Many of the questions we receive daily at reedsy are related to marketing. How can I promote my book? how do i get reviews? can someone do the marketing for me?
The problem is that there is seldom a single answer to all those questions. there are countless things you can try. in fact, we have over 50 marketing ideas in this awesome post. But if you’re looking for some simple ways to increase your sales, here are 9 inexpensive ways to promote your book:
You are reading: Promoting books on amazon
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1. starts with the amazon book marketing
Regardless of how many retailers you sell through, you’ll want to know how to promote your book on Amazon in the most effective way possible. There’s an art to understanding Amazon’s algorithms, which you can learn through our course or in this handy post, but here are a few simple things to get you started.
If you’re selling exclusively through this marketplace, consider checking out this post on how to promote your book on Amazon.
appear in more amazon categories
When you upload a book to kdp, you are prompted to choose two categories for each format (ebook and paperback). But this doesn’t mean your book will only appear in two categories!
You can get into many more categories with a simple trick, which is simply to contact kdp support. it’s so simple that most authors don’t even think about it.
But first, you obviously need to research which categories you’d like to add your book to. for that, you have two options:
- Go to the Kindle Store or Book Store bestseller lists and drill down into categories in the right sidebar; or
- use a tool like publisher rocket ($97, but worth it if you’re also running amazon ads) to analyze categories in bulk.
then just go to kdp support and select “update amazon categories” in the sidebar. Please send only one email per book and include all categories you wish to add your book to.
⚠️Important: This is not a numbers game, so don’t try to include your book in as many categories as possible! only include the most relevant ones, or risk the consequences of contamination also bought. You can learn more about Amazon categories in our ultimate guide here.
clean the url of your book
so your book is out and you want to share the good news with your mailing list (and maybe ask them for reviews). what amazon url do you use?
if you search for your book on amazon, you will end up with a url similar to this:
pretty ugly, right? well, everything after the “?” in the url is usually superfluous. in this case, it indicates that the book was found after a search for “fundraising field guide”.
The link is not only unnecessarily long, but also includes information that could be harmful to you if you share it with your readers. (find out why)
Instead, you should clean this link before submitting it. just remove everything after “/ref=”:
to make it even shorter, you can even remove the title:
that’s the clean url: the one you can (and should) share with your readers.
Send readers to the right store
I guess your readers aren’t all in the US, right? So if you send everyone to the amazon.com store, those outside of the us. uu. they will have to change stores first before they can buy their book.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could remove this step for them?
well you can do it: by sharing an amazon universal url. there are several tools you can use for that, but the one we generally recommend (because it’s free!) is the books2read universal links: https://books2read.com/
simply paste a clean link to your book there, and books2read will generate a link that automatically sends readers to their preferred store and country. you can’t put a price on that kind of convenience (except that you can, and it costs $0).
2. list your book on other retail sites
There are many advantages to selling and promoting your book exclusively on Amazon, so it’s important to understand the pros and cons of KDP Select before making any decisions about your books. however, retailers like apple books or kobo have their own unique promotional opportunities for authors smart enough to take advantage of them.
run pre-orders on apple & kobo
apple and kobo treat pre-orders differently than amazon. On Amazon, each sale made while your book is on pre-order gives you a ranking boost at the time of the sale. At Apple and Kobo, pre-order sales are counted twice for ratings: once at the time of sale and a second time on launch day.
This means that if you generate enough sales during pre-order, your book will rise in the rankings on launch day in those stores. Because of this difference, some smart authors run their pre-orders exclusively on Kobo and Apple, which is also a smart way to encourage their readers to “scale up.”
sell a mega box
another thing that sets both apple and kobo apart is that they offer a 70% royalty rate on ebooks priced $10 or more, as opposed to the reduced 35% royalty rate on amazon for ebooks with a price outside the range of $2.99 - $9.99.
This creates a huge opportunity for “mega box sets,” that is, box sets of six or more books, which are typically priced above $9.99. selling them on amazon wouldn’t really be worth it, because of the lower royalty rate. instead, you can sell them exclusively at apple and/or kobo.
the additional benefit? Apple and Kobo’s merchandising teams love exclusive offers, so it will be easier to include these boxes in your promotions than to promote them on amazon.
