If you are an author and want to get your book noticed online, you need marketing. Marketing is what will help increase visibility for your book and generate sales. It is the only answer for ‘How To Get Your Book Noticed Online’.
The answer to ‘ How To Get Your Book Noticed Online’ is marketing.
It sounds simple, but there is a lot of work that goes into promoting your book and attracting readers. In this article, I dive into how authors like you can get their books noticed online. So, are you ready to accelerate your book marketing strategy, gain visibility, and start getting more book sales? Let’s get started!
To Get Your Book Noticed You Need To Know Who You Are Promoting Your Book to
Before you start promoting your book online, you need to first outline who your target reader is, what online platforms they use, and what value your book offers them. To get started, try answering these questions:
- Who is your ideal reader? (i.e. What genre does your book fit into? What values do readers in that genre tend to hold? What do readers expect from a book in that genre?)
- What social networks do your readers frequent? (i.e. Do your readers prefer Facebook or Twitter? Are they active on Instagram or YouTube?)
- What motivates your readers to buy your books, products, or services? (i.e. What do your readers get out of reading your book? What hole can your book fill in their lives?)
- What are your readers’ pain points and does your book offer a prescription? (i.e. What escape or solution does your book provide to readers?)
- What is your marketing objective? (i.e. What do you wish to accomplish with your marketing strategies?)
- Do you have a budget for marketing? (i.e. Do your marketing strategies fit your budget, or do you need to reconsider your strategy?)
- Are you committed to consistent efforts in your marketing and sales? (i.e. What steps can you commit to on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to build an effective marketing strategy and grow your sales?)
The answers to these questions will help you develop your messaging and overall marketing strategy. They will also help you understand what genres and subgenres your book fits under.
Once you know who your audience is, it is time to build and optimize all of the platforms your book and author brand need to be on.
There Are 3 Main Platforms Every Author MUST Be on:
Goodreads
As an author, you don’t need to use Goodreads extensively, unless it is part of your marketing strategy. However, there are two things I recommend every author do on Goodreads. (These are quick, one-time tasks that you can do if you don’t want to invest in yet another social network.)
1. Claim your author profile on Goodreads
The first thing you should do is claim your author profile. Just follow the instructions on Goodreads and let them know that you are the author of your book. Setting up an author profile creates one more place online where readers can find you, and since your author page is just one click away from your book’s page, it’d be great if there was something there for your readers to find.
2. Make sure your books are in the Goodreads database
The second thing you should do is make sure all of your books are listed on Goodreads. Search the Goodreads site for each of your books, and if one isn’t listed, go ahead and add it. It’s important to make sure your books are on Goodreads so that when your readers want to add one of your books to their shelves, it’s there waiting for them.
Amazon Author Central
Incredibly, most authors aren’t even aware that Amazon provides a FREE author page to each author with an ISBN. Amazon Author Central is a great marketing tool to help authors better market their books. However, the most significant benefit is that it allows you to control your personal author page and optimize your metadata to increase organic traffic to your book page.
Here is a list of the main things you can do through Amazon Author Central:
- Improve your Amazon search
- Track your sales
- Add more books
- Connect with readers
- Fix technical issues
An author website
To grow your readership, the first thing you need is an author’s website. You’ll want that author’s website launched months before your book is available. Your author’s website acts as a resource where people can find everything there is to know about you and your book.
Interested readers shouldn’t have to fight to learn more about you and your books. If they do, you lose them as readers. Having an author website is like having a headquarters or an information center – it’s a place to send people who want to know more about what you’re doing.
I recommend setting up a simple website – your author’s website does not need to be complicated.
With Squarespace, a software service providing website building and hosting tools, you can easily create a site that suits your needs. Along with allowing users to create their own templates, Squarespace also allows users access to pre-built website templates as well as drag-and-drop elements that make creating a website easy. I recommend starting with the Home, About, and Contact pages, as well as a page for each of your novels. Once you have these pages established, you can then add a blog and/or email list when you have the time to maintain it.
(Full disclaimer: I’m not getting paid by Squarespace in any way. I just really like them.)
