My top 10 paradoxical pieces of book marketing advice
My book marketing hasn’t been very successful lately. It is time to rethink my strategy. So I’ve attended several book marketing webinars to polish my skills and see where I can improve. Well, that was the plan, anyway!
Welcome to the world of confusing, conflicting, contradicting, and thoroughly confounding book marketing advice.
I try not to see any experience as a waste. So here’s an amusing top 10 I’ve created out of the confusion. We might as well laugh about this.
Email list
1 If readers aren’t finding your books, you need an email list.
2 To get lots of readers on your email list, promote it in the back of your books.
Wait, those would be the books no-one is seeing?
Blog
3 You don’t need to be on social media to promote your books. You can write a blog to reach potential readers instead.
4 To get more people to follow your blog, you should promote it on social media.
Yay, I have a blog! And a very modest social media following.
Advertising
5 If your books don’t have enough reviews to provide consistent income, you need to advertise.
6 Don’t advertise a book until it has at least 15 reviews or you will spend more than you earn.
Am I the only one getting the idea that spending more than you earn is just the norm for an author?
What to Write
7 You don’t need to think about what to write. Just write what you love, there will be plenty of readers who will love it, too.
8 To earn money from writing, you may have to write to market.
For those not in the book writing business, ‘write to market’ means writing a type of story that is currently selling well. Or changing aspects of the story you love, to make it more commercial. Or, to put it another way, less uniquely yours.
Book launches
9 You don’t need to start building your social media following before your book is ready to launch. If you start shortly before your book launch, you will have more to post about.
10 If you are planning to be independently published, you need a large, loyal fan base to help you successfully launch your book.
Do any yet-to-be-published authors have a large, loyal fan base somewhere other than social media?
So now you know how to market a book. At least, as well as I do!
One thing I do know is that reviews are absolutely key to achieving success. So I will keep encouraging readers to leave a review. You can read more about why reviews are so crucial to new authors in my post, A Book Review in a Billion.
What types of marketing have encouraged you to buy a book?
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Deborah Grant-Dudley 