Why Market Your Book Early?
Gone are the days of waiting to get the rough draft of your book completed to market your book and promote it.
During an interview for the Massachusetts Women’s Conference, while touring Make Your Mark Personal Branding Through ‘On-Purpose’ Living, I was asked the most important lessons I’d learned from writing the book.
The answer? The most important by far is that you should market your book and build it’s momentum as early as possible.
Authors underestimate how much promotions are required to leverage social and online marketing fully.
The Added Psychological Value Of Pre-Promotions
First, when you get a jump start on promoting your book, you’ll have the added psychological pressure to make it happen.
I know that sounds crazy. Yet, you’d be surprised at how many people start writing a book and don’t finish.
Look, I get it.
Life can get overwhelming. So, if you don’t have a hard-core commitment to finish it, it may not happen.
However, when you’re writing your book with purpose and make a promise to your audience, customers, and community, you’ll be more motivated to follow through.
Trust me; my book launch was on a tight schedule. Therefore, during the last few weeks, everything took a backburner to me, delivering it on time.
When Is Too Early To Market Your Book?
Never. The sooner you can build momentum and excitement about your book, the better.
Here’s a tip I’ve learned about online marketing, people’s attention spans are short when they’re online.
Your book’s topic, launch date, and promo schedule will compete against everything else being shared.
Your audience is consuming lots of content, but very little of it makes a real connection.
Consequently, online market research says that a person needs to see a marketing message several times before taking action.
On top of that, we all have different habits and ways we consume social media.
As an author, don’t underestimate how much promotion is needed to reach 50% of your following.
To get a better idea of how much promotion it’ll take, look at your current engagement ratio.
Listen, some people follow me on social media that don’t even know I’ve written a book.
And it’s two years old.
I know this because every time I post about it, I get congratulatory comments like the book is brand new.
LOL, and usually, I’ll notice a spike in sales that day too.
As you think about how to market your book’s pre-launch, here’s an excellent strategy to consider.
Identify Influencers To Help Push More Sales
Who are the media influencers in your industry, public relations professionals, and local librarians?
What book organizations, conferences, book fairs, and media professionals can you reach out to?
Now create a plan to educate as many of them as early as possible about your book.
These will be the people to help spread the word and promote your book at scale.
Build Relationships With Journalists And Conference Coordinators
From my early career days of working within public relations and the media, I learned that journalists, media contributors, and conference coordinators work diligently to book out content and programming months in advance.
You certainly want to give journalists and conference coordinators a heads up about you, your book, and the launch date early.
Think about it, likely you or someone on your team will be approaching them for the first time. So give yourself months to reach out to them, introduce yourself and your book, nurture the relationship, and follow up.
Make connections on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Get active in the relevant podcasts or weekly video show communities. Click To TweetI’d say six to eight months in advance gives you enough time to get noticed.
And, if you’re early, you’re certainly more likely to get booked for some coverage, so go for it.
The Money Is In The Email List
I know you’ve heard this before, but I’m always the first to admit, I wish I’d start building a list for my business earlier.
Your email list is the ONLY marketing asset you own.
No secret, your IG, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube accounts don’t belong to you.
So get your book’s website up or and a dedicated page for your new book on your existing website.
As you start sharing content about the book and promoting it, you’ll need a professional online presence to link your content.
The website or page should provide more information about the book.
Include things like the release date, your author’s bio, what inspired the book, and an overview of what the book is sharing.
Then get to talking, sharing, promoting, marketing, and of course, pre-selling.
With constant changes to algorithms and search platforms, you don’t know how much of your audience sees your content.
However, every time you hit send on your emails, they get delivered into inboxes.
Therefore, if you’re following your marketing 101 rules and spending time nurturing your list, you’re golden!
If not, it’s the perfect time to start right now.
Begin nurturing those subscribers and add value to their lives through your content, so they look forward to hearing from you.
Hence, when you start to promote and market your book, they’ll embrace it.
Your tribe will look forward to it because you’ve already established credibility with them.
You’ll have established the and the like, know, and trust factor between them and your personal brand.
Speaking of your personal brand, if you’re writing a book or thinking about it, I’ve got a personal branding treat for you.
Need some extra clarity on how to position your brand? Look no further, snag your copy of The Brand Plan For Bosses here. Click To Tweet
Leverage Social Media to Market Your Book
I get it. You may think, ‘oh I tweeted about the book on Thursday, I’ll do it again on Saturday.’
Wrong. Likely if you only made one tweet about your book on Thursday, less than 5% of your audience saw it?
Truth! But if you’re going to take the time and commit to writing a book, embrace and fully leverage the opportunity to promote it.
Get social and share your book, and early is the perfect time to start doing that.
Of course, talk about more than just your book and spin it in several ways.
Consider taking your followers on the entire journey with you.
Show them behind- the- scenes into what goes into writing the book.
Share pictures and content from your planning to editing, to promotion phases.
The more you include your community in the process, the more engaged they’ll be.
Therefore, the more likely they’ll know about and buy your book. That’s the ultimate goal.💅🏾
When are you writing or releasing your first or next book, what’s been your biggest challenge?
Drop me a note below and let’s chat about it!
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