Book Promotion
What might be the most important thing of publishing is promotion. Whether you go trad, self, or social, almost all the promotion falls on your shoulders. Without it, no one will find your book. If you do it wrong, no one will want your book. But if you do it right, your book can sell like delicious cake. For the sake of clarity, this post is divided into three sections: promoting your book, getting reviews, and other information.
Promoting your book
Michael J. Sullivan
Marketing resources for book promotion
Michael J. Sullivan
Author’s guide to self-promotion
Author Marketing Experts
Book promotion simplified
Getting reviews
Michael J. Sullivan
Dos and Don’ts for getting reviews for your book
Michael J. Sullivan
How to get your book reviewed
Other information
Sabrina Blackburry
Branding yourself as a writer
I’ve seen a lot of people asking about branding lately, so I thought I’d try to help out. That being said, I’m no expert. This is just my take on what I’ve learned so far and what looks like it works. Maybe a place to start if you’re completely lost.
Branding yourself is essentially picking out that slice of ‘you’ that the readers get to see and interact with. It’s a balance between highlighting important things to you, and keeping a steady flow of posts, pictures, and news about your writing career. But here’s the thing, no one wants to follow someone who only posts ‘read my book! Buy my story!’
On the flip side of that, no one wants to see the tiny everyday things about your life. “Have to buy new toothpaste today!” and “Who knows how to tell if a grapefruit is ripe?” Are not interesting things for readers either.
So what’s that balance? The balance is highlighting the important things to you. Take something your passionate about for that more personal slice of who you are. But you also need to showcase who you are as a writer. Let’s see some examples:
Look at Tamara. This is the top of her website, and it shows exactly who she is as a writer. Sexy books for sharp women. The graphics even showcase a beachy vibe. This is a writer of sexy beach reads. The rest of her internet presence continues to show this too:
These are from her website and instagram. The colors, graphics, and content all keep showing a writer of beach reads who enjoys her relax time in the sand. You can also find her love of her dogs present as well. Now, what don’t you see? We don’t know that she just broke a nail on her car door, or that she’s thinking about having a greek salad for lunch, or that the grocery store was packed today. We all have those little things in our days, that’s nothing that separates you from everyone else. We all deal with lines at the store, we all eat lunch at some point (okay, there are variables here, but you get what I mean). But we don’t all have a relaxed beach vibe with our dogs and books on the sand. That’s a very Tamara thing, and her social media shows us that part of her.Let’s look at another one:
I can tell right away that Elle is a traveler, and books are an important focus for her. The rest of her site continues to showcase these exact features about her.
Traveler, writer, enjoyer of books. Does she buy groceries, sigh over the line at the store, collect stamps? Maybe, but that’s not the bit we’re seeing here. She’s highlighted these aspects that are important to her and are something interesting about herself to show her readers.So what do you want to take from all this? Try to find some of those things that you like to focus on. A hobby. A passion. A cause you fight for. But also consider what it is you write. Dark romance? Fluffy friendship adventures? Space dramas?
When you have all the ‘pieces’ of you that you want to make into your brand, you will now have multiple sources to draw from when you make posts. You don’t want to post several things in a row about one aspect of you, you want to switch it up. So maybe one day you post about your latest WIP, so maybe tomorrow you post about that charity you’re super passionate and involved in. Maybe next time it’s your obsession with cooking/food/recipes. You have those selection of things to post about, and you remain a writer who is relatable. They can see the person behind the books, and you stay relevant with posts about your writing too.
I hope this gave a slightly better glimpse into branding for some of you who didn’t know where to start. Again, I’m no expert so if anyone here has experience please feel free to add to the post! (Maybe I’ll learn some more myself
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Michael J. Sullivan
An author’s guide to Goodreads
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