How to Promote Your Book with Content Marketing
Every author’s dream is to have their book published, isn’t it? Whether in print or online, seeing your name on the cover of a real book is a surreal moment worthy of a celebration. However, just as it takes a lot of work to get a published book onto shelves, so it does to make sure people know about it.
If you want to celebrate book sales as well, you’ll have to do the marketing yourself—yes, even if you publish traditionally as, unfortunately, publishers don’t usually do much of the marketing for newer authors. Sure, that’s not the most fun part of book publishing, but it is essential if you want paying customers to read your work; with technology and the internet, there are plenty of ways to do that. Check out our book marketing packages to see how our team of experts can craft a bespoke marketing package for you.
Now on to the matter at hand: How can you promote your book using content marketing?
What is content marketing?
Content marketing promotes your product or brand through high-quality content that’s genuinely useful or interesting to your target audience. This is often achieved through blogs and social media accounts, but video content marketing can also be effective.
Basically, the goal of content marketing is to attract your demographic and interest them in your product (in this case your book) through online content. It’s an opportunity to build your brand as an author, connect with your audience, and get them excited about your work. So, how do you do that? First, you draw up a marketing plan.
How do you devise a marketing plan?
You want to make your marketing plan specific and realistic, so give yourself a deadline and don’t be afraid to start small. For example, your goal might be to increase the number of visitors to your website by the end of the month, in which case your plan might require you to post more content (quotes, photos, jokes, tricks, and tips) to your other social media and link to your site in those posts. Give yourself a specific number to aim for—vague plans don’t drive results. Maybe you want to create an email list by the end of the week so that your followers can sign up for updates, so you’ll need to set that up and start promoting it online.
Whatever your goal is, do some research on the best ways to make it happen and come up with an actionable plan to be able to track your progress and continue growing your fanbase.
If you don’t meet your goal by the deadline, that’s okay, especially if you’re just learning how to market yourself. Use the failure as valuable feedback and adjust your goals and/or strategies accordingly. The key is to constantly check your progress and make the necessary improvements to expand your fanbase.
Speaking of your fanbase, these are the people you need to be directing your efforts toward. It won’t help you reach your goals if you’re trying to please everybody out there, so lean into those who you know enjoy reading your genre or are already fans of your writing and connect with them. It doesn’t matter if you end up alienating people who wouldn’t have been interested in your book in the first place.
Where should you post your content?
There are tons of options today, from podcasts and videos to blogs, social media platforms, newsletters, and online communities. How do you choose then?
First of all, you don’t want to use just one of these mediums, but you do want to maintain consistency, so don’t do them all at once, either. A happy balance is coupling two mediums—for example, a blog post and a podcast or video—shared on your author website and two social media platforms. Given the massive sway social media holds in today’s world, social media accounts are generally a must for any digital marketer, including authors. Plus, it is a great place to advertise your latest blog post, video, or podcast episode. Having multiple outputs on the same topic will give you the chance to go deeper into your subject and explore subtopics while offering your audience more options to interact with your content.
It’s also important to consider what works best for your readers. Do they prefer TikTok or email? Do they like long blog posts or audio? Your demographic can help you decide which platforms and mediums will work best for you. Being consistent with your posting, asking questions, and responding to your followers will help your content reach more people. You’ll want to post frequently to keep your followers engaged—sticking to a posting schedule is also a good idea if it works for you.
What should you post about?
More important than where you post is the content you upload. What are you actually communicating with your posts? What do they say about your work, your brand, and you as an author? How are your posts engaging with your audience?
The best practice is to set up your profiles and start teasing your book long before it hits the shelves. You can post short excerpts from it, a quick introduction to the most important characters, and your sources of inspiration for the story. Consider sharing quotes, fan art, and video trailers and hosting Q&As, as well as posting about other authors and books in your genre to attract new followers. Basically, relate your posts to your work, not to your life—unless your life is the subject of your book.
Marketing a self-published book is no easy feat, but it is definitely possible with the right tools and strategies. If doing your own content marketing feels overwhelming, check out our book marketing packages, which also include social media posts to promote your book.
