The Brilliant Book Marketing Tools Every Author Should Know About

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For any job, from building a fence to marketing your book, your efficiency and results will depend in great part on the tools that you have at your disposal. It is near-impossible to build a fence without a shovel, fence posts, and a hammer (er, I think. I’ve actually never built a fence before, but you get my meaning). Similarly, it is near-impossible to market your book online without a great description, graphics, blog and social media posts, and all the other tools of the trade.

Luckily, book marketing is lighter lifting than fence building (or so I imagine), and there are many low-cost and free tools you can use to connect with new readers! 

Below is a long list of the tools that I use every day to help market books on websites and social media. Technology is always changing, and so this list isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but these are the tools that I use regularly! 

Book Description & Cover Design

I think that the most important parts of book marketing are the most elemental: your title, your cover design, and your book description. In today’s digital world, Google, Amazon, and other online search results play as big a role in selling your book as personal recommendations. So let’s start there! 

Writing your book description copy:

  • Use Google Trends (free), Google Keyword Planner (free), Publisher Rocket ($97 one-time fee with a 30-day money-back guarantee), and Ubersuggest ($29/month and I think there’s a free version) to search for keywords and phrases that can make sure your book is showing up when people search for it. You might find that you tweak some of the words you have in mind when you do this research.

  • If you plan to market your book on social media, go on a fact-finding mission and search for the keyword phrases you uncover on Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, and take a look at the type of content that comes up.

Designing your book cover: 

  • I think you should hire a professional designer for this. It’s so vital and unless you have the training and have done a lot of research around recent trends. You can find one on Dribble.com or Reedsy.com (Reedsy is a great marketplace for all things in the book industry—including book marketers!).

Distributing your book for reviews

Reviews are also essential to digital marketing efforts. In the biz, we call this “social proof,” and you’ll see it online in the form of testimonials, reviews, photos of people with products, etc. If you’re selling on Amazon, you’ll want to get reviews there—it helps people trust that they’re in good company when they buy your book.  

ARCs and Galley Distribution:

eBook Creation:

Marketing your book(s)

Once you’ve got all your elements in place, then you get to think about the day-to-day marketing efforts that help you connect with readers at your book launch, and over time—and the “long tail” of making sure your book is discoverable for years to come. If you want more advice on the day-to-day of digital marketing, take a look at my blog post on Author Power Hour—it’s worked well for a lot of authors!    

Website Design:

Email Newsletters:

  • I recommend and use Mailchimp, although there are a lot of sites out there that work well.

Facebook:

A/B Testing:

Graphic Design:

Hashtag Research:

  • Hashtagify for Twitter

  • And I use Later.com and just use the Instagram app for Instagram research

Email and Blogging:

  • I read Hubspot and Neil Patel for inspiration around subject lines.

  • CoSchedule has an awesome free “Headline Checker” to give you feedback on blog post headlines. For example, my original headline for this blog post was, “My Recommended Tools for Book Marketing,” but using the Headline Checker, I got to a higher score with the current title, “The Brilliant Book Marketing Tools Every Author Should Know About.”

  • As you’re writing, use Grammarly to check your spelling and grammar.

  • Also as you’re writing, you can use SEMRush’s SEO Writing Assistant to check your SEO.

Content Planning*:

  • Content Grids in Google Sheets

  • Content Calendar in Google Sheets

There are a lot of ways to plan and organize your posts—I prefer an “old-fashioned” spreadsheet to keep myself organized, and I recommend that authors be curious and experiment with different options, from a pen-on-paper wall calendar to workflow tools like Monday or Asana.     

Scheduling:

Advertising

I think advertising is an essential part of book marketing. There’s definitely a lot that can be done organically with ingenuity and elbow grease—but time is money, and when you take the time to write a brilliant blog post and design a great graphic to appeal to your target readers, you want to go that extra mile and make sure your posts get in front of your audience. 

If it works and you can tell it’s converting to sales, do more!

If it doesn’t work, or you can’t tell, pull the plug after $20. 

You can do pay-per-click campaigns targeting certain types of readers and certain types of keywords on lots of platforms:

  • Amazon Advertising

  • Facebook Ad Manager

  • Google Ads

  • Instagram Promote

  • Pinterest Ads

I won’t lie—these platforms can be very complicated and it can be scary to think of losing money on something that isn’t working. If you’re interested in this, but not sure where to start, please consider emailing me to set up a consultation session. It’s one of my favorite things to do and I can help you get set up for success! 

Deciding what’s working

One of the most important things that you can do for yourself is look back at your campaigns to see what’s working—especially when you’re spending money on advertising. The last thing you want is to throw money away. 

First, and foremost, I recommend tracking your links. Use a service like bitly.com or geniuslink.com to see how many people are clicking on your link. 

