By African American Books Author Denise Turney

Book marketing is work. In fact, marketing books is so much work that authors can easily spend 90% or more time solely on marketing after they publish new books. Fortunately, there are no-cost to low-cost ways to get the word out about your books without leaving home.

Book Marketing Festivals

For example, The Everywhere Book Fest, the Miami Book, FLIP, Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, Brooklyn Book Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Harlem Book Fair pull in hundreds, some of the events attract thousands, of book lovers and book buyers. For instance, in 2018 more than 250,000 people attended the Miami Book Fair.

Clearly, book festivals are great places to implement author marketing strategies like distributing postcards, handing out brochures, flyers and free book excepts. Also, large book festivals are great places for authors to talk with book lovers and book buyers face to face.

Authors who ask visitors who stop by their festival booth to sign up for their digital newsletter, could send festival visitors holiday greetings, birthday greetings and other book marketing messages post festival. After all, a key benefit of marketing books is relationship building. As an author, if you want to expand your readership and increase book sales, make developing and deepening relationships with readers a priority.

Ways to Market Your Books from Home

But what if you’re an author who’s unable to attend book festivals to market your books? There are ways to connect with readers online and start developing new, rewarding reader relationships. These are genuine relationships, not communication pathways to saturate readers with “buy my book” messages.

Below are ebook marketing, Kindle marketing and other novel marketing actions that you could complete to introduce new readers to your books from home:

• Social media marketing books – Schedule social media posts using automated systems like HootSuite, Buffer, etc. But don’t just post book excerpts, answer questions, respond to book polls and like and comment on other authors’ and readers’ social media posts.
• Amazon Ads – With the right keywords, authors could increase book sales by running Amazon automatic and sponsored ads. Consider taking free Amazon ad webinars to learn how to market your book on Amazon. Before running campaigns to market your books. Also, review ad reports, looking for effective keywords, twice a month. Be open to making campaign changes until book sales increase and your ad spend costs drops. The goal is to turn a profit, so watch your ad reports and make adjustments as needed.
• Virtual readings – To market your books, you can host virtual book readings on platforms like YouTube and Facebook Live.
• Digital newsletters – Create and distribute digital newsletters. Add newsletter sign-up forms to your official author website. There are email marketing systems like MailChimp and Constant Contact that you could use to manage digital newsletters.
• Press releases – Write and send press releases to media.
• Postcards – Design electronic postcards and send to book club presidents and book lovers.
• Private group discussions – Hold discussions about your books at private social media groups.
• Virtual book festivals – Attend virtual book festivals.
• Blog – Start a book blog and link it to your website. Use Google Keyword Planner to find effective keywords to add to your blog articles.

Building Reader Relationships

EBook marketing isn’t the only book marketing strategy that’s a good fit for authors who market their books from home. Tools like social media, electronic postcards, brochures and digital flyers have made it easier to market print books from home.

However, authors who truly gain from book marketing, focus on developing reader relationships. They may send readers a birthday card, holiday greetings or attend book club events, places where they might not sell a single book. Yet, as readers start to feel that authors sincerely value reader-author connections and strive to create the best stories for them to enjoy, those readers may turn into an author’s regular book buyers.

And it’s that reader and author connection that’s often the biggest reward. Little surpasses the reward of hearing a book buyer share how much she enjoyed reading your novel.  Even better is hearing a reader share how deeply your book touched him, perhaps inspiring him to make a good life change. The good news is that authors can make these reader connections from home or abroad.