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When marketing your novel, you should aim for small goals first, then expand to reach a wider audience.
You need to play the long game.
When to Start
As soon as possible, start building your audience base through social media.
And create an author website.
Your goal is to spark interest in you.
Website and Social Media
Create an author website if you don't have one.
A basic one is fine — Home, About, Contact, and Blog pages.
Blog about you and your writing journey.
Get on social media as an author — Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram are great places to start.
Post on social media about you and your novel a few times a week at different times using different hashtags.
Be sure to target readers as well as other fiction authors in your genre.
Begin marketing
Six months prior to the release, you will want to start building the hype about your upcoming novel.
You've already built a great network of people who are interested in you. Now use them to increase the interest in your book.
Contacts
Use your personal contacts.
Your friends and family may be happy to spread the word.
Close author and writing connections you’ve made through writing groups should be willing as well.
If you don't ask, they won't help, so make sure you ask them to post on their social media and blog about their author friend.
Blogging about you and your book, gives them content to post!
On that note, it can help them if you write a post and give it to them to spark their blogging creativity.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to market your book.
Try to get on a few author or publishing related ones. It doesn’t matter if your book is still in the editing phase or the passages you read don’t make it to the final publication.
Generating interest is your goal.
Radio interviews
Try talking to your local radio stations.
See if you can get a short segment or plug for your book.
You may have to pay for a plug, so an interview is really your goal here, because minutes is better than a few-second plug!
Circle back
Three months prior to your release date, reach out to your connections again and ask them to post about your book.
This time, make your request specific and go further into your network.
Again, preparing posts will make it easier on them.
Ask about guest blogging and have something already prepared to publish. Include things about your writing journey and a short excerpt.
Get reviews
When you have access to ARCs (advanced review copies), start asking for reviews.
They can be difficult to obtain, but you will need them.
Use your friends and close connections to get the ball rolling.
Go to places like The Independent Book Review https://independentbookreview.com or Kirkus reviews https://www.kirkusreviews.com. Goodreads, Book Riot, and Bookish are some other places to look into.
Target local book clubs.
See if your local newspaper has a book reviewer or someone in the arts and entertainment, who is willing to review your book and write about it.
Book fairs
Look into attending book fairs.
Start local and expand, but make sure they are close to or after your scheduled release date.
You want to sell and sign your books at your table, so buy some author copies!
Influencers
Ask influencers to endorse or review your book. This will be the hardest thing to achieve.
First, make sure you contact ones that are interested in your genre.
Send them a few chapters and brief write-up examples of reviews and endorsements, so they don’t have to take the time and start from scratch. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they will do what you ask.
Of course, always offer to send the whole book.
Paid ads
If you can, pay for advertising.
This can get expensive quickly, so make sure you set daily limits.
Circle back
Go through these steps again. Keep asking for more promotions, reviews, & publicity opportunities.
Ramp it up!
Keep circling back and expanding your target area and audience.
Don't give up!
Remember, it's a long game.
It isn't easy, and there will be times where you think about quitting but keep going.
No one is truly an overnight success.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
Happy writing and revising!
Kristin Noland - Speculative Fiction and Crime Fiction Editor and Ghostwriter
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