There are absolutely services that can make this easier, but depending on what type of advertising you’re doing, I would recommend that most authors look back at the 

  • Amazon Advertising

  • Facebook Ad Manager and Ads Reporting

  • Google Ads

  • Instagram Insights

  • Pinterest Ads Reporting

Phew, well, that’s a lot! I hope this list is a helpful overview of some of the amazing free or reasonably-priced tools that are out there for book marketing. I will do my best to keep this list updated as I come across new tools that I find particularly helpful!  

Book Review of Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind

Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind

I chose this cute little number for my first book review of 2021 because it’s one of my favorites. It’s been on my shelf for a few years, and I pick it up at least a few times per year to flip through it and get inspired. I’m focusing on habit-building and routine in these early days of the new year, so this book was a natural fit.

The book is made up of vignettes by experts in several categories: Building a Rock-solid Routine, Finding Focus in a Distracted World, Taming Your Tools, and Sharpening Your Creative Mind. It’s edited by Jocelyn K. Glei, and put together by 99U, which is a conference, and an offshoot of the Behance platform for creative pros’ portfolios.

Who It’s For: Creative types with full-time jobs who want to figure out how to create something amazing while juggling day-to-day responsibilities.

You’ll Love It If: You like inspirational messages and a general, motivating you-can-do-it-if-you-just-stick-to-it world view.

It’s Probably Not for You If: You like to get really deep into the science behind theories of productivity, OR you’re not into trying new things.

What I got out of this book:

The main thing I got out of this book is that even though there are a ton of tactics for how to best schedule your day, the general strategy that most scholars of efficiency and productivity recommend is to, perhaps over-simply stated, take ownership over your schedule and routine. Sounds obvious and easy, and in some ways it is, but for moms or employees or children or spouses or people who have commitments in the world—it can be a big challenge to take the reins and make uncomfortable adjustments or additions to an already-packed schedule.

The different tactics for taking the reins are really interested to flip through. For example, Tony Schwartz starts off his section with the parable of Zeke, a guy who was miserable and going nowhere, but who made some small changes—scheduling a walk on his lunch hour, plus getting more sleep at night, adding in some meaningful social interactions, plus an hour of concentrating on his most important tasks first thing in the morning. We are all Zeke!

Aaron Dingman’s section concentrates more on specific organizational hacks for our email inboxes to make us more efficient. Christian Janett asks us to banish the word multitasking from our vocabulary, and Lori Deschene challenges us to use social media more mindfully, providing a series of questions we can use to self-evaluate our state of mind before posting.

Later in the book, in the Sharpening Your Creative Mind section, Scott McDowell shares about fun little tricks that successful writers have tried to spur their creativity, like word association or that time that George Harrison wrote “My Guitar Gently Weeps” during a creativity exercise in which he randomly flipped open a book and picked out a phrase.

What I think my author clients will get out of this book:

Your creativity needs you to be its midwife and help wrench it into the world. This goes for the books that my clients have already written, but it also applies to all the social media posts and marketing campaigns that can pop up to support the book and get it into the hands of readers. Social media allows for endless creativity, and when an author builds a routine around connecting with readers, the sky is the limit.

My favorite part of this book is the format. You can keep it on your shelf and pick it up to get a new idea or fresh inspiration at any time. Everyone needs that little burst of motivation once in a while, and this book provides it.

Plan Your Author Marketing - 2020 Holidays Observances by Book Category and Genre

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Authors who keep their fingers on the pulse of the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual holidays and observances can find timely connections with readers.

Browse the list of holidays and observances below—but please know that not all of these are going to be for you! I recommend that you make a month-by-month calendar and plan which events could be most interesting for you to post about this year.

For more help joining conversations, here’s my post on hashtags for author marketing.

Need help? Schedule an Author Strategy Call or sign up for my email newsletter at the bottom of this post for tips.

Book, Writing, and Literary Events

Quirky, Fun-to-Post-About Observances

  • Jan 4, Trivia Day

  • Jan 15, National Hat Day

  • Jan 18, Thesaurus Day

  • Jan 24, National Compliment Day

  • Jan 29, National Puzzle Day

  • Feb 14, Galentine’s Day

  • Feb 16-22, Random Acts of Kindness Week

  • Mar 4, March Forth Day (Star Wars reference)

  • Mar 14, Pi Day

  • Mar 18, Awkward Moments Day

  • Mar 20, American Crossword Puzzle Days

  • Mar 20, International Day of Happiness

  • Apr 18-26, National Park Week

  • Apr 20, “420” Marijuana Celebration Day

  • May 20, World Limerick Day

  • Jun 5, National Donut Day

  • Jun 8, World Oceans Day

  • Jun 30, Social Media Day

  • Jul 7, World Chocolate Day

  • Jul 30, International Day of Friendship

  • Aug 12, World Elephant Day

  • Sep 19, Talk Like a Pirate Day

  • Sep 22, Hobbit Day

  • Oct 1, International Coffee Day

  • Oct 4, National Taco Day

  • Nov 13, World Kindness Day

  • Nov 28, Small Business Saturday

  • Dec 21, Crossword Puzzle Day

Pet Observances and Events (Hey, everyone loves pets!)

