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Christian Ghostwriter • Editor • Publisher
12 Free Ways to Market Your Book
1. Get an Agent
An agent sells your book to a traditional mass-market publisher (i.e., Zondervan, HarperCollins, etc.). From there, you’d sign a contract with the publisher and receive advance royalties. Once the publisher recoups the advances from the sale of your book, you would receive additional royalties for additional sales. That’s how traditional publishing works.
Just be sure to find an agent that accepts manuscripts in your book’s genre, and follow their instructions exactly. Don’t give them any more or any less than what they ask for. Also, if you contact someone who says they’re an “agent,” and they charge a fee to represent you, that’s a scam. Agents get paid only when they sell your manuscript to a publisher.
2. Have a Built-in Audience
Pastors have congregations. Motivational speakers have conferences. Real estate agents, counselors, attorneys, business owners, and other professionals have clients. What do you have? Start with the people who are already listening to you. A few months back, a young author contacted me and said he had 60,000 followers on social media. If that author sells one copy of his book to all 60,000 followers at, say, a $5 royalty per book, he makes a $300,000 profit.
Even if you have only 1,000 social media followers and sell a copy of your book to each of them at the same $5 royalty per book, you’d still make $5,000. For 2,000 followers, you’d make $10,000. And the list goes on.
This piggybacks onto my next point, which is…
3. Use Social Media
More than 5.3 billion people, or 65.7 percent of the world’s population, are on the internet. Of this number, 4.95 billion, or 61.4 percent of the world’s population, use social media. Reach out to every one of them with the message of your book. Facebook, YouTube, What’s App, Instagram, WeChat, and TikTok boast more than one billion users per month. Build a community on these platforms and interact with your followers. Be sure to use hashtags to increase your posts’ visibility, and encourage followers to share them.
4. Create a Website
Develop an author website for your book and keep your readers updated on relevant information. While you can build a website for free, spending a little money on webspace to use WordPress.org would be well worth it because you get to use AIOSEO (an amazing and free SEO plugin) to rank high on the search engines. Write a regular newsletter and include a signup form to build a mailing list. Just be sure your visitors know they’re opting into a mailing list when they sign up.
5. Build a Free Email List
Most folks have scads of friends and family they talk to over the internet nearly every day. These folks also have friends, and they have friends, etc. Such is the power of building a free email list to send your newsletter and keep everyone you know informed about your book.
6. Get Help From Other Bloggers and Reviewers
Getting bloggers and reviewers to write a review on Amazon and other high-visibility sites can significantly boost your book’s credibility and your reputation as an author.
7. Collaborate with Other Authors
Joint promotions, book bundles, or cross-promotions can expose your work to a broader audience. Networking with authors who are targeting a similar audience as you can also boost your credibility and attract new readers, particularly if your book appears in the same advertisements with well-known bestselling authors.
8. Contribute to Niche Communities
Goodreads, Reddit, Facebook groups, and similar forums provide opportunities to discuss your book, share experiences, and connect with readers. Just be sure you know the rules of engagement before contributing to these forums. Some allow more advertising than others, so be sure you know and abide by community
guidelines.
9. Do Podcasts
Ask hosts of podcasts if you can be a guest on their show. This will give you a platform to discuss your book, share a bit about what inspired you to write your book, and connect with new readers.
10. Create a Profile on Amazon Author Central
Amazon Author Central is one of the most overlooked tools to generate readership and keep your readers informed of news and upcoming projects. Your comprehensive author profile should have your biography, a photo of you as the author, and links to your website and social media. Be sure to keep your page regularly updated with news and events pertaining to your book.
11. Optimize Your Book’s Metadata
Ensure that all the information about your book on Amazon such as the title, description, keywords, blurb, about the author page, and categories are optimized so that your book will be more likely to appear to people who want to purchase it.
12. Offer Free Promotions and Discounts
BookBub was created to help readers find new books and authors. Freebooksy points readers to hundreds of free eBooks from Amazon Kindle, Nook, Apple Books and Kobo. Make use of these platforms to attract significant readership.
8 Effective Paid Ways to Market Your Book
- Organize book signings. Pastors and conference speakers do this all the time. Have copies of your book shipped to the venue where you will be appearing. Or try organizing the book signings at your local library. Small towns in particular love local celebs.
- Buy aerial advertising. Fly a banner advertising your book over the Super Bowl, the next Taylor Swift concert, or rush-hour traffic on the Beltway or the Los Angeles Expressway.
- Hire a marketing company. Media Connect, formerly Planned Television Arts, writes press kits and organizes radio and television interviews. Check them out at https://www.media-connect.com/.
- Start a Google Adwords campaign. Set up a website for your book and use Google’s PPC service to send traffic to it. Or, purchase a traffic package from a reputable company.
- Buy advertising on social media. Most social media platforms sell advertising if you have accounts with them.
- Buy traditional mailing lists. Create paper ads and send them through the postal system (like we did before the internet).
- Buy double opt-in email lists. Send email advertisements and newsletters.
- Pay influencers on social media to market your book.
Every book is unique—and so is every marketing plan. Let’s talk about yours.
- Email Directly: christianghostwriterworldwide@gmail.com
- Call or Text: 800-899-2497