Writing a book is a huge accomplishment and you should be proud of yourself! Marketing your book to the public becomes almost all-consuming. You are likely asking yourself, o.k., how much should I spend on advertising my book?
Most authors are not experts at marketing. Well, at least, not at first. Experience will develop your skills in this endeavor.
Are You Already Published?
If you are not already published, you will not want to invest very much into advertising. Adverting dollars are a small part of the career author’s budget. Rather than spend a lot of time and money on advertising, spend your money honing your craft and getting better at it. You may also want to use some of your money to research the market you are targeting with your book.
Is Your Book Professional?
Do not advertise your book if your cover and content are not yet at the professional level. No amount of marketing spending can sell a bad book. Rather, you should spend money on hiring a good editor and a great cover artist. After all, a good cover will sell your book. A great editor will help make your book read professionally. A great resource for these services is SelfPublishing.com. They provide everything you will need to publish your book.
Do You Have an Author Platform?
Rather than jumping into advertising, you should first spend your money on launching an author’s website and spending time on social media. There are a lot of website companies out there that are very affordable. One that we recommend is WordPress through BlueHost. With BlueHost, you can have your own website name and email, as well as get website analytics to see which of your posts and pages gain the most traffic.
Use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to create buzz and develop a community. Participate in writer groups and in book promotion groups. Join the local Writer’s Guild in your area.
How Are You Published?
Today, there are two ways to be published: traditionally or independently. A traditional publisher can be very beneficial in getting distribution for your book. They will, however, take the majority of the revenue and you will be given only a small percentage in payment. If you are traditionally published, don’t spend your money on advertising. The publisher will do much of this for you. Advertising also does not result in immediate effects. It takes time and repeat advertising to generate substantial sales. And, let’s face it, most of us do not have a trust fund to use on advertising our art.
On the flip-side, you can self-publish independently through AmazonKDP, CreateSpace and IngramSpark. If you are confident that you can do the work yourself, you may follow these instructions to publish through AmazonKDP. You will be able to keep the majority of the profits, but will also assume all of the responsibility for cover design, marketing and publishing. Don’t forget to buy your ISBN and get a copyright!
If you don’t know how to do that or don’t want to, you can work with SelfPublishing.com and they can assist you for a fee.
Are You Willing to Give Away or Discount Your Book?
Many new authors will offer their book for free or at a discounted price to drum up interest and get people talking about it. Amazon lets you offer your books at a discount. You can sign your book up for their subscription program which allows readers to download your e-book for “free”.
BookBub is another good portal for doing this. BookBub is not cheap, but it does give you a great opportunity to hit a target market without wasting a lot on money advertising in a hit-and-miss campaign. If you have the funds to invest in your book, this may be a viable option for you.
Here is an article on how to price your book.
Is Your Book a Series?
If you do not have a series, do not advertise. It is difficult to get a very good return on investment (ROI) on the money spent advertising a single book. However, if you wrote a trilogy or a serialized set of books, advertising may be a good option. The more books you have in the series, the more your advertising dollars can work for you.
Are You Willing to Work at Advertising?
Advertising is a lot of work. It takes creative writing, artwork, marketing savvy, and knowledge of SEO and analytics. It is not a “publish-and-forget” thing. In fact, when I first started advertising 80percentdone.com, I spent far too much money. It wasn’t due to my lack of belief in the website or the mission, but because advertising takes a lot of trial-and-error to get it just right. That experimenting costs money. Money that you will never get back. I share my experiences with you so that you will not waste money and will not make the same mistakes I did starting out.
What is the Goal?
You need to know what your goal is when advertising. Is your goal to sell more books? Are you trying to develop a mailing list?
Boost Sales
If your goal is to boost sales and you are published on Amazon, take advantage of their Amazon Marketing Services. It doesn’t cost very much to advertise and it targets Kindle shoppers. Start out with a small budget like $5 per day and only target readers of comparable books and authors. You will likely need to experiment with keywords. Don’t get discouraged if you do not see immediate results. It will likely take several weeks to see any movement on your advertisement.
If you are not published on Amazon, try pay-per-click advertising on BookBub or other websites. You will need to set a budget, like $5 per day, and use the right keywords to direct traffic to your book for sale. Be willing to experiment. Your book might actually be more popular in Canada or Australia than in the U.S.
Mailing List
If you want to grow your mailing list and you have a good social media presence on Facebook or Twitter, try using Facebook Ads or Twitter Ads. Develop your ads to target your readers. When spending any money on advertising, be certain you set a budget and do not exceed it. Advertising is a quick way to lose money if you are not careful. Remember, you are trying to drive traffic to your social media page so that you can get people to Like it and give you their email addresses for your mailing list.
Another way to grow your mailing list is to participate in book giveaways. BookSweeps has a great program that you may participate in. It’s affordable and seems to get great results. Admittedly, this is one we’ve not tried, but after reading about the program, we are definitely going to invest in this for my wife’s classically romantic vampire novel New Breed and M. A. Marrissette‘s future releases.
In Conclusion
Advertising is not usually the best method for marketing your book. The best way to grow sales for your book is to create an author’s website, be active in social media, and target your readers directly by offering promotions for free or discounted copies of your book. Grow your sales organically. There is no quick and easy way to sell your book. Focus on long-term goals and you will be successful.
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I have my book on Amazon and had to campaigns to market my book but noting. I am lost
Hello Rejuvinator. Thank you for your comment. Advertising is a long-term game. This makes it fairly expensive for new authors. I would suggest focusing on building a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter to start. Goodreads is another great site for building a following of readers.
Do you also have a print version of your book? If so, you should approach your local Barnes & Nobles and other books stores in your city. Several of our author friends regularly participate in author signing events at local bookstores in their towns. Readers love to meet authors (who seem like celebrities to them!) and buy signed copies of their books. Google local bookstores in your town. Search for the about us or community section on their website. There are often links and email addresses provided. Network with the event planner for the bookstore and you will be able to get an invite to their next author event.
I have made some controversial comments about Christianity per say in my book and most of the bookstores in South Africa are controlled by conservative Christians and they refused to market my book. To market it through marketeers cost to much. Therefore I add to my blog for enlighten Christians and others to read.