How to Market Your First Book: 8 Tips 

How to market your first book? Here's an easy guide on the essentials and best tips to know.

Before Running Your Campaigns: The Essentials

Selling your book as an indie author requires marketing as much as writing. That’s just the nature of self-publishing: You own the entire publishing process. So polish your marketing hat, because this work will be an ongoing part of your career from pre-launch, launch, and beyond.

To successfully run your marketing campaigns, you need these essentials –

1. Craft your author brand

Your author branding is how readers will perceive you. It influences all marketing collaterals, whether drafting a newsletter or designing a social media graphic. When thinking about your author brand, ask questions like: What’s my tone of voice when I interact with my audience? What and how much background info should I share? What aspects of my persona do I want to highlight? 

2. Set up your website and social media

Self-publishing happens online. That means marketing your book happens online as well. A dedicated website and social media page are crucial. They serve as online hubs where readers can find and learn more about your. Engaging with readers is how you'll build a fanbase of readers, too.

Your author website should contain your bio, photos, book excerpts, links to buy your book, links to find you on social media, and any reviews. This doesn’t have to look fancy. A simple one-pager works. Hire a freelancer to create one  for you or try out DIY platforms like WordPress or Wix. Make a QR code that leads to your channels and share it with your network.

3. Ensure your best cover design 

When it comes to how to market your first book, you must know that one of the most important book marketing elements is your cover design.

All bookstores display a book's cover design, including online retailers like Amazon and Apple Books for self-published books. You want a book cover design that's professional and enticing, a cover that shoppers can't ignore. Because the goal of all your marketing efforts is to funnel people to your store link to click "buy", a shining cover will help you do that from online ads to editorial features.

4. Set up book metadata

The cover design is one of the many elements under what's called book metadata. When self-publishing, you'll need to set up your metadata for stores to accurately place your book and for readers to find you. Metadata includes: title, subtitle, author, contributors, ISBN, keywords, categories, description, and more. 

It's important to have not only accurate but optimized metadata. As mentioned, your cover design is a vital part of your metadata that you want the best version of. You also want the best version of your description to help convince readers to try out your book. The best keywords will boost your visibility in store algorithms.

To help craft and optimize your metadata, check out PublishDrive’s AI Book Metadata Generator. It will read your book and suggest strategic metadata in minutes. 

5. Land book reviews

Before spending any serious money on promoting your first book, land at least five solid book reviews. In the world of e-commerce, people won’t spend money on a product with zero reviews. See this list of book reviweres to reach out to.

With the online self-publishing platform PublishDrive, you can send protected review copies straight to readers on Apple Books and Google Play Books. Here's a quick video on how it works.

How to Market Your First Book: 8 Tips

You’ve got the essentials. Now, how to promote your first book and make those sales? Consider these –

1. Start an email list

“Sign up to get exclusive updates to your email inbox!” An email list for authors is a direct way to target readers interested in your work. This is all about nurturing customers and up-selling your work.

When launching, share bonus content via email only as an incentive for readers to sign up and stay tuned. Regularly send updates about your writing process to keep subscribers engaged. Place the email sign up link on your social media, website, as well as the back of your book.

2. Start with a pre-order period

Major bookstores like Amazon count book sales on the first day of release. That means by collecting pre-order book sales, you get a higher chance to land in bestseller lists come launch day. Use this time to tease your book and generate buzz.

3. Throw a book launch party

How to promote your first novel in a special way? Throw a book launch party! Celebrating your launch is not only fun but effective. Invite people via social media, email (where your mailing list comes in handy), and other communication channels. Remember to give yourself enough time to prep the ins and outs of your event. See how to plan a virtual book launch.

4. Schedule a price promotion

Marketing your first book takes a consistent schedule. This is to ensure that readers don't forget about you. Regularly talking about your book also keeps you relevant in online algorithms. Try scheduling regular price promotions that offer your book for free or a discounted price.

Maybe you want to do this every three months or during every major holiday throughout the year. Offering your book for a "limited time" creates a sense of urgency. Everyone loves a good deal.

You can list your book for free on stores like Amazon. Try running a campaign for a few weeks and see what happens.

5. Buy promotional spots

If you have the funds for it, buy promotional spots for your book on various newsletters and promotional sites.

Freebooksy has over 1,096,000 registered readers looking for free book deals. Bargain Booksy has 725,000 registered users looking for titles priced between $0.99 and $5. These channels are part of Written Word Media, which you can access with PublishDrive's book promotion services.

6. Launch Amazon Ads

Amazon’s Sponsored Products ads appear on product pages and search results throughout Amazon’s website. This is a fantastic choice for marketing your first book. You can run ads directly from Amazon or use PublishDrive's tool built for newbies:

• Automatic Targeting: Amazon will match your ad with relevant keywords and products that are similar to your book.
• Manual Keyword Targeting: Select the keywords you want to target.
• Product Targeting: Target specific products to refine your campaign.
• Negative Keywords: Exclude keywords to prevent irrelevant traffic from driving up costs.

For a deep dive, see this guide to Amazon ads for authors.

7. Network

Get involved in the community. There are plenty of online groups and forums, such as Reddit’s Self-Published Writers group or PublishDrive's Facebook group. Join reading and writing groups in your genre. Establish your author brand by sharing tips and fostering connections. Attend book events to meet readers, industry pros, and other indies.

8. Distribute in multiple book formats and stores

Last but not least, maximize aka publish wide. You can do this by distributing your book in all formats like ebook, audiobook, and print to reach all book audiences. And don't just publish to Amazon and call it a day. Reach Apple, Google, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so many more. Reach every market possible.