Great news! If you’ve written a non-fiction book and are now looking to sell it, there are plenty of effective marketing strategies you can use to get your book into the hands of eager readers. While marketing a book before it’s written can be a powerful strategy, don’t worry if you haven’t done that. You can still generate sales over time by consistently promoting your book using some tried-and-true methods. Here are 11 fantastic ways to do just that!
1. Target your ideal reader
When you wrote your book, you would have thought about your ideal readers, who they are, what genres they like, and the other authors they probably read. Get as detailed as you can about your readers. Create a few avatars and imagine their home life, where they shop, their education and lifestyle. This will help you identify physical places to have a presence (e.g. a stall) and online spaces to advertise or appear on.
2. Go where your reader likes to spend their time
If your ideal readers use Reddit or LinkedIn, also be on Reddit and LinkedIn. Get a feel for their preferences. Perhaps your audience are young women with small disposable incomes who like cosmetic events, getting freebies and spending a lot of time on TikTok. Perhaps your audience are mums of pre-schoolers who use Facebook to connect with other parents to find out about places to take their kids for fun.
Knowing this type of information will help identify where to promote your books effectively. If you decide to pay for ads, you’ll know which platform to invest in.
3. Use social media platforms
After getting to know your ideal readers and where they are, contribute to forums and offer value. Be sincere and helpful – allowing people to feel they know you somewhat. Once you feel it is the right place, you can ask people to sign up for your newsletter, ask people to buy your book and also to review your book. Don’t squirm! You need to explicitly ask, even if you find it uncomfortable. Be prepared for silence or nos – but also be prepared for people to be happy to buy your book and to review it. If you are in the right space and you are offering the right type of book, your audience will be interested.
You may see things grow organically from this point, but don’t stop working on your promotion. Stick to the platforms you identified and keep being consistent for a minimum of 90 days to know if it is working for you or not. Only after 90 days should you switch to something else (if it’s not working for you).
4. Appear as a guest on social media, podcasts and blogs
Offer to appear as a guest on social media lives (e.g. Facebook, Instagram). You can also offer to appear as a guest on podcasts (choose ones your ideal readers are likely to subscribe to). There are handy platforms you can join where podcasters can find you and vice versa. Check out https://podcastguests.com/, but Google will bring up more. (Also read John Esperian’s post on how to be a good podcast guest: https://espirian.co.uk/podcast-guest/.) You can also offer to write as a guest blogger on sites that you like to read and where your readers can also find you.
5. Make sure your promotion explains that you offer a solution to a problem
Make it clear what the reader will gain from reading your book. What is the problem? What are you offering?
6. Give your books away for free to the right people
If the aim of the book is to promote yourself and your business or non-profit, give your books to stakeholders to establish yourself as an expert in their mind and help raise their estimation of you. Give your books to those who will benefit, too. If your book is about managing ADHD and motherhood, offer the book to mothers with ADHD and gather testimonials.
7. Use testimonials on your blurb
Add testimonials to the back of your book and promotional materials. Use reviews left on Amazon from beta readers or those you gave the book to. Try to get testimonials from peers, and if they are too time-poor to read your book, ask them for a testimonial on you as a professional instead. Many authors do this!
8. Make sure your book cover looks professional and meets the expectations of your audience
Self-publishers often try to save money by creating their own covers – mostly with amateur-looking results. Ideally, hire an artist or designer who works in your genre, has a good portfolio and comes highly recommended (Reedsy has a directory of book designers). If you can’t afford a professional, you can do it yourself using Canva. Canva is an app that makes it very easy to create book covers. Begin with a template fitting your genre and customise it to look original. Make sure you study how other book covers in your subject area are designed. Look at colours, tones, typefaces, spacing, overall impact, and the feelings it generates for the person holding the book. Test your cover design by asking people in your life, your beta readers or a writing community (there are many good ones on Facebook). Remember to create a spine and back cover (the jacket), something for the thumbnail (for websites) and images suitable for marketing. (Again, Canva can help you.)
9. Offer your book as an e-book
Create an e-book version of your book. You may have a preference for physical books, but e-books are a massive industry and very good for self-publishers. It’s also surprising how many people buy a physical copy of a useful book after reading it as an e-book (I know I have). It’s a relatively inexpensive way to increase your audience. You can try using Calibre or Adobe to create an ePub file. Alternatively, you can hire someone on a freelance website to do the job).
10. Offer your book as an audiobook
This aspect of the book industry is growing, and the cost of creating an audiobook using AI is becoming cheaper. The experience of listening to AI is also improving and will keep improving. Creating a high-quality audiobook using a voice actor and hiring a studio is not prohibitively expensive but probably too expensive for many first-time self-publishers. It’s worth analysing the cost-benefits over a longer period of time. For example, allow two years to recoup costs before making a profit.
11. Keep writing more books!
Authors often notice that interest in their first publications increases and sell well because people who have read their newest books search for more books by the author. Meaning that if your readers like one book, they are likely to want to read more from you and will look through your back catalogue. So you might find that to sell your first book well, you need to write a second and third. Don’t be put off by this! In terms of sales and marketing, this is a good thing because by attracting one reader, you potentially sell more than one book!
Sources and further reading
If you want more advice, check out these two websites:
- ScribeMedia.com offers more ideas
2. Jane Friedman is my sage on all things to do with the publishing world. Her website and webinars offer heaps of good quality advice to writers and people in the industry. A guest blogger even offers advice on how to promote books wihtout using social media. Have a read here.
Good luck! Don’t give up! Feel free to email me with questions or thoughts :).
Hiya! I’m Nazneen. I offer proofreading, proof-editing, web editing, and author support to businesses and self-publishers. If you would like help, whether it’s with your newsletters, social media content, website, or book just get in touch. Email hello@nazneenes.com.
