45 Ways to Sell More Books - Book Marketing Idea Checklist

Did you know that when you publish a book, it doesn't just magically sell itself, that you have to spend a lot of time and energy into marketing a book? If you've already published a book, then you probably already know this. If you're working on writing the book to eventually publish it, well this is something you're gonna learn very quickly.

Getting people to buy your book is almost as hard as writing the book itself. So today I'm sharing with you 45 different things that you can do to market your book. Not only that, I have written it down on a lovely one page piece of paper and you can get this lovely piece of paper by filling out the link in my description.

So do that and you'll get this lovely printable and it has links and resources. We're gonna be going through the entire list today. A quick overview of all 45 things that you wanna do.

So you don't need to take notes, it's already written down. Let's jump to it. My name is Mandi Lynn.

I make weekly videos on the business of being an author. So if that's something you're interested in, then be sure to hit the subscribe button as well as the bell notification icon so you never miss a new upload. So we've got this massive list to work through today, and I don't want this video to be freakishly long, so I can't go into details with everything.

However, I am providing you guys with a couple of resources. As I go through the list, I'll mention some specific resources and they'll all be linked down below. They'll also be linked in the pdf, like all the links on this are clickable before you print it out.

So I got a lot of stuff for you guys today, but I can't go into everything in depth. With that said, I wanna mention real quickly some of the biggest resources that you can go to if you want more information on any of these topics that we're about to cover. First resource is YouTube videos.

I have a ton of YouTube videos on this channel, but specifically I want you to check out two different playlists. The first playlist is the Beginner's Guide to Self-Publishing a book playlist. This video is actually a part of that video series, so make sure to check out the entire playlist.

The second playlist is the Marketing for Authors playlist. This playlist is just full of videos on book marketing. So again, check out that playlist.

Next up, there's a couple of books I want you to check out, and that is the Marketing for Author series. This is a five-book series that is written by myself and Bethany Atazadeh. Each book in the series covers a different subject.

We've got How Your Book Sells itself, Grow Your Author Platform, Book Sales That Multiply, Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media. And lastly, Plan a Profitable Book Launch. And the last thing I wanna mention is My Book Launch Planner series.

This is a collection of planners that is designed for authors and writers. Each planner covers a different part of the publishing and writing process. My Writing Planner is, you know, tracking your writing and setting goals.

My Novel Outline Planner is for outlining your novel. And lastly, My Book Launch Planner covers a lot of the planning that you do leading up to the release of your book and a lot of marketing, this is the one that you're probably gonna be interested in. If you like the list that we've compiled today and you want even more checklists and templates, that is what this planner is full of.

I'll be mentioning lots of other things as we go through all 45 marketing tips, but they will all be linked in the description of this video. So I've broken up the marketing tips and techniques into six different categories. We have the book and sales page, the launch content marketing newsletter, paid marketing, sales and giveaways and events.

First category, the book and the sales page. Marketing starts long before the book is released. So you always want to make sure that your book is set up for success.

So this section really focuses on making sure your book is optimized for the genre, the market. And for search engine optimization, first thing that you wanna do is make sure that your book cover fits the market. As a book cover designer myself, I've seen time and time again where authors kind of insist on designing a cover that they want rather than what fits the market trends.

So that's something you have to be extra careful of. If you wanna learn more about cover design, I actually have a book cover design course coming out very soon, so you can actually sign up for the wait list right now. That way you get a coupon when the course is eventually released.

Next thing you wanna focus on is the blurb. Not only do you want your blurb to sell your book and make it interesting where you give enough information where people get an idea for what the story is, but not too much where it is just kind of you're stuffing too much information at the reader. You also want to make sure that your blurb has keywords in it, so the type of keyword that you're gonna be using on Amazon and other print on demand company websites.

When you upload your book, you want to make sure that the keywords that people are gonna be searching to find the book is in the book's description. So for my books, I like to use keywords like coming of age, sweet romance and travel because those are elements that are in my book. So you wanna make sure that is in the description of your book online and on the back of the book.

And on that note, the next thing that you wanna focus on is your categories and keywords. So I just did a video on how to pick out categories and keywords for your book. So if you want in-depth coverage of the topic, make sure to watch the video that I just did.

It'll be linked down below. I talk about how I use Publisher Rocket to do keyword and category research. I absolutely love Publisher Rocket, so that will also be linked down below.

I highly recommend it. With that said, you can also add your book into up to 10 different categories on Amazon. That's not the case for other retail websites, but for Amazon you can add it up to 10.

