By Author Denise Turney

Connecting writers and book readers is truly an art. After years of writing, publishing, marketing and selling books, I have learned effective strategies to increase book sales. I am going to share several of these winning book marketing strategies with you in this Chistell.com blog post.

These strategies don’t involve spending more ad money. Even more, these book marketing tips aren’t about living on the road with boxes of books stuffed in your car trunk.

Smart Connections with Book Lovers Isn’t Pricey

Howbeit, attending book festivals and the right literary events helps when it comes to connecting with book readers. (Keep reading to find out how attending large scale book events makes its way onto the 10 best ways that writers and book readers make smart connections.)

Several of the strategies won’t cost you a dime. Also, depending on your existing support system, you might not have to implement all of the strategies to start seeing an increase in sales. However, what you will have to do is to be serious, and I do mean serious, about staying with the book marketing process long term.

Additionally, you will have to engage in at least two of these 10 actions. Let’s begin.

First of the 10 Best Ways Writers and Book Readers Make Smart Connections

This first strategy will get you out of the house. Added to selling books is the rewarding chance to network and meet authors, the very people who can tell you about more effective ways to increase book sales.

Attend book festivals, large scale events. But don’t just go to any book event. Research festivals, conferences and book fairs. Find out how many attendees are expected at the events. If these numbers aren’t posted at the event website, email the event organizers and ask them to share this information.

After all, the last thing you want to do is to pay a registration fee for an author’s table at book festivals that only attract 20 readers. Also, check event websites (or contact the event organizer) to see if you can participate in radio, television and online promotions organizers run.

Organizers offer these services at competitive prices to help cover the cost of running book fairs. Before you sign up for the fairs, make sure the registration fee is competitive enough to allow you to generate a profit. Book fairs that attract 10,000 or more book buyers could make it easy to sell 60 or more books. If you’re out-of-pocket costs is $250 or less, you could easily earn a profit.

More Ways Writers and Book Readers Connect

Start your own book festival. Consider requiring attendees to register for the event in advance. This way, you will know how many people are planning to attend. Use this data in press releases, announcements, social media posts, flyers, direct mail and on postcards.

But don’t go it alone. Network with other writers who run book festivals. You might be surprised how many writers organize events. Connect with these authors and get tips on ways to gain sponsors and local media coverage.

Apply for awards. I’m seeing more book awards shows. These awards shows are similar to popular music and film awards shows. Similarly, book awards shows can bring you lots of exposure and help you make smart connections.

Engaging Book Clubs and More

As a fourth tip, reach out to book clubs. Choose book clubs that read the types of books you write. Please pay attention to that. Don’t try to force a connection. Make it easy on yourself and reach out to book clubs that align with books you write.

In other words, you won’t have to convince these book club members to want to read your books. All you should have to do is introduce your books to the club members.

Here are six more ways that writers and book readers make smart connections:

• Create and send colorful, attention-grabbing postcards to local media, book club presidents and book bloggers.
• Follow these postcards up with direct email
• A week later send recipients a snail mail
• Post flyers about your book on college campuses, local libraries, etc. Request approval from administrators before hanging the flyers
• Inside direct mail, include short overviews of your books, your bio and the benefits that the organizations and their readers or listeners can gain from reading your books.
• Shorten the time it takes to generate direct email messages by signing up with email marketing platforms (e.g., Constant Contact, MailChimp)

Final Four Ways to Connect with Avid Readers

Throughout the year, schedule radio interviews. Thanks to online radio stations and podcasts, this should be easy. As a tip, you can find radio stations and podcasts to interview on by following media influencers on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Focus on being on the radio or on a podcast at least once a week. You could even start your own podcast like I did. Check out Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio. In fact, depending on the types of books you write, you could gain a feature Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio interview. Listen to the show. See if there’s a fit.

If there is a fit, contact me through the show.

To connect with readers and gain more book sales, also attend networking events. Stay local and you could reduce your out-of-pocket traveling expenses.

These networking events are different from book festivals. Examples include chamber of commerce awards luncheons, arts workshops, professional meetups and business startup discussions.

Exchange business cards with people who attend these networking events. Who knows, some attendees might help you get into large corporations they work at, which leads to the next tip to get more book sales. Depending on your book’s topic, you could speak at large corporations, sharing insights and research findings with corporate employee networks, etc. Should this happen, conduct book signings at the end of these speaking engagements.

You Can Get More Book Sales

Run a writing contest. You could also run a Q&A contest that focuses on one of your books. As a prize, you could give winners a collection of your books and/or a bookstore gift card.

Additionally, blog about your books. This isn’t a one and done. Be dedicated. This means, that you’ll publish a new blog post at least once a week, once a month at the absolute minimum. Write naturally and use a SEO plug-in to improve search engine rankings.

Furthermore, consider using tools like Google Analytics to track the effectiveness of your blog posts. In relation to this, regularly update your website content, including website meta tags.

Also, reach out to other bloggers. Make sure they blog about the types of books you write. Ask to be interviewed or featured at these book blogs.

Tips to Get More Book Buyer Connections

Just for fun, here are even more ways writers and book readers start smart connections. Set up automatic social media posts. I’ve actually met media professionals this way and gotten published in major newspapers and magazines.

But don’t just publish auto messages to social media platforms. Actually, log into social media platforms and ask questions, post motivational quotes and info about your books. Also, respond to messages that other posters share. Please don’t just take or only advertise your books. After all, you’re trying to make smart connections.

To grow your readership, write and publish new books. As simple as it may sound, this is one of the best ways that I have found to increase book sales. However, make sure that you write your best book. Great books can create surprising word-of-mouth sales.

Let’s Talk Amazon and Barnes & Noble Book Retailers

Update your Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble book descriptions. Over the course of a year, I might revise my book descriptions three to four times. Add keywords that readers use to search for the types of books you write. Also, link your book blog to your Amazon Author Central page. You could also run book Amazon ads. If you do, track the results and make changes as needed. Start small and update keywords that you use in the ads. Keep tracking results.

Additionally, create profiles at popular book websites like Good Reads, CushCity and iTunes. Familiarize yourself with book distributions (e.g., Ingram, Baker & Taylor) and see if they are running book promotions you can participate in.

There are lots of actions you can take to increase your book sales. But these book marketing strategies have actually worked for me, which is why I am sharing them with you. These aren’t strategies that I just read about. These are book marketing strategies I have tried and gained results from.

One final note, the path to more book sales sounds simple. Just start selling more books by making smart reader connections. Yet, as simple as it sounds, it can take months to find and connect with your book’s perfect readers. The above book marketing tips shared in this post can save you years of trial and error.