by Penny Sansevieri
Marketing and book sales are definitely entwined, but how closely?
How much marketing do you have to do to create significant sales opportunities?
Let me tell you this, an author came to us recently and said, “If the book sells on its own, I may not need to do a lot of marketing.”
How did we respond?
There are 4,500+ books published every single day. No book sells on its own. No author becomes a success without a lot of hard work.
So what should you do to improve both marketing and book sales?
Think of marketing and book sales as a single concept.
You can’t have one without the other.
So to keep them closely connected (and know you’re making real progress) you have to have a plan.
Download our free monthly planner.
Print at least three copies.
Fill out all three, that’s three months of marketing and promotions.
Repeat efforts are encouraged!
Yes, consistency is key. So some efforts can, and should, be repeated monthly.
Your social-media plan should be consistent. Choose a few themes for certain days of the week and keep that going for at least three months so you can get a real feel for how followers are responding and what they tend to engage with most.
Limited time discounts are also great on repeat, especially if you have multiple titles, rotate through them.
BookBub ads are another slam dunk that you can run every single month. They’re great for any topic, but they’re really popular for genre fiction especially. BookBub ads are inexpensive, available to anyone, and create hundreds (if not thousands!) of impressions with new potential buyers who are avid readers.
Marketing and book sales also get a big boost from special promotions.
Plan to do some sort of special promotion at least once every three months.
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.
