How to promote your book
Recommendations on how to properly promote your book in the media space. Take note if you are planning to write a book or are already preparing to release your own publication.
1. Start promoting the book long before the start of sales
Promotion of various projects, including books, follows the “wave” pattern. First, you need to warm up the audience, then there will be a peak in sales, then a decline, and later there may be several more surges. So it is worth starting PR for the book before the start of sales.
The first stage is an announcement from the author, because the book will be bought first by the author’s fans, the core audience. They are ready to pre-order the book. Then come the early followers, then the late followers, and only after them - the majority. At each stage, it is necessary to juggle different channels and tools of marketing and PR, rearranging them in the order that will bring the best result.
Pre-sales announcements involve the author's work, social media posts, contests, voting for the best cover, and so on. If the book is to be sold in bookstores, then you need to do merchandising, agree that the publication will be in a prominent place, facing the buyer.
At the stage of early and late followers, bloggers are most often involved, and closer to the peak of sales, publications in the media come into play. The media primarily work for a cold audience - for the majority that does not yet know about the author and the book.
How to promote your book with the Media for Free
Befriend bloggers
There are too many bloggers now, so it is important to define clear criteria for their selection: by the number of subscribers, by reach, by the number of comments, by topics. For example, you can only cooperate with bloggers who have more than 30 thousand subscribers.
To make promotion through bloggers less chaotic, we at the publishing house came up with the following scheme: the influencer can choose 3-5 any books from any series. But at the same time, the blogger undertakes that on the right day and at the right time he will unpack these books, for example, in stories. Thus, we were able to predict the releases with an accuracy of the day: concentrate several releases at once on neighboring days or stretch the announcements of the collection for 2 weeks.
A few words about the payment for the work of bloggers: in my experience, the payment for advertising has always been books. Even bloggers with millions of followers agreed to announce books for free if they received the publications as a gift.
3. Think in advance about which journalists to offer book
Announcements to and through which channel When it comes to promoting a book in the media, authors often offer book announcements to everyone or to journalists who are not involved in the topic that is revealed in the work. In this case, even if the writer has prepared a cool pitch, the journalist will still not pay attention to it. Therefore, to begin with, it is worth carefully analyzing both the publications and the area of interest of journalists and understanding which media representatives are most likely to want to talk about your book. Make a specific plan: who exactly to write to and in what format.
It is better to contact journalists by email: briefly and succinctly tell in the letter about the book, explain what benefit it will bring to the readers of the publication and why the media should publish it.
Be sure to structure the letter: do not forget about paragraphs, points, bullets, note numbers and important facts, put the most interesting in the subject line. When a letter looks like a huge canvas of text, with nothing to catch the eye, the recipient will most likely just open it and immediately close it (or not open it at all).
Next, look at the efficiency funnel: how many people responded with consent, how many publications were published as a result. If 7-8 out of 10 people responded, this is an excellent result, if less, then something went wrong. Perhaps the letter was poorly composed or the selection of journalists was wrong.
4. Keep in mind that only 20% of journalists write specifically about books
There are journalists in the media who review books and wait for interesting announcements from publishers and authors. However, in my database of journalists, 80% of editorial staff are not involved in reviews at all, and only 20% are book people who are ready to accept announcements of new publications.
Book reviewers are the most valuable people if the task is to promote your book. But non-fiction, self-improvement books and everything that is called "textbooks for adults" are mainly promoted through ready-made content, that is, articles written based on the book. This approach opens the door to absolutely any section in the media, and you can offer articles to almost all journalists.
5. Offer journalists ready-made content
Ready-made content is articles written in the format of a specific publication and based on ideas and thoughts from the book.
The easiest way to enter the media is with ready-made content, because this format applies to absolutely any book topic - both on self-development, and about business, and literature for children. For example, let's take the famous book by Colin Campbell "The China Study": it talks about the connection between eating habits and chronic diseases. This book contains a lot of interesting facts, results of scientific experiments.
Based on the book, you can write, for example, such materials:
"10 reasons why meat is harmful ";
"5 Reasons Not to Eat Protein";
"10 Reasons to Become a Vegetarian".
It is important that each article mentions the publisher, author and title of the book.
The presentation, topics and headlines largely depend on the project and the media. Several years ago we collaborated with "Komsomolskaya Pravda", but at first the articles did not bring the desired result - they collected very few views. Then we changed the concept and began to make more provocative texts. Thus, based on the book “Salt, Sugar and Fat,” an article was published with the title “Secrets of the Food Industry: How We Are Manipulated.” And people read these texts with curiosity, and the number of views increased significantly — it was only worth revising the approach.
If you place publications in the media, be sure to promote your book through internal channels - repost on the author's social network, on the publisher's social network. This way, the articles will get a wider reach, and in the end, everyone will be happy - both the media and you.
6. Analyze, collect feedback, change approaches
To constantly improve results, refer to the Deming PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. This approach will help identify bottlenecks, eliminate them and increase conversion. Plan your activity, do it, then evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Look for shortcomings, correct them and do it again. Repeat this cycle over and over until you achieve what you want.
