For many authors book promotion is a necessary evil. When I put my author hat on, I totally get this.
Why can’t you just spend all day writing? Why does this whole book promotion thing get in the way of your real passion?
But then we suck it up and we try our best. Some of us have figured out what works, and some of us are still trying to find our groove.
For those still trying to find your groove, I want to encourage you to talk those who have figured it out.
Think of it as author therapy.
You can most definitely learn by talking through your book promotion struggles and listening when others share their successes.
The author group book promotion factor
A lot of authors have gotten on board with author groups and local or regional author and writer associations, but a vast majority of you still haven’t.
Not only do these groups provide great book promotion resources, including events where you get access to book promotion and publishing professionals, they’re also an excellent opportunity to network with authors that are on your same level.
Author and writing groups also provide a challenge in a supportive environment. You’ll notice your writing deadlines get easier to meet.
You’ll also find you have a captive audience to discuss concepts and storylines that may be really new and fresh, and possibly scary to present to your audience.
Last but not least, your writing will improve. Listening to what others are doing and sharing your milestones and getting candid feedback are really excellent tools for taking your writing to the next level while also ensuring you’re following themes and concepts your genre is really into at the moment.
Where do you find an author group? Most cities have them. If not, your state certainly will, or your region at a minimum. Here’s a great resource to check out.
The mentor factor
Too few authors have writing mentors. I think it’s a combination of a lot of factors. Sometimes it’s an ego thing, sometimes people are too shy to ask, and a lot of times I think authors just don’t know how to go about finding one!
Writing mentors are ideally authors in your genre that are a few steps up the ladder from you. Not so far that they’ve lost that detailed insight into where you’re at, but not so close that it turns into more of a mini author group versus a true mentorship.
Writing mentors are also great resources for book promotion ideas. If they’ve seen more successes than you have, I can assure you they’ve made some smart decisions and they’ve figured out what works for them – and what works in your genre.
Book promotion is a broad term that includes a lot of strategies that work across multiple genres, but it’s finessing those strategies to your specific reader market that make your efforts successful. This is where a lot of authors fall short.
They read about book promotion strategies and just follow the steps blindly without taking details into consideration that can make or break your success.
Details like long-standing genre preferences, new themes and concepts that are starting to show up in bestsellers, how fans of your genre like to be reached (are they engaging more with their favorite authors on Facebook or Instagram?) and especially key search terms and phrases that really speak to and pull in the people you want reading your books.
A writing mentor has likely figured a lot of these things out. So in addition to helping you elevate your writing, their book promotion experience is also gold.
Here are some ideas to inspire your considerations:
- An old teacher or professor
- A member of your writer’s group or book club
- An editor of your acquaintance
- A coworker who gets storytelling
- A spiritual or religious leader
- A writer you admire
And here’s a great resource, Association of Writers and Writing Programs, to get connected with a mentor if you don’t have any potential options in your current network.
The book professional factor
Book promotion professionals are another piece to this puzzle.
I do author coaching and consulting and a lot of other super smart, super savvy book marketing powerhouses do as well.
So how do you decide which book marketing company to go to?
Well, first you need to figure out what you need to address. Asking any book promotion professional, “How do I sell more books?” isn’t going to go over well. That’s too broad.
If you know you need help with social media, find someone who’s been super successful on social and has a lot of great training programs available.
I personally focus a lot of time on my Amazon research and understanding how to work the Amazon system, so people struggling with their book promotion on Amazon tend to reach out to me and I love that. More on this further down.
I put together a great list of 50 great websites and professionals that are excellent author resources for book promotion and beyond. Check them out for sure to get started.
But what if you’re unsure of where you need book promotion help? What if you really just want to know how to sell more books?
There are ways to address broader issues with more specific discussion points. It’s just about knowing where to start the discussion, how to ferret out key areas that affect your bottom line, and figure out how to improve on those.
Some talking points for inspiration
Here are some of my favorite topics for coaching, because I feel they address book promotion issues that are really relevant to most authors:
What are you, the author doing? I love going over this in detail and giving feedback – remember this is a GREAT opportunity to get super candid, don’t be afraid to share what you’re doing, even if you think it’s small (or non-existent).
Most authors don’t know what to blog about and this is a GREAT time to brainstorm ideas.
