Selling a book is hard!
Seriously.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the good stuff.
While it’s true that figuring out how to sell your book is like strapping into a roller coaster with no idea what’s going to happen, it can still be a fun ride if you know how to prepare. After almost twenty years in the book publishing business, I’ve worked with authors who’ve made best seller lists with tens of thousands of Amazon reviews and others who barely sold a handful of copies.
Surprisingly, book-selling success has less to do with the quality of a book and everything to do with how it’s marketed. I learned from a mentor early in my career that, regardless of your area of expertise, you have to learn how to be a great marketer first if you want to sell anything.
How do you become a great marketer? By learning what NOT to do. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when so many others have come before you to pave a better path for you to follow.
Let’s look at some of the biggest mistakes authors make with marketing their books, so you’ll know what to avoid.
Don’t make these mistakes
Book marketing mistakes on social media
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” — Samuel Beckett
Social media marketing can help you build a strong author platform to engage with your readers and build your audience. Here are six ways authors might go wrong while marketing their books on social media.
1. Not posting
Social media can be intimidating. Especially if you’re learning a new format or platform to reach your audience. The features, updates, and trends can be hard to track and even harder to master.
But don’t let that stop you!
One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your social accounts is not posting regularly or at all. If you don’t post, you won’t learn. If you don’t experiment, you won’t be able to tell what resonates with your audience. And if you let that algorithm slack–it might not take you back. Most importantly, your audience will miss the opportunity to get to know you.
2. Posting too much
Yes, there’s such a thing as too much posting.
While you want to post regularly, so your followers will know what to expect, you don’t want to post just for the sake of posting. If you’re ALWAYS on social media with something to say, but not saying much of anything, it will be hard to build a following.
Focus on posting high-quality content that your ideal reader would find interesting.
Keep an eye on your follower fluctuation throughout the week so you can know if your posts are attracting new audience members or chasing them away. Adjust your content and posting schedule accordingly.
3. Using your voice to gripe and complain
It’s great to be honest on your platforms. Sometimes it’s even nice to show the grim, gritty side of your industry or share a sad personal anecdote–but if your feed becomes a constant barrage of negativity, complaining, and whining? You’re going to lose your audience’s interest quickly.
Negativity may sell in some circles, but consider the long-term effect on your brand and what you want to be known for.
4. Exclusively promoting your books
No one wants to follow an account that’s 100% advertisements. Some best practices suggest only making one out of every three posts promotional. Others say only one out of five.
There’s also the 5-3-2 rule of posting, where, within 10 posts:
- 5 posts are valuable or educational in some way
- 3 posts are about your business
- 2 posts are personal to build your brand.
Another method to keep it from over-promoting on social media is to lean more into process updates instead of straight promo.
For example, if you’re posting about your writing journey—maybe specific things you’ve overcome with your manuscript—it won’t feel like you’re reminding people you have a book coming up. They’ll benefit from learning about your experiences with a gentle nudge that keeps your book top-of-mind.
We talk a lot about this in our Social Media for Authors self-guided course—check it out if you want a deep-dive on using your social platforms effectively for selling books (without actually being salesy).
5. Not personalizing your posts
If you follow authors on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve seen a few of those accounts that post their books, fan art, character portraits, buy links, promo codes, affiliate content, etc., etc., etc., and there isn’t a trace of personality to them. Those types of online presences are difficult to connect with.
While boundaries are incredibly important when you have a public personal brand, keeping things too formal and business-oriented can turn readers off.
So, try to balance maintaining your privacy while also sharing certain aspects of your life to give your brand personality. A great example is posting about your pets! Pets are humanizing, cute, and relatable, but they also don’t reveal any real personal information about you.
Here’s a great example from Hannah Lee Kidder on keeping her Instagram feed relatable and on brand. As you can see, she shares pictures of her pets, book promotions, writing tips, current events, and more.
6. Not using social media at all!
If you’re looking for a way to learn how to market your books on social media, Social Media For Authors is a new course developed by the Content Marketing Manager here at Self-Publishing School.
Book marketing mistakes in newsletters
Another important part of an author platform is a newsletter, which allows you to connect directly with the subscribers on your email list. Let’s look at a few missteps you might run into.
