by Erik Deckers
When it comes to writing and promoting your book, 90% of the time is spent actually writing the book.
The other 90% is spent promoting it.
(I know what I said!)
I’m often asked by new writers about when they should start publicizing their books.
“Have you started writing it yet?”
No, they haven’t, they say.
“Then, right now.”
Shouldn’t I wait until the book is published, they ask.
“No, because that’s way too late. You need to start building your social media presence and audience before you ever get the book out. You need to promote it and get people excited before it finally drops.”
Also, I remind people, your publisher will not do the promotion for you. Oh sure, you’ll get some helpful publishers like 4 Horsemen who will help you, but they will not do it for you.
Basically, unless your last name is Grisham or Patterson, your publisher won’t do any promotion for you. Besides, no one will do it better than you because no one will care more than you. You can hire someone for you, but even they won’t come at it with the same passion as you. Plus it will cost a few thousand dollars to get anything worthwhile. Sure, they’ll know more about it and have better tactics and ideas, but unless you have a few thousand dollars lying around, you’ll have to do it yourself.
(If you do, I’ll be happy to handle all your social media for you.)
Ultimately, it’s a question of time versus money: If you don’t have the time, then you need to pay someone to do it. If you don’t have the money, then you need to find the time.
Without explaining how to do it all (because there are several good books on the subject, your publicity efforts should include at least two of the following:
- An email newsletter campaign.
- A blogging campaign.
- A social media campaign (Twitter and/or Facebook, plus maybe TikTok).
- A book reviewer/blogger campaign.
- A podcast interview campaign.
- An email-your-friends campaign. (Email each of them, one at a time, and ask them to buy.)
I like the first three campaigns because they’re the easiest, they can be automated and scheduled, and they’re free. (Actually, they’re all free, but some are more time-consuming than others.)
Email Newsletters
Send out a monthly newsletter that discusses specific topics about you, your books, your writing career, other writers, and so on.
Write about your latest book. Share short stories and backstories about minor characters. Share publishing news. Share writing news. Did you get a writing residency or award? Share it! Review other books and urge your readers to buy them. Interview other writers, especially those within the 4 Horsemen ranks, and urge people to buy those books as well.*
* Remember, readers don’t read one book per year and call it quits. So become a trusted resource for your readers and share your favorite books. Get the other authors to do the same for you. Pretty soon, you can combine the total power of your social media and email lists and get them working for each other.
I like mailchimp.com the best because it has a free email option of sending up to 500 subscribers per month. If you grow a bigger audience than that, chances are you’ll be doing well enough to pay for the first paid upgrade level.
Blogging
Basically, everything I said about blogging is also true of your newsletter. In fact, blogging is more important than email newsletters, but I already wrote that section first and don’t feel like moving it.
Everything you put in your newsletter also needs to go into your blog. In fact, it should go in there first. Then, just put 200-word snippets into the newsletter with a “Click here to read the rest of this article” link as a way to drive traffic to your blog.
Your blog should be the hub of your social media campaign, but your email newsletter is your list of readers. If any of these social networks ever fall flat — looking at you, Twitter! — you can find all those people on any new social networks that pop up to take their place. But your blog is the place where all the past cool stuff can easily be found.
Social Media
Almost everyone is on social media now, so I won’t go into the whats and hows of social media. And if you’re not, get my book Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself, and follow the various steps. Get on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and start building your networks. If you’re a business writer, use LinkedIn instead of Facebook. Blah blah blah, you know this part!
(If you don’t, there are people who are happy to help you get started on social media. I’ll even give you some advice to get rolling. Let me know!)
Build up your followers and friends with more readers. Do a search for your chosen genre and find the people who read or write in that genre. They probably used the word in their bio, or maybe you encounter them during a #WritersLift or #AmWriting blitz: Remember, writers are readers, so be sure to follow all of your fellow authors.
Promote those writers without waiting to be promoted. Read their books and leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads; tweet/share those reviews and be sure to tag the authors. Write about their books on your blog. Share their stuff on Twitter. Basically, you want them to know you value them, and they’ll do the same for you.
