I’ve been in several anthologies, most published by a small home-publishing company, one put together by an author and published via traditional publishing, but they were like home-made Chicken Soups for the Soul. While it’s a beautiful paradigm, make a book comprised of 40-50 bloggers to reach their audiences for marketing reasons, the point is we handled the bulk of our marketing endeavors all street like with very little investment.
So I’m going to kind of give you 10 things you can do all street-like to launch and sell your book with very little marketing capital based on my experiences working with these really creative women in these anthologies.
Note: Some of these ideas come from other books published by friends and former friends, and one of them made it to New York Times Bestseller, so I like to overanalyze her methods uncontrollably for that reason.
1. Have a pre-order option.
This gives you the opportunity to create a buzz before the launch date, and all the pre-order sales end up being sales for the first day of the launch so you start off sales with the biggest bang possible.
So basically, you’re selling your book before it’s published (sometimes before it’s even finished) and not wasting any time with it.
With it, you’ll need a landing page or a product marketing page and description, and you’ll want to market this, so also a pre-marketing marketing plan. The moment you open up sales for pre-orders until the launch date, it’s basically an event. But a pre-event to a main event.
Think of it like the Oscars or any Red Carpet Awards and how the media handles the airing of it. They usually have a pre-show and then the show-show. Football does the same thing a lot, especially the Super Bowl. If you’ve been to any conferences, often they have a pre-conference dinner and slew of events planned for the choice few who decided to show up early (and pay extra for it). It’s almost like a VIP thing, but also a very niche VIP thing reserved for super fans who are incredibly interested in either you or the topic of your book.
2. Get the Blurbs and Shout-Outs from Choice People — Testimonials
In my past experiences, they hand-picked famous or semi-famous people to send a free copy of the book and a gift and request a blurb or shout-out.
Types of people who were targeted…
- People who bring authority to your book. Like whoever can validate that I know what I’m talking about.
- Influencers. Whoever people believe when they say, “You must read this book, it was awesome.”
- Someone famous-ish, just for bragging rights among your family and friends.
- Someone who would gain street cred by endorsing your book, so like if you write a novel, someone who boasts about having insights to all the newest novels. If you write about parenting, someone who is trying to gain credibility as an expert on parenting by talking about parenting and the best parenting books….
For the most part, they had a list of people to pitch to, and about 5% of that list were people who were very unlikely to do anything with you but would be awesome to have, like Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. So 5% of the list are Lottery People where by sheer chance and divine timing will they respond. You never know unless you try.
Then about 45% of the list targeted people who are more reasonably within reach, but still a reach to obtain. These are more semi-famous people but also real people like Bob & Sheri or Pew Die Pie. They are also people your target market likes and follows, even if they are not your niche.
Then the remaining 50% of the list are more guaranteed people, which are primarily pulled from your network. Like look at the all the “professionals” you hang out with (online or off) within your niche or related to your niche (i.e. parenting/moms) or are perfect accents to your niche (i.e. Recipes), and ask them.
There was also a level of shenanigans. Because of the “GIFT!” Which should probably go down as an advertising expense on your SCH C.
One book I know wanted to get a blurb from The Bloggess, just because she’s awesome and we are all major fans, and they sent her a copy of the book with a petrified bat in it (she loves taxidermy), and she couldn’t resist. It’s not only memorable, but it’s attention seeking (maybe I meant to say attention getting), and it sincerely considered what she really likes in this life.
All they wanted was a blurb of endorsement they could quote and maybe a public shout-out on social media. Then they put the blurb on the back of the book, the Landing page, and then also in the description on Amazon or wherever else they were selling them.
Ideally, you really only need one good one for the back of the book, and about 3 to 5 of them for the descriptions. It’s a lot like getting published, like for every 20 rejections, you’ll get one winner. So you ask 50 people in hopes to get 3 blurbs.
And it’s important. People buy from “trusted sources,” but it works more socially than it does more credibility topically… but the idea is if the cool people say you’re cool, then you’re cool.
Basically, every blurb is you being able to say, “Jackie and Heather, the most popular girls at school, like me.” Or “Alicia, the straight A student who is head of the Key Club, thinks I’m an expert on this subject.”
3. Get Reviewers Lined Up Beforehand
This kind of goes hand and hand with the last one because about half of that list are also people that are great to hit up for a review as well. If you can get a review from them, you can always quote some gems as testimonials later if you fell short with attempts to get a blurb before launch date.
