Aspiring authors spend a lot of their time writing and researching their book, but they don’t spend the time addressing how to promote a book. A marketing plan outlining how to promote a book will ultimately help sell your book better online.

There are a variety of online self-publishing options, such as Amazon Createspace and Lulu, that provide cost-saving venues. However, many lack traditional publisher resources to launch marketing campaigns. By taking advantage of self-publishing options, many authors lose the opportunity to make a big splash to gain popularity and increase the potential sales of the book. At Tomo360, we have experience in helping authors to step by step in promoting their books. We have some tips for authors on how to promote their books through online marketing.

Take a look at some of our marketing tactics: 

1. Start Early

• Hype up the release date of the book by organizing book tours and setting up a calendar of events of when and where you could promote your boo
• Promote your book ahead of schedule (we recommend doing a countdown calendar to pre-amp the demand)
• Ask for individual reviews by providing a PDF version of your book six months before the published date
• Hold yourself accountable and make sure you follow through your plan

2. Develop a Social Marketing Strategy

• Develop a comprehensive social media marketing and branding strategy plan. Planning this out will help increase the chances of success
• Discover your target readers 
• Identify influencers and subject matter experts who could comment on and review your book
• Tease out content from your book and set up Twitter feeds, LinkedIn posts, and Pinterest images with links to the book
• Come up with the appropriate hashtags for your book and subject matter

3. Engage with followers on Social Media

• Post daily; parse out relevant content and examples from your book to your social media accounts
• Follow and engage with other authors, movers, and shakers in your area
• Come up with a series of hashtags that you can attach to each time you tweet

4. Write a Blog

• Create short blogs that outline some of the high-level content and concepts of your book, such as teasers to get them interested
• Write blogs and related stories about your book on Entrepreneur.com if it’s a business topic or Huffington Post, Medium, Quora, and any blogging sites related to your subject matter
• Write ezines and blogs for magazines about the topics of your book

5. Ask for Reviews

Online reviews can help generate traffic to different websites and improve Google rankings by optimizing your website. Many authors give away their books to their friends and families. Be sure to ask and remind them to submit their reviews online because let’s face it, not all authors can get a review in New York Times Best Sellers, but they could submit their reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Book Page.  Ideally, you want to receive a minimum of 20 reviews on Amazon. Try to reach out to Amazon’s Customers Top Reviewers by writing to them and asking if they would be interested in reviewing your book. If so, send them a promotional copy and make sure to follow up with them.

Here is a helpful list of sites for book reviews: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-website-for-book-reviews

6. Create a Website

• Create a landing page with your bio and a picture of your book
• Provide a download link to the introduction or the first chapter of your book
• Add reviews and a table of contents that can be easily shared
• Provide a clear call-to-action link to users on where to buy your book on your website
• Install Google Analytics so you can find out the demographics of your visitors  and analyze your website traffic
• Put your schedule of speaking engagements, book tours, webinars, and contact information on the website

7. Generate a Media Kit

• Develop a paper and an online media kit in PDF with your picture, bio, and a description of your book that you can easily send around to reviewers
• Put the Media Kit on your website so you can send it to the reviewers with a link to your page

8. Send Email Campaign

• Create and send a monthly email campaign with your blog and topics that would be of interest to your users. Be sure to include a link to your book and reviews that can be shared
• Add an email subscription option on your website and social media platforms so it is easy for visitors to subscribe

9. Make a Video

• Create a short video or a mini-series of videos on the topics of your book and what the readers can expect from your book.  
• Distribute the video on YouTube, Vimeo, email, and your website

To summarize, try to start early with your book by promoting your book and asking friends and family to review your manuscript. Then, develop a social media strategy, create a website prior to your book’s release, prepare a media kit and newsletter and have some fun by creating engaging content such as videos to promote your book. If you have any questions or need more advice on how to promote a book online, we are here to answer your questions – just contact us. Write on!