  • Jan 14, National Dress Up Your Pet Day

  • Feb 20, Love Your Pet Day

  • Mar 23, National Puppy Day

  • Apr 11, National Pet Day

  • May 9, National Dog Mom Day

  • May 20, National Rescue Dog Day

  • Jun 4, Hug Your Cat Day

  • Jul 31, National Mutt Day (also in Dec)

  • Aug 17, Black Cat Appreciation Day

  • Aug 26, National Dog Day

  • Oct 4, World Pet Day

  • Oct 29, National Cat Day

  • Dec 2, National Mutt Day (also in Jul)

Film & Movie Events

  • Jan 5, Golden Globes

  • Jan 19, Screen Actors Guild Awards

  • Jan 23, Sundance Film Festival

  • Feb 9, Academy Awards

  • May 12-23, Cannes Film Festival

  • More dates to come!

Health & Wellness Observances

  • Jan — Cervical Health Awareness Month

  • Feb — American Heart Month, Relationship Wellness Month

  • Feb 1 - 8, Women's Heart Week

  • Feb 4, World Cancer Day

  • Feb 7, National Wear Red Day (Heart Disease Awareness)

  • Feb 3-9, Children's Mental Health Week

  • Feb 21, National Caregivers Day

  • Mar — National Nutrition Month, National Kidney Month

  • Mar 21-28, National Physicians Week

  • Mar 30, Doctors Day

  • Apr — Alcohol Awareness Month, Autism Awareness Month, Cancer Control Month

  • Apr 7, World Health Day

  • Apr 20, Boston Marathon

  • May — Mental Health Month, Women's Health Care Month

  • May 6, National Nurses Day

  • Jun — Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month, Men’s Health Month, National Safety Month

  • Jun 7-Jul 19, Tour de France

  • Aug — National Breastfeeding Month

  • Sep — Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

  • Sep 11, Stand Up to Cancer Day

  • Oct — National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Bullying Prevention Month

  • Oct 5, Child Health Day

  • Nov — American Diabetes Month, Lung Cancer Awareness Month

  • Nov 1, New York City Marathon

  • Dec 1, World AIDS Day

Non-Fiction Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship

  • Jan — National Mentoring Month, Financial Wellness Month

  • Jan 13, Make Your Dream Come True Day

  • Feb — Time Management Month

  • Feb 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science #womeninSTEM

  • Feb 11, National Inventors Day

  • Feb 15-22, National Entrepreneurship Week

  • Apr 15, Tax Day

  • Apr 22, Administrative Professionals Day

  • May 3-9, National Small Business Week

  • Oct 16, Boss's Day

Major U.S. Holidays and Observances

  • Jan 1, New Year’s Day

  • Jan 20, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

  • Jan 25, Chinese New Year

  • Feb — Black History Month

  • Feb 2, Groundhog Day

  • Feb 2, Super Bowl Sunday

  • Feb 14, Valentine’s Day

  • Feb 17, Presidents' Day

  • Feb 25, Mardi Gras

  • Feb 29, Leap Year Day

  • Mar — Women's History Month

  • Mar 8, Daylight Savings Begins

  • Mar 8, International Women’s Day

  • Mar 9-10, Purim

  • Mar 17, St. Patrick's Day

  • Mar 19, Spring Equinox

  • Apr 1, April Fool’s Day

  • Apr 8, Passover

  • Apr 10, Good Friday

  • Apr 12, Easter Sunday

  • Apr 22, Earth Day

  • May 5, Cinco de Mayo

  • May 10, Mother's Day

  • May 25, Memorial Day

  • Jun 20, Summer Solstice

  • Jun 21, Father's Day

  • Jul 4, Independence Day

  • Sep 7, Labor Day

  • Sep 19, Rosh Hashanah

  • Sep 22, Fall Equinox

  • Sep 28, Yom Kippur

  • Oct 12, Columbus Day

  • Oct 31, Halloween

  • Nov 1, Daylight Saving Time ends

  • Nov 3, Election Day

  • Nov 11, Veterans Day

  • Nov 26, Thanksgiving Day

  • Nov 27, Black Friday

  • Nov 30, Cyber Monday

  • Dec 11, Hanukkah

  • Dec 25, Christmas Day

  • Dec 31, New Year's Eve


Sources:

Publisher’s Weekly for Book Events

Brownielocks for Quirky Events

4 Minute Librarian