How to promote your book offer

Running a pre-order campaign is a great way to spread the word about your book and stimulate advance sales. There are different pre-order strategies to consider and not every one will be suited for your particular book. But whether you choose to give away a free ebook, webinar, or something else, people will need to know your book promotion exists, and it’s up to you to tell them about it.

Here’s a look at two forms of online advertising and how you can leverage them to your advantage:
“Free” advertising
One easy way to advertise your book offer is to announce it to your friends, family, and professional network through whatever communication channels you regularly use.

If you send out a periodic email newsletter, use it to tell your subscribers about your book promotion or consider sending out a special newsletter devoted just to your offer.

If you have a website, create a banner graphic for your sidebar or home page announcing your offer. Depending on the nature of the promotion, you can link the graphic to your promotion’s landing page (if you have one), to your book’s Amazon page, or to your email sign-up form.

If you have a blog, write a post telling your followers about your promotion, then share the post on your most active social media platforms, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

All of the above approaches are considered “free” advertising because, although some costs may be involved in creating the graphic, newsletter, or other content, you aren’t paying an advertiser to display your announcement to the public.
Paid advertising on social media
Of course, paying advertisers to share your message is also an option. The simplest form of paid advertising is a “boosted post” on Facebook, a “sponsored ad” on Instagram, or a “promoted tweet” on Twitter. This is when you pay the social networks to display your post to more users. This isn’t available to individuals with Facebook profiles, but if you manage a Facebook page for yourself as an author, you can take advantage of Facebook’s sophisticated advertiser tools. You can choose how much you want to spend and what kind of people you want your ad to be shown to, including those who are not followers of your page.

Each of the social networks has its own set of rules, tools, guidelines, and tips for advertisers, so take some time to explore the one you use most, and consider incorporating it into your book promotion activities.

Depending on your budget, you might opt not to use any paid advertising, and that’s fine. Free advertising alone can be enough to build buzz, but keep in mind the trade-off is the time and labour you’ll need to expend in order to get your book offer in front of plenty of eyeballs. Now that you understand how each form of advertising works, you can choose which ones to focus on for your promotional efforts.

To receive more book marketing and publishing advice, sign up to our mailing list here.

Maggie Langrick

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>