Once you've created and published your book, you need to start the process of advertising and marketing it to start building your audience.
If you do your advertising correctly you don't need to spend an arm and a leg to get the advertising coverage you need.
And if you only use social media and other free platforms you won't get the coverage you need for your advertising.
Marketing vs Advertising: What’s the Difference?
Advertising involves a company paying to get its message in front of a target audience. Marketing is much broader: It includes all aspects of advertising, but also the research needed to serve those ads properly, to price those goods and services competitively, and to monitor the efficacy of all related efforts.
Advertising involves a company paying to get its message in front of a target audience. Marketing is much broader: It includes all aspects of advertising, but also the research needed to serve those ads properly, to price those goods and services competitively, and to monitor the efficacy of all related efforts.
Advertising Your Books Should be for the Long-Term
If you haven't done it already, you should have a plan of action and strategy you're going to use, and not just advertise willy-nilly, here and there.
You're plan of action should include:
- Your most popular selling book
- Professional looking banners/images to use on each platform
- Professional looking copy to go with your ads
If you haven't been paying for your advertising it's going to take time for your ads to get some traction and start making you money.
That's why you should do some testing with your ads, and see what performs the best before you start pouring your money into longer campaigns.
We're going to take a look at two popular options that can be highly profitable for authors, especially those on a shoestring budget.
The Fussy Librarian
What Does The Fussy Librarian Offer for Authors?
The Fussy Librarian is an ebook marketing platform that was started in 2013 to help authors get more readers and reviews. It offers two separate promotions.
Free Ebooks Newsletter
The Free Ebooks Newsletter has about 600,000 subscribers. Each reader subscribes for free and offers 20 genres.
The Bargain Ebooks Newsletter
The Bargain Ebooks Newsletter is also free and has about 125,000 subscribers and offers readers 40 genres.
What Are the Benefits for Authors Who Want to Advertise?
- Your book is seen by lots of new readers, and more that sign up with the platform.
- You have a huge potential to boost your book sales when the platform is used consistently.
- You have the opportunity to put your ebook on for a free promotion or sell at a bargain price.
The only downside is you only put your book on for one day at a time and not consecutively.
BookBub
BookBub is an advertising platform for authors that has really taken off in recent years. It has 15 million active readers, and the advertising platform is pretty simple to use.
How BookBub Works
Each ad is placed in a newsletter and the author is charged for the advert. The author has a choice of CPM or CPC ads.
BookBub Featured Deals
After you've signed up for your BookBub Partners account you can start looking into how you want to advertise your book.
Featured Deals is one of the tools on offer for authors, and your ebook will be added to one of BookBub's many emails as a Featured Deal at your chosen discounted price.
Other BookBub Advertising Methods
- New Release for Less - Low price ebooks promoted in a weekly email.
- Chirp Audiobook Deals - An email covering discounted audiobooks.
- New Release Alerts - No price discounts required, an alert is put out to readers every time their favourite author releases a new book.
- Preorder Alerts - Emails dedicated to preorder books only.
BookBub Ads
This simple self-serve ad platform was created for authors to advertise their ebooks across their entire site.
Why You Need to Pay for Advertising and Not Just Rely on Social Media
Social media has its place for getting the word out, but it won't do what paid advertising will do. That is, reach a bigger audience that's tailor-made to your needs.
Don't Expect Huge Profits Straight Away
You need your books to create an income, and have a slow burn effect, not sell fast and burn out. Longevity is the key to success, and that doesn't happen overnight.
Work Out Which Advertising Gets You the Best Results
When you start out advertising you're stepping into unknown territory and trying to get to grips with the system at hand. The two platforms mentioned above, The Fussy Librarian and BookBub are both simple to use and don't require much thought.
However social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook are a bit more complicated and will take time to master.
Poor-Quality Books Don't Sell
Your book should be to the best standard with an attractive cover that will stand-out. Otherwise no amount of advertising will sell it.
It Pays to be Seen
In the long-term paid advertising should come pretty high on your list of marketing priorities if you want to make a living as a writer.
Share this post with your friends!
Read more:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell me your thoughts.