Let’s talk about what’s getting traction for you on social media and what isn’t, and brainstorm new directions you can test out.
We should discuss your elevator pitch and unique selling points. Most authors think they have this nailed, but usually, they don’t.
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Over To You
Do you have a mentor, author group or book promotion professional experience that really knocked it out of the park? Please share in the comments about how it improved your own book promotion!
This is a detailed topic I love reading about. A writer needs to watch carefully and capture the environment he is relating to. A lot of researchers make it big because they are not shy of going to places in order to take samples of the people’s opinions. It is not possible to know what people are passing through by mere imagination, there is a need to make a survey in order to capture the clue about the environment. This is one of the best promotion tools for books.
Thanks for sharing.
Hey Stella,
You definitely have to do your research before you write any book, fiction or no fiction. You can write small-sized books as well – (50 pages long). A friend of mine, Ryan Biddulph, has a lot of these small-sized books in Amazon.
Good luck to your endeavor!
Marios
Hi Marios – I enjoyed reading your post. My wife is actually in the process of writing her first book , I will certainly send her to your site and many resources you pointed to. Thanks for sharing your experience and resources. In selecting a writing mentor do you recommend she go with someone who has written books in her genre? Or does that not matter? Is it more about the overall promotion experience? Also, do you think it’s a good idea to take some of her concepts that she is writing in her book and also include them as posts in her website as a way to promote her ideas? Thanks!
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for the comment. I think that it depends on your wife’s needs. She could go with both. I’d say that she should find a mentor in the genre she is writing in because they can help her with obstacles, blocks, and knowledge for that genre. She could let’s say go generally in a non-fiction writer if she writes non-fiction. If she wants to be mentored on publishing/self-publishing, she could get a mentor who has self-published many books.
For me, a good mentor is Ryan Biddulph. Successful blogger and author. I get mentorship through his posts and his e-books. As for promotion, you can check 6 book marketing lessons from the big guys as well as What Not Do When Publishing An eBook
Marios
This was an interesting read for me. Though I’m not a book publisher but I do publish ebooks on Amazon kindle but I’ve never recorded anything close to a success in any of my published works. While reading through this post, I couldn’t help but notice my adamancy not to mingle to get promotional ideas from anyone has been the major cause for my woes. Thanks for the tips here, I will adjust into meeting up with my mentors to get useful tools in order to boost my success rate.
Hey there,
I’m glad you liked the post. You can also check What Not Do When Publishing An eBook for more insights.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Marios
This is something I’ve always been searching for. Though I am not yet a book writer, I love writing a little bit of fiction on my own blog, not full time though. This post will definitely help me know how to start up when I start writing my own books. Currently I don’t have a mentor and I didn’t see the relevance of having one but I guess it’ll help foster my interest. Though the writers I really admire do not write in my own genre I think I can get one when I join an authors group. Thanks for the teaching, I’ll definitely come back here to get more information when I start writing full-time.
This is spot on exactly what I have been searching for to be honest. I am not a full time writer and publisher yet but the ebooks I have tried publishing recorded woeful outputs. It was not about my writing because I have helped publishers write as a freelancer and their ebooks recorded huge successes. Thankfully, I came across this post right now and I am so glad I did because I was able to figure out the reasons I have been failing. I will join writers platforms and hook up with more professionals on the field and I hopefully wish that I would be able to get tips as to ways to become a successful publisher. Thanks
Hey there,
For more tips on promoting your ebooks, you can check The 6 best ways to promote your eBook and What Not Do When Publishing An eBook.
Thanks for stopping by!
Mariod
This is really helpful for me, Marios, as I’m in the process of writing a book at the moment (my first but hopefully not my last).
I’m most likely to go for the self-publishing option on Kindle but am undecided as yet.
You’ve brought up so many things to consider that I’d never given much thought to, if any at all, so your ideas have really opened my eyes. Far from making everything appear to be more complicated, your detailed information about things to consider will smooth the journey from where I am now to completion and publication, and I can go into future projects with my eyes a bit more open than they have been.
Thanks for a very informative read.
Hey there Richard,
I’m glad you liked it. I think that Kindle Direct Publishing is really the best option to start with self-publishing. And with the Print on Demand (PoD) feature, you can also print hard copies if you wish.
Check also What Not Do When Publishing An eBook for more tips
Thanks for stopping by!
Marios