So make make sure to take advantage of that. All you have to do is reach out to customer service and tell them exactly which categories you want your book added to. Next thing you're gonna wanna do is to add a subtitle with keywords in your subtitle.

So to use an example, the subtitle for my novels, especially the Road Trip Snapshot series novels like Meet Me at the Summit and Let The Rebel Fall. The subtitle is something along the lines of a coming of age romance where we tell the reader exactly what type of story is while also adding more keywords to optimize it for search engines. Another thing you can do is add A+ plus content onto your book's Amazon page.

This is something I'm still working on implementing for my fiction books, but it is something that I've done for my non-fiction books, specifically the Book Launch Planner series where it's a fun way to add more visuals and to improve your Amazon's sale page. Next up, you're also gonna wanna optimize your Amazon author page. So this is something that a lot of people can forget about, but you do wanna go ahead and create your Amazon author central account and then link all your books there and you can add your bio, your photo, just add in as much information as possible to optimize it for search.

Then you're also gonna wanna get book reviews. There's a lot of different ways you can encourage book reviews, and I have a couple different videos on this channel, so make sure just to go to my YouTube channel and search book reviews. And there'll be a couple videos that will come up to tell you how you can get book reviews.

Next, you're gonna wanna create a reader funnel. So this is something you create long term, the more books you write where a reader reads the first book and then what are they gonna do? Are they gonna stop reading any book from you or are they gonna move on to another book that you've written?

So this is just making it so people read like the first book in the series, and then hopefully read the rest of the books and then the series and then when they finish that series, maybe they'll move on to another series that you've written. Basically, you wanna make it so people read every single book you've ever written, and that is a reader funnel. If you want more info on a reader funnel, how to create a reader funnel and how to take the most advantage of a reader funnel, let me know in the comments down below.

Speaking of reader funnels, you wanna create effective end matter in your book so that people will move on to the next book in a series or the next book in your reader funnel. You also wanna use that end matter to encourage people to leave a review of your book, and you can do this by adding a link to Amazon adding a QR code to Amazon. Now I have a book formatting course, and in that course I added a bonus lesson on how to add QR codes to your n matter.

So in paperback books, people can just scan the QR code in the book and they'll be brought to an Amazon page to either leave a review of a book or to buy the next book in a series. So if you wanna check that out, make sure to join my book formatting course. You can also give out sample chapters.

This is when you give out the first couple chapters of your book for free, whether it be on the Amazon page with the look inside feature or on your website, or maybe it's a newsletter opt-in that you have. Either way you're giving out a sample of your book in hopes that they read it, love it so much that they go ahead and buy the entire book so they can read the rest of it. Just be mindful if you're in Kindle Unlimited, there's only a certain percentage of the book that you can give out for free and still meet their guidelines.

All right, let's move on to the next section of marketing tips, which is the launch aka, the book launch. So this is all stuff that is specific to when you're planning your book release host a cover reveal event. A cover reveal is a very exciting day for your book.

It's your book's first real step into the world where people have something visual to associate with the book. So host an event where you get other people involved, where everyone is sharing and promoting the book on the day you reveal the cover. Next, we have a pre-order campaign.

There's a bunch of different ways you can do a pre-order campaign. I actually have a video on my channel where I talk about how I did a pre-order campaign that allowed me to get over 150 pre-orders on my book. So you can watch that video in the description of this video.

But the short answer is that a pre-order campaign is when you give out incentives in exchange for people buying your book. So basically someone pre-orders your book and then they fill out a form to show proof of purchase and then you give them something like a sticker as a thank you. Then there's also a street team.

So a street team is a group of people that work with you to promote your book. They do it for free just because they love the book. You allow them to read the book early and then they just go on their social media platforms and promote the book and talk about it there.

You can also create a book trailer. I've always created book trailers for all of my books and I enjoy it a lot and I find it it's a very effective marketing tool. If you wanna learn how to create a book trailer, I actually have an entire playlist on how to create a book trailer because there's a bunch of different ways you can go about it, but make sure to check it out in the links of this video.

You're also gonna wanna reach out to readers to review your book. This is even before the book is published. So you wanna reach out to maybe people on your newsletter or on your social media and just see if they want a free copy of the book to read in exchange for an honest review.

There's a lot of different ways you can do this. I mention it a lot in Plan a Profitable Book Launch. And then I also have a few checklists and templates on how to reach out to people on social media.

In My Book Launch Planner, you also wanna use your back list of books to promote your newest book. So if you're publishing a series, especially if you're publishing the third book in the series, you wanna make sure that the first two books in the series are set up to sell the third book. And this can be a lot of different things.