But the anthology people I’ve worked with had a list of 30 or more people willing to read a free pdf of the book and write a book review on Amazon on the day it comes out. Of course, since then, Amazon has tightened the review process so in order to get people to write a review, they’ll need to pay for the product from Amazon without coupons just for reviews. You’ll want to check that link for a more comprehensive list of their rules.
Several also wrote blog posts reviewing the book. But the point is to get as many reviews in the first couple days as possible because more comments, the more people like.
Even most importantly, the buzz is what you want. Not the beer buzz, the BUZZ words, people buzzing about your book. The more someone sees something being liked or hated, the more they are interested in that thing.
4. Sell the ebook for 99 cents for a while
I think we usually did a week of a 99 Cent Sale that we planned pretty hardcore for promoting during that time. The idea was early on in the game, we needed reviews and sales. The more sales you get, the more you get into Amazon’s top sales list adding even more credibility to your book.
Well, when you sell it at 99 cents, most people are going to buy just because of the price. More sales usually means more organic, authentic reviews.
Selling on Amazon at that price is good because Amazon naturally requests reviews from people who made purchases on all the products they purchase via Amazon, so Amazon is doing your review begging for you.
That’s also a prime ideal time to advertise in social media because the price is going to draw in new people.
If your current fan base will pay full price, you aren’t doing much to improve your game by only marketing to them this deal. Nope, this is the time to penetrate the market as deep and hard as you can. (I hope you giggled at that phrasing).
Pre-plan your advertising game and focus on reaching new people, new markets, etc.
Play with look-a-like audiences on Facebook plus a few boosted ads for interests you swear are related, interests that are logical, interests that are not logical but your heart and gut feeling is saying “this is the category you need to market to.”
Also you can try to find a Venn between people interested in your book and people who shop where your book is sold. For instance, if your book is on Amazon and the KDP program, then it would probably be wise to include one boosted post to a targeted audience of “People who Own Kindle Fire,” located in Behaviors > mobile use > brand…
Most ads can be scheduled in advance, so do that so that it automagically happens at once.
On Pinterest, a free thing or a blog post about your upcoming book should already be there and circulating. If you plan months in advance, I’d have it out months in advance to give you some time to do some A/B testing organically, and then when you pop that book at 99 cents, link to the sale on blog post and promote that pin that’s already being pinned. If none of your pins are doing well enough at this point to piggy back from the organic interest, then you are probably best to just put the book as a product directly on Pinterest (hopefully a rich pin) and paying some advertising for it. You could also do both, depending on how much your target market is on Pinterest.
Then these authors in my experience would post regularly on social media how well the book sales are doing as they moved up in the top sales list, which acted as an extra advertisement without being too pushy. So you post “Buy my book! It’s only 99 Cents this week only,” then 8 hours later, a post that’s “We are #3 on Amazon in This Category! Wheeeee!” with a screenshot of it.
Free is also an option I think Amazon allows that helps boost reviews, but I’m not sure it helps with “sales.”
5. Organize and Guide the Promotions Team
Because they were all anthology books, they all had about 40 to 50 bloggers with a chapter in it. So all the bloggers were promoting, and the more organized the promotion was, the more it got promoted.
They usually had a FB group for the writers, and they’d offer all the promotional material you’d need (social media graphics, descriptions, etc.) like a media kit. Then they would post like an event, “Have you shared this image yet?” or “The book is now set for 99 cents please spread the word!” or wherever they were at in the process.
Basically you are a host guiding the party into the next event.
People don’t act when they don’t know what to do. If it’s your book, even people with good ideas are going to be afraid to make decisions for you about your thing. Even the simple idea of “Share it on Facebook today, ” isn’t going to come to them naturally and be obvious enough to initiate action without any hesitation unless you flat out tell them to.
Imagine being a tourist anywhere, but especially somewhere where the stuff you’re seeing is a different culture or sacred in some way like an art museum, one of those old churches in Europe, or maybe you’re visiting a family in Argentina, you’re going to be, many times over, unsure. You’re going to be like, “Are we allowed to go in that room? Is that ok?” Or “Can I take pictures? Is that ok?” and maybe, “Permisso, did I say it right?”
That’s how people on your “team” are going to feel more often than we realize. You make it super easier on them to feel confident helping you, as well as make it easier on them to function without thought, by just telling them what they can do as clear and precise as possible. Think instructions on a 5th grader’s assignment.
The difference between a leader and a guy in charge is that the leader handles the decisions and shows people where to go and what to do and how to do it.
