Here's what I consider you can do to get lucky as an author:
• Get a remarkable cover which attracts the attention of book browsers. Few can do this themselves so it is worth spending money on this. A good cover will give a book browser the interest to check out the book. Get the title right too. Take a look at this post which looks at some covers - none of which I consider remarkable
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/read-this-guide-before-making-or.html.
• Spend a huge amount of time and effort getting a book description which makes the reader think "Wow! This is a book I have to read." Your description should use emotive language and use your keywords. Try running the sentences through a headline analyser (links below).
• Use the right keywords/tags. If you have problems here, steal them from the top selling books in your genre. To do that create a blank book in calibre and in the meta tag ID section paste in the ISBN or ASIN number of a top ranking book in your genre. Then download the meta data. You'll get the tags and the book description.
• Make sure your book starts with a powerful hook to keep the book browser reading. Your book's first three pages should be gripping.
• Create promotion pages for your book which get high rankings on Google. If you are not discovered on the first three pages of search results when you enter a keyword and your book's title, you never will be discovered. Use an incognito browser window when doing this. (See
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/authorhoweasyisittofindyourbooks.html - warning technical stuff here)
• Video, pictures, headlines and subheadings are effective in promotions in that order. Run headlines and sub headings through checkers for emotive language such as
www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm and
coschedule.com/headline-analyzer. This works for Tweets and Facebook posts too.
• Make sure promotion pages have a clear 'call to action' (See
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/your-author-blog-needs-call-to-action.html)
• Recognise that a promotion at best will produce a spike in your sales but you need to sustain that spike for at least a month for it to produce a rise in your sales rank at Amazon. You'll need to stagger effective promotions.
• Know that not all promotions are effective and some are downright scams. There is no point in tweeting to fake accounts or putting book links on sites with no visitors. See this post (
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/are-some-book-marketing-sites-cheating.html). Learn how to recognise the fakes and how to use UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes (
www.launchdigitalmarketing.com/what-are-utm-codes/ - Warning more technical stuff) to spot those sites which work.
• Facebook adverts work but NOT 'Buy my book' adverts. Instead make an attractive offer which people can get if they add their email address to your mailing list. Email lists are effective at selling books.
• Twitter posts work but not until you have 10,000 real, active followers. Few will see your posts. people will unfollow if your posts are solely 'Buy my book' posts. These should never make up more than 10-15% of your feed. DON'T auto followback Vet your followers (
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/do-you-want-me-to-follow-you-on-twitter.html). Never send out 'Thanks for following me' direct messages. Aim to get 100 new followers per day. Remember people are only on Twitter for short periods of time to the vast majority of your tweets will be unseen. Make sure you have a pinned post there (
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/have-you-pinned-tweet-to-your-twitter.html).
• Twitter and Facebook are NOT the only social media platforms. Get a presence on Tumblr, LinkedIn (if you write nonfiction), Google+, YouTube also. There are also vital forums Kboards (and of course this one).
• Although I dislike Goodreads, it's an essential platform for an author to be on if you want recognition as an author. Be careful what you say - lots of Trolls there.
• Amazon paid advertising appears to work.
• Preorders work for new books, especially if you follow them with promotion on the release week.
• If you are not using affiliate accounts you are wasting an opportunity to earn at least 4% extra at Amazon and much more elsewhere. You can use this as a sales tool too (
authorbookpromotion.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/how-to-earn-money-from-books-even-if.html).
• Remember there are only 24 hours in a day and you can't do all of this at once. Some can be automated though.
• Ask people to help you promote! Hey if you have not already downloaded one of my free ebooks (Immortality Gene -
smarturl.it/savi and Raging Storm -
smarturl.it/sbotr) please do so, even if you don't read it, it will help my sales rank.