This could be the quality of the writing to make it engaging enough that people just want to constantly move on to the next book. And it also means the end matter, so that after people read the first book in the series, they can easily move on to to the second book. And then in the second book, maybe there's a link to pre-order the third book because it's not out yet.

And then once the third book is out, you wanna make sure you update the end matter in the second book from being a pre-order link to a purchase link. The next section we're gonna be talking about is all about content marketing. So let's talk social media.

Content marketing is my favorite type of marketing. It's the marketing that you guys are actually seeing me do right now just by talking about my books here on YouTube, and you guys can do it too, whether it be on YouTube or some other social media platform. But I wanted to mention some of my favorites right now and also some ideas of the type of content that you can post.

So first up, we have Instagram reels. Reels have become a very effective and fun way to market your books, and you can do them a bunch of different ways. My suggestion to you is to just join the community on Instagram and see what other people are posting about books and applying it to your own book.

On the same note, we also have TikTok, same deal. It's perhaps even more successful than Instagram where you can just post about your book all day and market it and people love it with TikTok And with Instagram though, the biggest thing to note is following trends. As soon as you see a trend starting to happen, jump on the band wagon before it ends.

Then we also have Goodreads. So not only should you be on good reads as like an author, but you can post status updates on Goodreads and post blog posts on Goodreads. There's actually a lot that you can do on Goodreads to market your books.

My next tip is to ingrain yourself as a reader on social media. So I struggle with this the most because I'm on social media as a writer, teaching other writers how to publish their books. So when it comes to marketing my fictional books, I actually have a hard time because I'm on Instagram and on YouTube as a writer.

So my target audience is other writers. This is great for my non-fiction books, but for my fictional books, it can be very frustrating because I'm not as in touch with the writer community on Instagram. But with that said, I want you guys to be in touch with the reader community, be on social media as a reader, and engage as a reader.

The more you engage as a reader, the more you can just naturally connect with your books audience. And then on that note, you can also reach out to influencers. So find other readers that are posting on Instagram.

Ask them if they want to read and review your book or promote it or feature it on their Instagram page. Another thing you can do is to be a guest on a podcast podcast or blowing up a lot lately. So I think it would be very effective to be featured on a podcast just to talk about your book when it comes to what type of content you should be marketing with.

My biggest tip is to market using your tropes. I find tropes and featuring tropes of books is what's really trending on Instagram and TikTok right now. So while this is is relevant right now, maybe a couple months from now it won't be as relevant, but just mentioning what your book's tropes are is a super easy way to sell your book.

You can also share quotes from the book. I see this all the time where people just put a one paragraph quote of their book and then just tell people where they can buy it and it's very effective. You can also share reviews.

If there's a review that's just gushing about your book, that's definitely an easy way to promote it. Another fun thing you can do is to host Q&A's on your social media. This is something that's very easy to do on Instagram stories where there's just a little sticker that you can post where people can submit their questions and you can answer it in your own time.

The last thing I wanna say is to give to community more than you take. So by this I mean giving content to the community where you talk about other books than just your own book. Now I say this kind of loosely cuz I feel like certain platforms you can talk just exclusively about your own book and it's totally fine.

For example, on TikTok, it seems like everyone's akay with an author just literally posting only about their book and it does super well. And the same can sometimes be said for Instagram as well, but if you're newer to the community, it can definitely be better to post a variety of bookish content rather than just about your book. Now let's move on to your author newsletter, which brings us to my first tip is having an author website.

All roads should lead back to your website where you have information about yourself and all of your books and maybe even a blog or links to everywhere else you are on social media. Which leads me to my next point, which is your author newsletter. Your author newsletter is kind of based on your author website.

When people visit your author website, they should easily be able to figure out how they can sign up to your author newsletter and your author newsletter is your most direct way to access your followers. You know, on Instagram and on TikTok, you may post content, but that doesn't mean all your followers see it. Whereas if you have a newsletter, when people subscribe to your newsletter, you at least know for sure they are receiving your newsletter.

Will they always open it? Not necessarily. But that's when you know we gotta talk more about newsletter marketing.

Now how do we get people subscribed to your newsletter? That's where the reader magnet comes in. So this is just a piece of content that you create to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter.

So that may be the first couple chapters of your book. It may be a short story, it may be an entire book that you give out for free. Either way it's something you give out for free in order to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter.

You also want a popup on your website. Now I know some people don't like this and other people swear by it, so I guess it's totally up to you. But I personally think that you should have something that pops up on your website when new users visit that tells them, Hey, I have a newsletter.

Here's how you sign up. Then you, you can also do newsletter swaps. So newsletter swaps is when you work with other authors to cross promote your books.

