ALLi partner member Alison Jack, who is both an editor and an author, shares her top book promotion tips for indie authors who are new to marketing.
With so many authors vying for readers’ attention, it is essential for authors to build up a following, however their book is published. Here are five key tips to start you off:
- Start a blog. Blogging is an excellent way of getting yourself and your writing noticed, and by the time your book is published you’ll have a ready-made following of loyal readers. They tell their friends about you, post links to your work on social networking sites, tweet about you, and boom! Your following grows exponentially. It’s not complicated to start a blog, and WordPress is one of several free platforms. Once you’ve started your blog, do your best to post regularly. An active blog will gain new followers every time you post; an inactive blog (and I have to confess I’m a lazy blogger) will lose followers just as quickly.
- Structure your blog. Followers of blogs like to know what they can expect, so give your blog a theme. Look at other authors’ blogs and take inspiration from your favourites.
- Network with other authors. If you tweet for authors, they’ll tweet for you. The same goes for posting on LinkedIn, Facebook or whatever your social networking site your prefer. Social networking is a free and effective way of advertising, so use it to the max.
- Write guest posts or take part in interviews for other people’s blogs. This is an excellent way to get yourself noticed by a whole new audience as you introduce yourself to all the followers of the blogs on which you’re guesting. By the same token, inviting authors to contribute a guest post or interview to your blog will attract their followers to come and take a look. In my experience authors are a friendly and supportive bunch of people, and the more you guest/invite guests the more support you’ll receive.
- Promote yourself as an author – not just your book. Of course you want to promote your book, but if you’re starting a website, blog or Facebook page then make it essentially about you. Once your author website, blog or Facebook page has lots of lovely followers, then you can post to your heart’s content about your debut novel, along with novels two, three, four and so on, all in one place.
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Hi,
I’m in the same position as the other blogger, in fact I’ve started a number of blogs over the years with no response at all. Except for spam comments from pharmacy companies and offers to improve my blog for a fee. i am very discouraged by it all. But the thing is, if i could make a real go of this, this is what i want to do with my life. But i want to quit trying because of the lack of traffic.
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I agreed, WordPress or blogspot is very easy to start a blog. After we have a blog, we need network with other authors to learn from them. Thanks
Some really good points here – this blog is so valuable. I started a blog specifically for the books that I write, but already had a business one, and I find that does send me most of my readers. I’ve started a series of interviews with other non-fiction writers on there, talking about creativity and non-fiction, mainly because I find a lot of support networks for fiction writers but not so much for the non-fic crew. This has brought me new audiences, as my guest posters have shared the posts with their circles, and a few offers of guest posts on their blogs, too, so it does work.
Excellent advice given with Alison’s trademark clarity and insight. I’m tweeting and sharing!
I’m with Clare: Blogger is a pain. I’ve read, since painstakingly starting my blog at http://christinahollis.blogspot.co.uk, that WordPress is much easier to operate—where was *that* information when I needed it! I get plenty of visitors, and some comments, but it often feels like shouting into a void. I love blogging, but Is it really worth it?
Hum: blogs are much discussed, as in ‘are they worth doing?’ I have a blog, which as far as I know is hardly read by anyone. Most people I know agree that life is too short to read all the blogs out there. Which discourages me from spending the time it takes to post, plus it’s on Blogger, and the time to sort the size of type (always too small) and the photos (not easy to place decently) means a blog post takes a very disproportionate amount of time away from other work in relation to its apparent usefulness as publicity.
On the other hand, though the blog is certainly ‘me’, I suppose it doesn’t appear to have a theme …
Any suggestions for giving me a guest post or a slot on a blog would be welcomed, of course. Or any other tips!
I agree that blogs can take time to post, especially as I insist on editing each post to within an inch of its life before I’ll publish! Every bit of advice I’ve shared has been based on my own experience, and is nothing more than advice. I would never have the arrogance to confront a fellow writer with a set of rules and a wagging finger! I appreciate that what works for one writer won’t necessarily work for another, but I have found networking with fellow authors invaluable. A lot of that networking has been done via blogs, and there are many bloggers happy to receive guest posts from or host interviews with authors. If you want to get in touch ([email protected]) I’ll send you a list of blogs on which I’ve guested.
On the subject of a blog’s theme, I love the idea that your blog reflects your personality. I’ve always endeavoured to keep my blog light hearted and anecdotal, but the subject matter of my posts can vary hugely. I’ve posted about my book launch, a long distance walk from London to Brighton, getting soaked on a rainy day by a smug motorist who subsequently got flashed by a speed camera (ha ha) and graffiti found on a wall that was about to be demolished. If you do decide to blog, you’ll soon find out which posts your readers enjoy when they click (or don’t click) the like button.
Hi Alison, great post, really useful for us budding writers!!