4 Ways To Raise Publicity For Your Book

Originally posted 2019-12-21 05:00:49.

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One of the most popular questions I get asked after, ‘How do I write a book?’ is ‘How do I sell it?’ As a self published author, you haven’t got the ability to call on a large marketing team to do it for you. But that doesn’t mean you have to drive from one book store to another with the trunk of your car full of books.

A lot of this marketing and publicity can be done online at very little expense. And because of that everyone else is doing it too. So although it might have it easier nowadays, be prepared to wear down some digital shoe leather in the process. With that out of the way let’s take a look at  four ways to raise some publicity about your book.

1 –  Blog About It – There’s no one that wants to see your book be more successful than you.  Because of that, any promotion should begin with you. A blog is a good way to start. Not only can you use a blog to promote your book, using articles and videos, but it also allows you to build up a community of readers.

As you build an audience try to get them on a mailing list. Now only is it a way to keep in regular contact with them, but it helps to build a relationship. Once you have them on this email list, you can press them for book reviews, social media shout outs, and ideas for upcoming books that you could do.

2 – Guest Blog About It –  Apart from your own blog readers, a good way to raise publicity for about your book is to put yourself in front of somebody else’s readers. Do a search for popular blogs in your niche using your main ‘keyword + blog’,  and offer your services as a guest blogger.

Having a blog of your own is a powerful way of showing them the kind of content that you create, and also the audience that you can bring to their blog. But of which all blogs are looking for. Pay attention to how often the blog is updated and how popular it is. If they don’t have a subscription number (which shows the amount of readers) pay attention to how many comments blog posts get and if there is a community there already. The last thing you want to do is to become is a guest blogger on a dead blog.

3 – Share It On Social Networks – While sharing your book on social networks is a popular thing to do, be aware that there are tons of other people hitting these social networks every day trying to raise publicity for their books. If you want to distance yourself from those that are just ‘shouting out’ on these networks, you’re going to have to make yourself stand out. If you already have a community on any of these networks, use it to your best ability.

But if you haven’t,  and you’re just screaming ‘Get my book, get my book!’, you’re going to have little success. I’ll be honest, if people don’t know you,  like you, or trust you, then they’re probably not going to purchase your book. If you’re writing nonfiction, build a little bit of that trust by creating articles and content and give if away freely. If you’re writing fiction, create short stories or give some free samples of your work away on these social networks to get people’s attention.

4 – Create A Press Release –  Another way of raising publicity for you and your book is to create a press release and release it to all the news  and media websites. Again like the social networks, these websites are bombarded everyday by people looking for publicity for their products and services, so you’re going to have to stand out.

Like giving away free content  to get noticed on social media,  put yourself in the shoes of the person reading your press release. Why should they give you a moment of their time and use the content you’ve given them? And even if your press release isn’t right for them that day, have a media kit ready on your website, where you have other press releases they can use instead. These could consist of evergreen press releases that are linked to yearly holidays or commonly subjects that never go out of fashion.

And there you have it, four simple ways to get publicity for your book. But while they’re simple, some will require more work than others. Is it work to create a blog and build an audience? Yes. Will everybody do it? No. Is it easy to bypass all this and pay someone else to do it for you,? Yes. But is it going to build you an audience in the long term? Probably not.

Instead of looking at the whole world as your audience, sometimes it’s best to go small at first. Begin with a blog of your own and create an audience there. Build an audience on social media of people who actually listen to what you have to say. Get in touch with your local newspaper, or radio station, and give them content they can use.

Like any great writer you’re going to start off an audience of one. Focus on building your audience one reader at a time. If you’re only starting out, it’s probably best to save your money and focus on creating a following. Once you’ve built that audience however, you can call on it again and again about any future books you have coming out.

Now who would want that, right?

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