November 7,2022
Updated January 27, 2024
10 Little Known Book Promotion Ideas For Self-Published Books
Promoting a book so that you can earn does not have to be difficult or overly time consuming. So you may already know you can promote your book by having a link in your bio of social media. You may have noticed other authors did press to get their book awareness up. You may have notified family and informed them to tell others about your book. Although these ways help, there little-known ways that can be better to promote your self-published book. The following are 10 of those ways.
1. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
You can use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to promote your book. You can promote your book and possibly gain thousands of readers therefore having the potential to increase your income. By the way, with KDP you will earn passive income through royalties from your books that sale on Amazon. Before I give you the promotion information, I want to give you the background on KDP and my experience.
Since 2007, Amazon has offered the platform KDP, which allows manuscripts to be uploaded and transformed into books. Authors get to choose a cover from premade options through KDP or customize their book. You, as the author, also can write a description of the book for those who preview the information about the book featured on Amazon. Once approved, it is printed on demand. You are helped on Amazon by the tags and title as well as the category the book is in. Amazon ranks your book and can be discovered by potential readers based on your tags. You can appreciate the features of KDP and be grateful that Amazon has built in buyers. According to SEMRUSH in September 2022, Amazon received 3.8 billion visits, and these are from visitors from around the world.
Also, Amazon allows you to promote your book through a campaign and you also can have more opportunities for sales through a countdown promotion. A countdown allows you to sale your book for a discount for a limited time. For example, if your book is originally priced on Amazon for $10, you can have it reduced to $7 for about a week.
My experience with KDP started in 2017. Now I remember it so vividly. I recall when I first discovered KDP. It all started when one of my favorite YouTubers and Life Coach Shawnda Patterson, mentioned in a video that she published a book and that people can purchase it on Amazon. This 10-minute video amazed me. It amazed me one because she stated in her video that the only cost was a $2 proof. Now I remember being in shock because for years, I thought that self-publishing a book would cost at a minimum $700. - I was not aware of print on demand like Amazon offers.
I remember after watching Patterson’s video, I researched information on how to have a self-published book on Amazon. When I research the information, I came across a blog post. It was a lengthy blog post focusing on how to self-publish a book using KDP. With determination to learn the process, I read the blog post into the wee hours of the night staying up most of the night. Then I acted, signing up for a KDP account the next day.
After learning the information to start on KDP, I wrote my manuscript and uploaded it. After correcting mistakes, I submitted it for review and my book was published and available for purchase on Amazon on April 2, 2017. The whole process took about 48 hours.
You can earn royalties when your book is purchased through KDP. I have been earning royalties since 2017.
In order to promote your book, Amazon allows you to receive promo codes to offer potential readers a free copy of your book. With this offer, you can offer these promo codes in exchange for a review.
In conclusion, when it comes to KDP, you have a built-in marketing platform to help you get your book.
2. ACX-Audiobook Creation Exchange
Another marketing tool you can use is Audiobook Creation Exchange. Audiobook Creation Exchange is a website owned by Amazon. The platform allows people to narrate books and allows authors to collaborate with narrators. These narrators are called producers on the Audiobook Creation Exchange website. These producers are great for people who want to opt out of narrating their own book. Typically, after the book is narrated and approved it is sent to audible, where customers can purchase it. It is nice having the audiobook version.
As a marketing strategy for your book, you could create a separate audiobook for promotion purposes. First you could create an e-book. The e-book could be 30 to 50 pages, so that the audiobook could compose of at least 30 minutes. You could include information about your book. You could entice people with the first chapter of your book and include fun facts and quizzes.
At the conclusion of your audiobook, you can encourage a call to action. Telling listeners to buy your book and they can receive a gift as a thank you.
With this strategy, you can gain more sales because of your separate audiobook. Audiobooks are very popular and there is a demand. There are people who like to choose listening to an audiobook over reading a print publication due to how convenient consuming an audiobook is.
3. Offer a virtual signing webinar
Offer a virtual signing webinar and ask those in attendance to promote your book. There are companies that you could use to host your webinar. There are platforms like Click Funnels.
During the webinar, you could answer questions about the book and provide information to peak potential reader’s interest. You could also pitch to sell lower cost items through the webinar. These items could be mugs that promote your book.
4. You Can Promote Your Book Through Google Or Youtube
Your book could be listed in search results.
If you talk about your book on Youtube, it can end up in Google search results. You could create a video series of at least five videos.
Did you know that Google owns Youtube? Yes!
You may have noticed that there are videos in the search results. There is a lot of traffic that you could get. According to Google’s blog, there were 460 million Internet users in 2022.
5. Promote Through Book Promotion Groups
These online groups are a great way to promote your book. You could join a Facebook group that will allow you to share your book. Along with going the route of online promotion, check to see if your local mom and pop bookstore offers events for new authors. As a side note, some local bookstores allow you to sale your book in their store.
6. Go To Businesses and Banks To Distribute A Business Card
Business cards can be a great vehicle that leads to promoting your book. A business card could include a website. Your website could feature information about your book. Another idea for the business card could include wording like check out (insert your name and book title) on your business card.
Books contain a story whether it is fiction or nonfiction.
Award Winning Poet Maya Angelo spoke before on getting your story out.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you,”
Tips: When promoting reread over your sentences. When writing you may make mistakes by rushing. You could make a mistake like writing “a apple” instead of an apple. You know better. You know all about word usage and grammar but the mistake is there. That is why it is good to check mistakes. Using different software like Grammarly can help but word usage awkwardness may not be picked up.
When you write, it is good to reread what you wrote. You can go over drafts and compare them later to view your progress.
7. Create an app to promote your book
One way to begin creating an app through Google’s Console
Develop an app
8. Create a Grow Group
Go to Grow’s app and have people promote an article about your book.
9. Write a press release about your book as send it to a small publication
You can write a press release. You can send the press release to a small newspaper or your local TV station.
If you want a bigger reach, you could use the website e-release.com for this so that your press release can go to media outlets and bloggers.
10. Host an event at a local school
Talk about your book at a local high school or college.
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