20 ways to promote your book

​Book promotion as a self-publishing author is relentless, if you want to make your book a success (and why wouldn’t you?), you will need to keep chipping away at it regularly. The good news is that there are plenty of things that you can do, some may require an investment of funds and others are free, but either way, self-promotion on a consistent basis is the key to success.

So, what can you do to self-promote right now?
​Here are our top ideas to get you started.

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1. Advertise on Amazon, it is very easy to do and it gives a great deal of control with regards to how much you spend, you can get your book in front of so many more people and increase sales. You can read more on this with our earlier post on Advertising with Amazon.
2. Use social media wisely and don’t over promote, the best mix is 80% interesting posts and 20% advertising, engage with others, join in with discussions, use polls, create groups and have fun with it, after all, it should be social.
3. Create promotional banners for the top of your social media pages, creating a look across all of the platforms you use online which shows that you are a serious author.
4. Create videos, having a YouTube channel where you discuss your genre and tips for authors is a great way to increase your exposure.
5. Use Instagram, this site is so popular and so easy to use, but keep the images professional and supportive of what you are trying to achieve as an author.
6. Run free promotions for your eBook on Amazon, prior to this make sure you self-promote through social media and on the many ‘free eBook promotion’ websites that are out there.
7. Get reviews, make sure your friends and family get copies and give a review in return, you can also leave a call to action at the back of the book (again, asking for a review if they liked your book), email book bloggers asking them to review it, look for groups on Goodreads to help.
8. Run Facebook ads, these are highly targeted and give great control along with reporting.
9. Run ads on Twitter, again, they give great control and allow you to reach a specific audience.
10. Create your own website, there are many great ‘build-your-own’ website providers such as Weebly and Wix etc. here you can create a platform for your book and sell directly to your audience.
11. Create a blog and update it regularly, WordPress must be the world’s most popular option for this, although if you have your own website you should be able to add a blog too. This is a great way of building an audience and advertising (just remember to keep ads to a min).
12. Check out online forums such as KBoards, here you can interact with other authors and self-promote your book.
13. Guest post on other writer’s, publisher’s and genre/industry related blogs, ensure you get in touch first, many websites will welcome great articles, but be polite and courteous if they decline.
14. Start your own niche podcast, this can be great if you write within a very specific genre, the world of podcasting is opening up and some authors are making a great income from the advertising that it can bring. But be aware, like publishing a book, it takes time, dedication and work.
15. Go to book fairs and trade shows, here you’ll be able to meet with people from the industry and fellow authors, you can make great contacts as well as sell some copies.
16. Build a mailing list, make sure you check the current legislation for where you are on doing this correctly, but it is a proven way to connect and self-promote your book.
17. Offer something for free in order to get more subscribers to your mailing list, this may be an earlier book or the first chapter of your new one.
18. Include this offer for either a free book or chapter with a link in the front and back of your eBooks, when a viewer clicks on the ‘Look Inside’ option on Amazon, they may well sign up too.
19. Promote your book and any offers on BookBub, make sure you follow their guidelines and submit as often as they allow in order to have a chance of becoming one of their feature deals.
20. Create a video/book trailer, admittedly these can be very costly, but there are options with using stock video footage and there are plenty of tools available to edit and produce a great trailer.