3. offer “reader magnets” to attract your target audience
Before you send links to your mailing list, you’ll need readers to subscribe to it! If you’re not familiar with reader magnets, they’re basically something free (usually a book) that you give to readers in exchange for signing up for your mailing list. if you don’t already have one, you know what to work on next. if you do, you will enjoy the following tricks.
include your reader magnet on the front
if you have a reader magnet, I’m pretty sure you have a link at the end of every book you have, right?
well a little trick to increase your subscribers is to add it on the front end as well. This way, when Amazon browsers use the “look inside” feature, they’ll also see your reader magnet offer. even if they don’t buy the book, they might sign up for your newsletter to receive the book for free!
build your reader magnet in the body of your book
Another cool thing you can do with reader magnets is integrate them into your book. let’s face it, most readers skip the front and back of a book. so having it within the body of the book guarantees that readers will see it.
“but won’t that unnecessarily distract the reader from the actual book?”
It’s a risk, yes. but if you play your cards right, you can work quite elegantly. for nonfiction, it’s easy enough to include a mention of and a link to a free “cheat sheet,” “checklist,” or video course (exclusive to newsletter subscribers) at the end of a relevant chapter, e.g. example.
with fiction, you have to be more creative. For example, you could mix fiction and reality: post-apocalyptic author ml banner created a real website for a fictional research institute in his book, a website where you can sign up for your particular reader magnet.
The beauty of e-books is the connectivity: you can embed hyperlinks. so i linked to this cmeri website where my character actually offered a reader magnet; a free ebook called “the apocalypse survival guide”. and I actually got over 1200 downloads of that book. some people even seem to believe that the cmeri is real, since I’ve gotten a couple of inquiries from the media.
read the full interview here.
add the facebook pixel to your giveaway page
if your magnet reader is a free book (or several free books), then I assume you use bookfunnel to distribute it; if you don’t, check out their service, it will save you a lot of headaches. .
now a little known fact about bookfunnel is that they make it extremely easy to add the facebook pixel to your giveaway pages. (don’t know what a facebook pixel is? Check out our post on classic book marketing mistakes)
See Also: The 10 Best Books On Herbal Medicine To Read – Wild Dispensary
Having the pixel on your reader’s magnet page allows you to:
- track your page conversion;
- optimize the ads you run for signups instead of just traffic;
- build custom and lookalike audiences on facebook based on all the people who viewed your magnet.
as we’ve said many times before, any author who runs ads on facebook and doesn’t take advantage of the facebook pixel (a free and incredibly useful tool) is simply wasting money. don’t be one of those authors; make sure you get the most out of your investment.
4. add packages and additional content
While we’re on the subject of box sets, here are a few more ideas for leveraging these multi-book bundles to promote your existing catalog.
create a package first in the series
what is that? it’s basically a box with several serial starters. this is only relevant to you if you already have 3 or 4 series available, but it can be a good way to introduce potential new readers to your entire universe while offering them a solid discount through the box set.
You may not see many sales, but think of it this way: each sale can lead the reader to go through all of your series, which will be quite profitable for you. besides, it doesn’t cost anything to assemble a box of this type…
offer a bundle of paperbacks
many authors have digital boxes available. but few have the “print” version of those box sets available as well.
“but why a printed version? no one is going to buy a 600 page doorstop!”
well, first, you’d be surprised… and more importantly, having the other format available helps with price contrast on the product page:
When the potential reader sees the huge discount that the Kindle version offers, they’ll be more likely to buy it.
If you’re wondering how to format such a large printed book, you’ll be happy to know that you can easily do it for free at reedsy book editor or through paid software like vellum. Be sure to select a small font size so your book doesn’t exceed kdp’s maximum number of pages (about 800 pages).
⚠️Warning: If you’re listing a paperback set, make sure you don’t name it a “box set” as amazon will only allow actual boxed sets, i.e. individual books packaged in a cardboard box. box — to be named as such in the print book store. call it an omnibus, or a compendium instead.
5. get reviews from readers
Whether it’s a single book or a box set, the best books in the world won’t sell with few or no reviews. reviews signal quality to readers. getting reviews on amazon and other platforms right away is crucial.
accumulate reviews before launch day
How cool would it be to have reviews on your product page even before your eBook launches? Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t allow customers to post reviews until the book is published, even if it’s on hold.
so how can you promote your book on amazon before launch day? publishing another format (the paperback) before.
For example, if you publish the paperback a week before your eBook, readers will be able to post reviews on the paperback. and since the paperback and ebook are on the same amazon product page… ta-da! you’ll be able to stack reviews on your ebook page even when it’s on hold.
secure editorial reviews
Beyond user reviews, editorial reviews give your work an extra level of influence. you can add them to your book’s amazon page using amazon author central, but you’ll need to get them before you can cite them.