But don’t do it quid pro quo. Do it because you want to be a good literary citizen. Literary citizens help people find interesting books, they help authors reach more readers, and they basically help the literature world be a better place. If you can do that, you’ll help yourself as well. People will support you because you’re a supportive person.
Book Bloggers and Reviewers
I’ll be the first to admit, I like reviewing books because it means people send me books! What better job could there be, unless someone wanted me to review cheese?
(Seriously, I’d love to become a cheese reviewer. If you know anyone who can help, hook me up.)
There are hundreds of book reviewers out there, all writing books, doing podcasts, and shooting TikTok videos about the books they’ve read. Some are generalists and will review anything, others will only review books in a specific genre. Do some research and reach out to each person individually (see below about emailing your friends), asking them to review your book. Send them an EPUB or PDF version of the book, since printed books are getting really, really pricey. This way, you can keep this campaign cost very low.
Don’t be afraid to send the book to other outlets like Kirkus Reviews either. Some of these review sites carry a little more weight than others, so do a little research and find some specific book-review outlets.
While we’re on the subject of reviews, get a group of friends to leave reviews of your books on Amazon and Goodreads. Those things are worth their weight in gold when it comes to getting more readers — which is not much, considering it’s all virtual; it’s worth its weight in pictures of gold. More reviews lead to your books being more readily discovered and recommended, so be sure to ask your readers to review your books.
And to share them on social media.
Podcasting
Rather than telling you to start your own podcast, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing, let me say that you should try to appear on as many podcasts as you can. Search Spotify and Apple Podcasts (through the Apple Store) for podcasts about writing or your chosen genre, or just Google “podcasts about [genre].”
Track down those podcasters’ websites and listen to past episodes. Do they have guests? What kinds of things do they talk about? How can your book or your writing career be interesting to their listeners?
Don’t ask “Will my book/career be interesting?” Yes, of course, it will! I have no doubt in my mind about that!” Just find the parts that will be interesting — that’s the how of it.
Email the podcast hosts and ask them if they need guests for an upcoming episode. Share your blog, social networks, and book landing pages.
Then, make sure you have a decent microphone and a quiet place to record. No need to go out and get an expensive mic; get a gamer’s headset with a boom mic on Amazon for under $30. Then, make sure you have fast enough wifi, show up at the expected time, and you’re ready to go.
(To ensure there are no problems, reboot your computer and router on the morning of your interview, so you don’t have any inadvertent glitches or crashes. Also turn off every program and application except for the one you need for your interview.)
Email Your Friends
I learned a hard, bitter truth when I published my first novel: Your friends won’t buy your book just because you’re their friend. If that were the case, you could just post a few times on Facebook and sell thousands of copies. But they just won’t do it, no matter who you are.
Either that or all my friends are selfish assholes.
Go through your email list and start emailing them ONE BY ONE and ask them to buy your book. Don’t BCC a bunch of people with the same generic message, because they won’t respond well to it.
You can copy and paste the basic boilerplate information, like where to buy it, when it goes on sale, etc. But personalize the message to each person, so they know you’re only emailing them.
“Hey, Susan, I know we haven’t talked in a few years, ever since that thing with Kevin the incontinent llama. But I’m hoping that time has healed our wounds enough that you would consider buying my new book, Mackinac Island Nation, which is being re-released by 4 Horsemen Publishing. You can even get a copy for your friends and family this holiday. I already sent a copy to Kevin’s handler with another apology note.”
Final Thoughts
You need to do book publicity to make people care about your book. You need to promote your book until you’re sick of it. And then you need to promote it some more. And when you think everyone else is sick of it, promote it some more.
You can do it all for free, but it’s going to take some time. Or you can pay someone a lot of money and then you’ll have all sorts of free time to start on your next book. Just remember, promoting your book takes as much time as actually writing it, so don’t assume that people will buy it just because you wrote it. They need you to remind them over and over and over.
And over.