In addition, after publishing or posting, do another check: what did this output bring, how easy was it to negotiate with the person, was the result worth the effort. In the future, you will be able to segment your contact base and see who should be written to first and who should not be written to at all.
7. Constantly update your contact base
You can’t create a base once and then use it for several years. A contact base is like a living organism that needs to be looked after.
First, check the relevance of the database, because journalists move from one media to another, and bloggers change topics.
Second, segment the list of contacts. By different projects: for example, the "mother" topic - some people, the business sphere - others. By the criteria of impact (how useful it is to the project) and manageability (warmth of contact). You can add descriptions of contact portraits - there are journalists who always need numbers, and for someone emotions and creativity are more important.
Chase not volumes, but quality. Let the database have 30 contacts, but with each person you will communicate closely and substantively.
8. Not only promote your book, but also your platform
The main online platforms for selling books . If you do not sell books through these resources, it is quite difficult to attract people to your own platform. In this case, you need to already have some kind of fan base, actively work with the target audience, pump up internal marketing channels - a blog, social networks, a website.
Keep in mind that only top authors earn money from book sales. For the rest, it is more of an image story, a contribution to a personal brand.
Channels that are definitely worth using for free book promotion:
Publisher's own platforms:
Bloggers
Media
Collaborations with partners
Closed groups and guerrilla PR
Ambassadors
You need to see which channels have worked for a specific project - and when sales start to decline, return to these channels and launch activities again. This way, you will be able to create a second peak in demand for the book.
Important tools for book PR:
Pressfeed - monitor journalists' requests, think about where you can fit a story about the book;
Mediametrics - follow the news, ratings, to successfully fit into the information picture of the day.
How to Submit Your Book on Ghananeem blog:
Hey there, talented authors! ✨
Please send an email to info@ghananeem.com with the following information: or use this form.
Book Title:
Author Name:
Genre:
Brief Synopsis: (High-quality content 800-4000 words)
Purchase Link: (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your own website)
Author Bio: (50-100 words)
High-resolution Book Cover Image:
What We're Looking For:
Well-written and engaging: The story should be compelling, and the writing style should be clear and concise.
Unique and original: We love to discover new voices and perspectives.
Relevant to our audience: Your book should appeal to our readers' interests.
Why Submit to ghananeem blog?
By featuring your book on our blog, you'll gain:
Increased readership: My book's inclusion can attract new readers to your blog who are interested in the same topics.
Enhanced credibility: Featuring a published author can establish your blog as a reliable source of information and recommendations.
Engaging content: Book reviews and discussions can spark interesting conversations and encourage reader participation.
Potential partnerships: If the book and your blog align well, we could explore future collaborations, such as guest posts or interviews.
Ask your family to write a review of the book
This is the easiest and most effective way to get good reviews about a book. But it has one pitfall – your loved ones should read the book and write a review of the book themselves. You can help them with registering an account on the services, but do not help them write the review itself — do not prompt, do not give cheat sheets and in no case write reviews instead of them — let them write (or dictate, and then you will decipher) yourself. Do not forget to praise them for each review, make a pleasant event out of it, and then in the future writing reviews will be easier and faster.
Ask your friends to write a review of the book
Having dealt with family and friends, it's time to start working with friends. There is also a subtlety here - friends are not as interested in your success as relatives, so additional incentives may be needed. The ideal option is a small gift that you will reward a friend for writing a review. Give a gift immediately after writing a review, do not wait for it to be published. Gifts should not be expensive, their task is not to pay for a review, but to express a sense of your sincere gratitude and love to the author of the review.
Ask other authors to write a review of the book
Other authors with whom you maintain a relationship are not competitors, but colleagues. Even if you write in the same genre and in the same niche. As a rule, such acquaintances are born at book exhibitions, online writing marathons, as well as at creative workshops and support groups. The format of the events initially forms an attitude of cooperation, not competition, which is maintained in the future. Other authors are well aware of what kind of review a book just published needs, so just ask them for a favor. And in order for the request to be fulfilled, write your review of the newly published books of each author in advance.
Ask readers to write a review of the book
The task of the first importance for each author is to form his own group of trusted readers who will become beta-readers — the first readers of a completed work or even individual chapters of a book. Beta readers initially have a positive and favorable attitude towards the author's work, they are well aware of his strengths. At the same time, they understand and feel the market well and know what to offer other readers so that they immerse themselves in the book. When beta readers are actively involved in the creation of a book, they feel involved in the creative process of writing the book and the author does not even have to ask them to write reviews, beta readers know how important reviews are to readers and often write them immediately after the book is published.
In order for your book to receive good reviews, you need to take the process into your own hands and fully control it. Create an Excel spreadsheet, create it in Google Sheets, or use your favorite task manager to distribute tasks over time and monitor their execution. Remind your family, friends, colleagues, and readers that you expect feedback from them.
Do not ask to write a positive review, most will praise you and your book anyway. Ask for a sincere and, if possible, not short review that will reveal the commentator's attitude to the author and the book. If the process stalls, then come up with an additional reward for those who write their review earlier than others and make it interesting and useful for readers.