The Best Marketing Strategy for Self-Published Authors

If there's one thing that has the means to send writers scattering to the hills (other than being told to stop procrastinating): when they've finished writing, they now have to deal with the scary part. 

Finding an audience and marketing their book. 

Writing a book is hard enough on its own, but for the most part, it's done in the quiet hours of our lives and in the relative comfort of our pajamas. 

Marketing on the other hand involves… wait for it… other people! *cue dramatic gasp or a crash of thunder* 

Alright so if you're an extrovert you may think this is no big deal however for my introverted heart getting in front of a camera for any reason feels like a gallows walk. 

However, if you want to sell your books - more than just a few copies your family may take off of your hand - you're going to have to make a strategy for finding your audience and marketing your book. 

Now sure where to start? Here are some hints. 

Build an Author Platform 

If you're reading this (which I'm going to assume you are and this isn't just a figment of my imagination) you are on some sort of social media. 

You already have step one down! Now go to your social media of choice - 

And make a new account. 

Your author platform is a place for your books and your books alone. Your readers don't want to see those pictures of your child's dance recital and they aren't going to want to see your post about Uncle Jim's dog getting into the garden again. 

Your author platform is your place to engage with your readers and spread the word about your books. 

Your platform can be a website, blog, social media, or newsletter. The more the merrier. This is not only where you are going to find your audience, but they are also going to find you. 

Utilize Your Assets

There aren't many people alive today who don't have some form of social media. My niece hasn't even turned 6 months old yet and her parents made her a Facebook account so they can tag her in pictures and life events for her to see when she's older. 

Platforms like Twitter (X), Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, Youtube - if there's a platform out there where you can make an account and share insights about your writing and your novel - you should be on it and making the most of it. 

Post updates about your book, behind-the-scenes content to writing it, excerpts, and engage with readers and writers alike. 

Why Was All Of This So Important?

Marketing your book is not the scary monster lurking in the dark that some authors think it to be. 

Let us say you just came up with an idea for a book and you haven't written a single word about it. As soon as you begin you start documenting your progress, sharing it with others on all these different platforms. 

You engage with them, keep them updated on your work, and they support you at every twist and turn. 

Now that you've reached the end of the writing journey and onto the publishing journey take a look around and what do you see?

An audience, waiting in the wings to support you, to hold your book in their hands as their show of pride in all that you've done.  

From there it only grows as they tell their friends and family, and they go on and tell even more people and so on. 

You've successfully marketed your book and made some amazing friends and connections along the way and it didn't even feel like that much work. 

(The marketing part. I'm sure the writing part was still as easy as riding a state fair bull after three shots with a blindfold on.) 

Sure there's more marketing to do if you want to get into ads and promotional content, but after all the practice you have from the months or years of writing and editing your book that's going to be a piece of cake. 

Even if you've already finished your book by the time you are reading this it's not too late. 

Go open up a few browsers of your preferred social media sites and start building your author platform today. 

Best of luck! 

B -____________________________________________________

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This story was originally posted on Medium.

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