They also would share links from their pages (everyone in the group did) just so the rest of the group could go engage and share links from each other to help with the Facebook algorithm.
Then FB advertising pro-tip: when sharing your own post again, share from someone else’s share as opposed to the original post. I got that from Rachel Miller (she knows, trust me she knows the Facebooks).
6. GiveAway for an Autographed Copy
Several offered to autograph copies at key moments in their sales process, but those would have to be bought from the author and not Amazon. But a few offered free autographed copies with a personal note from the author as a giveaway with shares of the book for sale as an entry. Like you could do a FB post or Instagram post to share or regram the post to be in the giveaway or comment or something as long as it’s following their terms for it.
You can even do one better and try to give a big, huge better prize (your book plus maybe 5 books by other Indie Authors all autographed and $60 cash — $10 from each of you), or maybe just invest for a $100 gift card, or maybe if you’re crafty as well as a writer, you can make a faux deer head for the wall or refurbish a shutter from the antique store with flowers and blue crackle paint, whatever you think people would want.
But the thing is to have one awesome thing to give away, plus 10 of just your autographed book sprinkled in between the events leading to the one big give-away.
7. Find Other People to GiveAway a copy of your book as a contest.
Depending on the content of your book, you could find someone who caters to the niche or the target audience who can give away a copy of your book on their terms (whatever they choose to do for a contest). Anyone your readers also likes / follows / reads… Send them an email asking if they’d like to give away a copy of your book.
Like I was in a mom anthology, so that anthology teamed up with some mom places to give away a copy of their book. I forget where they did this, but hypothetically, a mom book might look for promotional opportunities with other mom bloggers, places that sell mom things like diaper companies, and mom groups (some on Facebook, some offline).
8. Find Other People to do any kind of Promotional Partnership
Like the last one, number 7, you can go a step further than just giving away a copy of your book for a contest for one person’s fan-base. This one requires a little more creativity, but think about who your target persona is, and what they like and what they like to do.
For instance, moms usually love coffee and/or wine, like it’s a stereotype now. So a mom book might try to do a book signing at a coffee shop.
Another mom one, MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) are nationwide and meet once a month. While you might be able to at least stop by your local chapter’s meeting with your book to talk about motherhood and mention that you have a book they can buy, you could also try to get with the national part and say, “I’ll give MOPS members a 45% discount with this code…” Or a special free ebook customized for only the MOPS members on your website with an offer to buy your book at a discounted rate.
9. Book Tours
One woman regularly plans book events by traveling for 3 or 4 months straight. She asks all her FB friends if they’d host an event in their town, and from those she picks which ones she will visit. All seem to host events slightly differently, but the idea was to meet up somewhere, have drinks, have some games to win prizes, and talk about her book. Even if you weren’t that interested in her books, the events were fun enough to make you want to attend. Kind of like if a Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party had a baby, and it’s having a sleepover… She charged for tickets that included an autographed copy of her book, so people attending already bought the book before they got there, even if they didn’t go or couldn’t make it (unless they requested a refund).
Most books I know who do any kind of book tour inevitably (due to funding reasons) end up on a blog tour where the entire thing happens online. Instead of visiting towns, they visit blogs, and they set up fun events to take place while they are visiting that blog. Some mix giveaways into it, and others just do Q&A type things. Trust the bloggers with this because they all know their audience and what their audience wants.
10. Public Relations
Most of the anthologies asked the writers to send out press releases and try to get a deal to be on local tv shows or radio shows to talk about the book.
One book I was not in that I’ve seen perform the best in sales had a couple interesting personalities in Austin Texas get on the Today Show. Of course, then they all shared that on social media and made a big deal about it to keep the book in the buzz.
One woman in Chicago really saw some activity with her blog after being a guest on a radio show.
If you can get any good headline and story about NEWS about your book, most places will publish it because the editors just want to publish things that people will read and share because they want the numbers. Even better if you know some people who works for places that might publish your story about your book. You can almost choose some news outlets and find people who work there on Linked In and kind of slowly finesse your way into the active Linked In Users life. Maybe they aren’t active on linked in but are on twitter or insta or facebook, but linked in makes it easy to find out who they are.
If you wouldn’t pitch the story to an editor you worked with in the past, chances are not many will be interested in publishing it. Most of the time, they will publish or put you on their show for “news worthy” things like, “Local Author published…” and “This Person has sold over 100,000 copies in a manner of 3 months, she’s hot and getting hotter, go check out her book….” Kind of like Popeyes Chicken Sandwich. It wasn’t news until people were fighting for a sandwich.