So you say on November 25th, I'll post about your book in my newsletter and you'll post about my book in your newsletter. There's a lot of different ways you can go about doing this. There's websites where you can sign up and discover other authors.

You can also just have author friends where you do this naturally. And the last thing I wanna mention for newsletters is that you should be posting regularly, and by this I mean a minimum of once a month. I feel like if you do it any less than that, people are gonna forget who you are.

So when you do have some exciting news, like a cover reveal or a pre-order campaign and you post about it, people will get the newsletter and be like, who the heck is this unsubscribe? So you wanna post semi-regularly so people at least remember who you are and always look forward to your newsletters. The next category of marketing is of course, paid marketing and sales and giveaways.

So first off, we have Amazon ads. Amazon ads are my personal favorite. I feel like they're the somewhat easiest to figure out.

Then we have Facebook ads. Keeping in mind if you do an ad on Facebook, you wanna make sure that your demographic is on Facebook. So if your readers aren't the demographic that's on Facebook, don't bother marketing on Facebook.

Then we also have giveaways, which is a very broad topic. There's a bunch of different ways you can do giveaways. You can do giveaways to promote the first book in the series.

You can do giveaways to promote your newsletter. It's really up to you how you wanna do giveaways. Then you can also have sales.

You can discount your book a little bit or a lot have a 99 cent ebook sale. There's a bunch of different ways you can do sales. Oftentimes when you do sales, you combine it with other strategies that we've talked about here today.

Like you might wanna do a sale when you're doing a newsletter swap or you're working with an ebook promotion website and then kind of branching off of having a sale. You can also give a book away for free. This is something that authors tend to do when they have a series.

The first book in the series will be free. So then they read the first book, they fall in love with it, and then they just feel the need to read all the rest of the books in the series. You can either just have a book for free for a week as sort of like a sale, or you can have the book for free permanently.

There's a few different strategies to it, and then I already mentioned this very quickly, but you can also do e-book promotion websites. This is a very broad category, but it means that your book is either promoted on a website or promoted on a newsletter nine times outta 10. When people are talking about e-book promotion websites, they're talking about websites where readers sign up to a newsletter and it's just a newsletter that promotes books where readers just want to constantly discover new books.

So obviously if you're looking for avid readers, this is the place to go and that's where you want to promote your book. And our last category is events. So the most most obvious event is hosting a book signing.

There's a bunch of different ways you can host book signings, but probably most popular is working with an indie bookstore to do a book signing at their store where the store makes a profit. And then you also make a profit. And it's also just fun to meet your readers.

You can also do events with your local library. So just talk to your local library about doing an event, whether maybe you're gonna do a reading of your book or you're gonna do a workshop. There's a couple different things you can do when you're working with a library, but it's another fun way to promote your book.

My personal favorite is attending conferences and expos. So I've actually been an author at BookCon when it was a still a thing, and I'm a little sad that's not, but you can sign up to have a table at these big conferences and you can sell your book at these events. Now, big conferences like this, it can be a lot of money to sign up for.

So what I personally actually prefer is to do vendor fairs where the tables are much cheaper. Oftentimes, you're the only author at the event, so if there's any book nerds at the event, they gravitate towards your table and buy your book. Whereas at a big expo like Book Con, you know, you're one of hundreds of authors.

So readers have a lot more decisions to make when it comes to shopping for a book. Whereas if you're at a vendor fair and you're the only author at the event and a reader just already likes your book, they're probably gonna be more likely to buy it. You can also host virtual book signings.

So this is just doing it all virtually where you have a stock of books at your house and people can buy it online. Now, that's the tricky part. You have to set up a way for people to buy it and for you to be able to ship it.

But once you figure that out, then you can sign the books yourself, sign it out to people and ship it to their home. And the last thing I will mention is having a virtual tour. So this can be literally anything.

It can be a blog tour, an Instagram tour, a YouTube tour, whatever. It basically just means that every day a different social media influencer is featuring your book in some way. So this is something that's often done more so for book releases, but really you can do it whenever you want.

You can do it when you have a sale if you wanna feature the sale, but it can be as long or as short as you want. But typically it's like five to seven days and every single day your book is featured on someone else's social media platform. So those were my 45 tips.

If you haven't yet already, make sure to download the printable. And again, before you print it, you can also access all the clickable links that are on this to do more research and look into things a little bit more. But that is gonna be it for this video.

That was a lot. If there were any topics that I talked about that you wanna hear more of, let me know in the comments down below or just look at the playlist that already exists and you can check out everything there as well. Thank you for watching and I will see you all next week.