1. Exclusively promoting your books
Just like with social media, if you are only promoting yourself, there’s little reason for people to keep reading.
One of the best lessons I’ve learned in my book publishing career is that the secret to successful marketing is how you make others feel. It’s about building a relationship with your readers first, so that they feel valued. This goes a long way toward book sales, not because you force-fed them your promotions, but because you took the time to connect with them authentically.
You can use the 5-3-2 rule for newsletters, but instead of considering posts, consider it as marketing emails or sections in your newsletters.
You can also make a promotion more palatable by making it an update, like sharing an anecdote about a recent struggle or win with that project, then including a pre-order link.
2. Not monetizing
This is less related to marketing a specific book and more about utilizing your author platform for multiple income streams, but don’t underestimate the power of your newsletter for making money. Don’t miss the opportunity to toss in some affiliate links or sell a promo to another creator.
3. Not doing newsletter shares!
This is another great opportunity that too many authors miss out on. A newsletter share is when two writers or creators share each other’s books or content in their own newsletters.
This way, you cross-share each other’s audiences at no cost to either of you.
4. Not taking proper precautions to avoid spam boxes
Inboxes want to toss most newsletters into spam folders. There are a few ways to avoid the spam filter, like addressing the emails with the reader’s first name, using honest subject lines, and avoiding sales cliches like the word “free” and all caps words, and encouraging your users to add your email to their address books.
See what you can do to make sure the most readers are actually seeing your newsletters.
5. Writing weak subject lines
It doesn’t matter how good your newsletters are if they never get opened. Try writing interesting, concise, and accurate subject lines to up your open rate (how many people open your newsletter). Even A/B test subject lines to see which one does best. This will give you a good idea of what moves your audience to take action.
6. No personalization
You’ll see this as a mistake in almost every aspect of your book marketing. If your promotions aren’t injected with personality, they’re just ads. And everyone hates ads.
7. Not tracking success
Most email services give you access to analytical data to see your open rates, click rates, and click maps to see how many people are clicking on which links.
Every time you send a newsletter, check out your numbers compared to your past email performance, as well as the industry standard. If certain CTAs (Calls To Action) aren’t getting any clicks, try to figure out why. Keeping tabs on your data will help you curate stronger future content.
8. Not using newsletters at all!
And of course, the biggest mistake is not to try. There’s a learning curve for everything, so just do your best, monitor the results, and adjust accordingly.
Book launch marketing mistakes
And here are five mistakes some authors make when launching a book.
1. Not having a plan
Book launches are hectic and can be overwhelming, especially without a plan. Before your book is up for presale, you should have a promotion plan! This can be as detailed as you’d like. Some authors plan and schedule their social media posts, events, and giveaways months in advance. Doing pre-work will free up more time to deal with unforeseen problems and keep things on track.
2. Being shy
No one is excited to talk about how great their book is. I’m an introvert, so I get it. Marketing is awkward, but there are a few ways to slide into it, like sharing quotes from your book reviews instead of your own words to hype it up. It gets easier. Just keep trying.
3. Not hyping your book the whole time
If you wait until your book is already published to start promoting it, it will be much harder to get traction.
Stir up excitement while you’re writing, during the publishing process, and during the presale period.
4. Skipping the presale period
The length of your presale period depends on your goals, genre, and platform, but it’s typical for authors to host a three- to six-month presale period for readers to pre-order their book. Having a successful presale period means that stores and algorithms will favor your book, which can lead to more sales in the future.
5. Not doing events and guest spots
Even if you don’t do in-person spots, attending and hosting events is a great way to boost sales.
There’s something exciting and interactive about buying a book live and having the author react to your purchase.
Different types of events you might plan for your book launch:
- Being a guest on podcasts or YouTube channels.
- Live streams.
- Book signings
- Library visits
- School visits (for children’s books)
Marketing a book is probably the hardest part of being an author, but you can do it!
The best way to learn is to make mistakes and take notes, so don’t let this list be discouraging. Give it your best go, and adjust your strategy as you see what works and what doesn’t.
If you want to avoid the mistakes altogether and have our team help you with done-for-you marketing services, please book a call. Our publishing strategists can help you develop a marketing plan customized to your needs.
The biggest mistake you can make is not trying at all.
This article has been rewritten from its original version by Hannah Lee Kidder
