Clever Ideas for Promoting a Book with Bonus Content

by Penny Sansevieri

Have you considered using bonus content if you’ve been mulling over getting more creative with your ideas for promoting a book?

Bonus content is one of the most underutilized strategies for marketing a self-published (or traditionally published) book, especially when you’re trying to be mindful of your budget or trying to support the work you hired a book-marketing company to do. Bonus content is often straightforward, and in many cases you already have everything you need to make this strategy work for you. Let’s dig into some ideas for promoting a book with bonus content!

How bonus content differs for fiction and nonfiction

Simply put, fiction authors should think of bonus content as “world enhancing,” and nonfiction authors should think of bonus content as “business building.” Putting it in basic terms like this gives you some direction when it comes to determining what bonus content you can offer. I’ll give you more examples later on in this post!

Why I urge authors to develop bonus content

Bonus content is a great boost to your overall marketing and gives readers a reason to come back and a reason to remember you. Especially if the bonus content engages them somehow, like a bonus workbook if you’ve written nonfiction, or a free sample chapter that will entice readers to get your new release when it’s out.

• Bonus content is always free

We should all be capitalizing on what we can do for free. This doesn’t mean you must give your book away for free; that’s not what I’m suggesting here. Bonus content is something tethered to your book/brand, and it’s always free.

• Bonus content supports your brand

It’s a great way to keep your name out there and enhance what you’re able to offer readers or clients above and beyond your book.

• Bonus content helps fuel promotions

Every time I release a book, I like to do something extra to make the book stand out, make it unique to me, and create bonus content and helpful resources that give me options at the ready. I use trading cards for my books, which we’ll discuss later in this piece, but I’ve also done marketing planners (which readers love) and quizzes.

• Bonus content is a great reader magnet

Everyone’s time and privacy are precious, so if you’re asking people to sign up for your mailing list or newsletter and giving them nothing in return, I guarantee you’re missing out on opportunities. We’ve used bonus content as a reader magnet, a freebie to get folks to sign up for our newsletter. Bonus content is a great way to reward someone for sharing their contact information.

Now that you have a sense of what bonus content is all about, let’s brainstorm some creative bonus-content pieces you could implement into your own book-marketing strategy.

Creative Ideas for Promoting a Book–Bonus Content Examples!

Let’s dig in and start first with our fiction folks. Things like novellas, a couple of chapters of an upcoming release, reader’s guide, character interviews, digital character “trading cards,” insight into your research and other cool, interesting facts you learned along that way, maps of towns, planets, fictional worlds, etc. behind-the-curtain stories of any real-life connections or inspirations.

For children’s book authors, downloadable coloring pages and craft ideas that align with your characters or topic and theme are always big winners!

Examples of bonus content for nonfiction authors include quizzes, workbooks, action items or checklists, daily productivity prompts, a list of recommended resources, helpful platforms, and hacks, a series of helpful videos–even the trading cards I mentioned for fiction. I’ve created marketing-tip cards for my nonfiction books; I’ll include a sample below. Readers love these trading cards, and I take them to every speaking event I do!

Bonus content, if done right, can be used in various ways. Both as a reader magnet or something you give away at events or as part of your book release. I’ve known some authors to use bonus content to help boost pre-orders. So: “Pre-order my book and book and get XYZ free.”

Bonus content is often overlooked, but is a great addition to all of the other marketing you do for your book. Good luck!

Here’s an example of one of my trading cards:

Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and an adjunct professor at NYU, is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns.