Purposeful Promotion
Alright author, so you’ve written your book, now what? It’s time to promote!
You’ll want to start promoting your book well before launch day, ideally about 6 months out, and no less than 3 months. That builds enough time to get a good buzz surrounding it through various avenues.
You’ll want to create a digital presence to promote your book. A website and at least one social media account are absolutely necessary in today’s digital age. I recommend creating a professional social media account that is separate from your personal one, if you have one. Much easier to keep things contained that way. This needs to happen at least 6 months ahead of publication, enough time to build a presence.
Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) are one of the best ways to build that buzz by gathering genuine reviews from actual readers. This should happen a few months out from publication day. Reach out to followers, friends, reviewers, and larger social media accounts. Share the reviews as part of your promotion, they’re a great way to entice future readers.
Share with readers the what, who, where, how, and most important, WHY they should buy your book. Be sure to utilize hashtags that are appropriate for your book and genre. Give a few different formats a try (video, text based, trending, etc.), you never know what will work best. But don’t give away any spoilers! Let them find out for themselves.
Now the day has finally arrived: publication day. Congratulations, author! Be sure to share the news and celebrate. But promotion doesn’t stop there! As long as you want to sell books, you need to continue promoting your work. Once reviews start rolling in, share those on your channels to followers and subscribers.
Promoting your book is a full-time job. It takes planning and effort and won’t be accomplished by a few posts that say “Buy My Book”. You got this, author!