To Get Your Book Noticed Online, You Need to Focus Your Efforts
When starting, don’t try and do everything all at once. Otherwise, nothing will get done. Instead, focus on 1 to 3 social media platforms and/or campaigns to grow your community. When choosing which platforms to work on, think about where your target audience hangs out and how they consume information. For example, if your reader is not on Facebook but on Pinterest, you don’t necessarily need be active on Facebook. Instead, you need to be super active on Pinterest.
The top social media platforms for authors to be active on are:
- Facebook: a social networking platform that allows users to connect with family, friends, businesses, etc.
- Instagram: a social media platform that provides a mainly visual service, with users posting videos and images rather than text alone.
- Twitter: a “microblogging” platform where users send and receive short posts called “tweets”, which can be up to 280 characters long and include links, etc.
- Pinterest: a visual search engine used for discovering inspiration such as recipes, home, style, books, authors, and more, acting as a sort of virtual bulletin board.
- YouTube: an online video-sharing platform allowing users to upload, view, rate, and share videos as well as follow other users.
Gaining Visibility For Your Book Is a Long-Term Strategy
Visibility is a result of the type of marketing you do. To get the greatest results for your efforts, look for marketing strategies with a long shelf life. The more you focus on the long term, the greater your results. In addition, don’t wait for the perfect moment to start promoting your book – start as early as possible! Waiting for your book to be published wastes precious time, so start promoting not only your book but also yourself as an author as soon as you can. Consistency in your online promotion efforts is also key, so try and set small goals you can work up to each day.
Long shelf life book marketing strategies are where your efforts pay off for weeks, months, even years down the road. A few of the ways you can create long-term results are by:
- Blogging regularly (i.e. posting once or twice a week, once a month, etc.)
- Guest blogging on other websites (i.e. publishing a blog post on another website to gain more visibility and reach more potential readers)
- Doing a book blog tour (i.e. a set amount of time in which your book will be promoted across multiple blogs)
- Being interviewed by the media (i.e. radio shows, TV shows, newspaper articles, etc.)
- Being interviewed on podcast shows (i.e. allowing you to build a larger social network of potential readers)
- Building lead funnels (i.e. putting your potential readers through various steps until they finally make a purchase)
- Focusing on search engine optimization (SEO) strategies (i.e. optimizing online posts so that your content appears at the top of a search engine list for particular keywords)
- Being active on social media by posting regularly and engaging with your audience (i.e. setting aside 20 minutes a day to create social media content)
Ultimately, you market to sell books – the more visible your book, the more copies you are bound to sell. Therefore, you must put just as much effort into marketing your book as you did writing it!
Engage Your Target Readers With Amazing Content
Once you know what platforms to use and have created, you can start engaging with your audience. Building an active audience does not begin with publishing a “buy now” post – a trusting relationship needs to be established before a potential reader becomes a loyal reader.
Your future readers will not buy your book instantly if you tell them to in one Facebook post. Instead, they need to be nurtured toward making that purchase. Genuine interactions breed trust, and trust cultivates love. When you gain that love, sales will naturally roll right on in.
Why? Because when your readers love you, they can’t wait to get their hands on your latest work!
That’s why building trust is pivotal to growing a devoted readership.
So How To Get Your Book Noticed Online and build trust? Don’t worry – I have you covered with these 4 tactics to employ as you interact and grow your readership:
- Connect: Make an effort to connect with potential readers. What social media platforms do they use most regularly? Find this out, and make sure to create an active presence on such platforms.
- Engage: Treat your readers as friends. Reach out, ask questions, join the Facebook groups they are a part of and be a part of their conversations. What are your readers interested in learning from you? What can they teach you?
- Offer quality: Always look to serve the reader first. Give them something of value. Giving your target readers value will help you build trust and strong online relationships.
- Be personal: Let the reader inside your world. Not by posting endless selfies or cat videos. Instead, share your writing journey. Share the highs and lows. Be an actual human that they can relate to. Ask yourself, what would you like to know about your own favorite authors? Which aspects of the writing process do you think your readers would find most interesting or relate to the most?
By employing these four tactics you will start to see steady, quality growth.
It can be SUPER hard to do this on your own, but I don’t want you to feel that way! If you need help or just want to ask a marketing-related question, please feel free to contact us at Talk+Tell.
You can also ask them in my new Facebook group, Publishing & Marketing Your Book.
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