In 5 Unconventional Book Launch Ideas, Ricardo Fayet mentions as his number 2 idea, “Create a “real-world” experience to supplement the book.” Mark Leslie Lefebvre promoted Haunted Hamilton with book signings at libraries that included a ghost tour of the library with local ghost host-walk groups in addition to the normal signing deal, and that also landed him some time on television to promote it.
I don’t think I can emphasize the PR enough. Everything that has some virality to it, the media just fuels it into hyperdrive. But it has to be slightly viral on an organic level first. It’s like playing Euchre. My dad always said, “Lead them if you got them,” which means, whatever the highest card is in your hand, lead with that. You want to find your best thing, whatever everyone likes the most based on insights and analytics, and push that part the hardest.
11. Be Less Marketing and More Social
Generally, they look at this instead of from a marketing standpoint (because most lacked any actual experience in marketing, which worked to their favor), they looked at it from a social standpoint like a girl in a new school… what is working? What is not working? What are the social rules here?
It wasn’t a big picture game. It was a simple, “I’m going to try this, and it flopped, ok so let’s try this then, everyone loves it, do it again, now change it up a little, it’s overplayed, NEXT…”
…Mixed with a lot of the manipulation tactics found in Southern Charm, “If you don’t go to my event, I’ll assume you don’t like me…” except worded like, “My event is here and at this time. It won’t be the same without you. Please don’t leave me alone on this day. It’s important.”
Marketing seems to focus on subliminal while social seems to focus on subtle.
But the point is people love to socialize. They don’t want to be sold to. They want to be talked to and respected as individuals. This is why the soft sale is more successful *usually* on social media, and instead of thinking, “I should hit up other places for the hard sale,” you would fare better by thinking, “I should soften my sale where I do hard sales.” Because social media is showing us what people want.
So you are at a tea party, a social gathering, mingling with people like Ironman. You are someone everyone wants to know, and you are just there to have a good time, by the way you have something you sell during adult hours of operation but tonight, you are here to have fun. You are not a door to door salesperson crashing a wedding trying to sell vacuum cleaners to the guests.
12. Focus on Empathy / Be the Identity or Persona
This is often a bigger picture thing that’s pretty important to have underneath all the ideas you can find for any endeavor on the web. Grow your FB page, sell your product, create your sales funnel, get more traffic to your blog, with Pinterest… all of the things people can say to do that, there’s one underlying thing that will boost success rates if you already have it in place, and that’s your content, your brand, and basically, you.
Think of the new market and how it operates. Kids love video games, and it’s not just Mario hitting the question marks, it’s a long drama, an escape room with clues and hints, a full story where by playing, you are getting into character. CosPlay is big and trending now. Brand Stories are a thing. People base their political opinions on their party rather than base their party on their political opinions, and even life decisions are part of that such as vaccinating, their diet and nutrition, their exercise, etc.
So you want to hone in on that, and not just that, not just the idea of feeding people’s assurance to be part of a group / identity, but the emotional feeling associated to all of it. The emotional feeling behind role-playing / Cosplay / acting out a play. The emotional feelings of watching a story unfold and learning all the secrets. The emotional feelings of going on an adventure and conquering the mission whether it’s get the neon kitty on your video game, or it’s find all the things to enter to win.
Understanding empathy is probably the key to marketing.
But part of that is to be an identity or persona that loves your product in an exciting, boastful way. You are making “Be who you are, the person who loves to color in my coloring book…” to be cool, the in-thing, something to take pride in… just by being that person yourself, and making it look cool. This way, they want to share your thing to promote their coolness.
Also, the way empathy works is people piggy back from your emotions.
The most successful YouTube videos display people having fun, even if it’s fake and you can tell, “He he, this is so much fun, fake laugh, fun I tell you, fake laugh, I’m having so much fun.”
That’s because, people want to have fun. If you’re having fun, and they watch you having fun, and you’re either including them or inviting them to join you, they will have fun too. The feelings get triggered, and they want your thing to have fun too.
Smiles are contagious. So is product satisfaction.
There’s really no right way to do a book launch, like there is no actual equation that will guarantee success, so therefore, there is no right way to do this. But know this. Many people got more famous and sold more books doing things the “wrong way” but also “their way.”
And it is possible to make it to New York Times Bestseller from your bed while not wearing any pants without a traditional publisher because I’ve seen it happen. I didn’t mean to sound perverted with that.
For a good general post, check out 50+ Book Marketing Ideas.