You can contact individual book bloggers if you wish, but this is time consuming and difficult to determine which reviewers to contact. To reduce your workload, we’ve launched Discovery. discovery is a platform that allows you to submit your upcoming book to a group of vetted reviewers all at once. Additionally, discovery books gain increased visibility through community upvotes, featured newsletters, and a dedicated landing page.
send readers directly to the review page
want some more amazon url magic? this trick is pretty good for getting reviews.
I guess at the end of your book, you have a message asking readers to leave an honest review on amazon, right? (if it doesn’t, now is the time to add one)
well, by using the following amazon url, you can send these readers directly to your book’s “review” page:
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?asin=asin
simply replace “asin” above with the asin of your book, which can be found in the product details.
don’t you believe me? try this link:
6. increase your visibility on social media platforms
With reader magnets, bundles and bonus content, as well as reader reviews, you have plenty of material to promote your book on social media. Increase your visibility by using your author platform to post regular updates on your work and book releases, but don’t forget to engage and support other authors as well to build a strong and genuine support network.
You can read more about how to make the most of your online presence in our social media guide.
7. cross-promotion with other authors of their genre
One of the best ways to build a sustainable writing career is to make friends in the community. you should be out there building relationships with other freelance authors, especially in your genre. Conferences are a great way to do it, but if you don’t have the budget for them yet, here are some cross-promotional tricks.
put together a paperback giveaway
so how do you make friends with authors who don’t know you from a hole in the ground? it’s simple, first you read their books and try to do something for them before you ask them for something.
An easy option is to organize a paperback giveaway for your readers, featuring print books from some of your favorite independent authors in their genre.
This giveaway will not only grow your mailing list, but it’s a great opportunity to connect with other authors and start building your relationship.
You can use a service like kingsumo or rafflecopter to host the giveaway and add a viral component to it.
host a free group giveaway
another form of giveaway, also useful for building connections and growing your mailing list, is the “free online group giveaway”.
basically, you team up with other authors to each offer a free book for a limited time, as part of a group giveaway.
You can set up and organize the giveaway quite easily through bookfunnel, which will automatically take care of the enablement and gdpr stuff for you. and you can even use your promotion tab to recruit other authors into your promotion.
suggest a bulletin change
The above two tricks help you achieve two very different but equally important goals:
- build meaningful connections with other authors in your genre;
- grow your mailing list.
and these are the two main requirements for one of the most powerful promotional tools any author can use: newsletter exchanges.
The idea is simple: you promote an author’s book in your newsletter and they promote one of your books in return. this is usually done around special events (such as new releases or discount promotions) and can be amplified through other channels: social media pages, groups, etc.
You should only approach authors with a mailing list similar in size to your own, and only once you’ve established a relationship with them.
launch a multi-author anthology
Once you’ve built a strong network of like-minded authors in your genre, you can go further and publish a book together. for example, a thematic collection of stories.
See Also: Lucy Score – Book Series In Order
is a nice, non-intrusive way for each author to introduce their readers to the other authors in the collection.
launch a multi-author facebook group
We haven’t included “create a facebook group for your readers” as a trick here because, well, it’s not really a trick. First, it is something that is already quite common. and second, managing a facebook group is a lot of work and can easily distract you from, you know, writing.
but what if you joined other authors to create a multi-author facebook group? you could take turns moderating and filling the group with relevant content, as well as cross-promote.
there are a few of those out there, if you want to see how they work:
- bloom with great poppy writers
- kiss and tell book club
- fiction from the heart
8. use book promotion services to increase sales
We have covered price promotions in many other posts. the basic idea is: you lower the price of your book(s) for a few days and promote that discount.
use a bookbub shipping calendar
The best way to promote such a discount offer is to advertise it in newsletters and sites dedicated to price promotion. and the most important by far is bookbub.
Now, the problem with bookbub is that nowadays it is almost impossible for an independent author to get a featured contract from bookbub (a kind of “holy grail” in the independent publishing community). even if you meet all of their “minimum requirements” you still need a lot of reviews and a lot of luck.
So how can you increase your chances? sending as often as bookbub allows. And since figuring that out isn’t always easy, we’ve put together a handy “Bookbub submission schedule” on Reedsy that you can get (for free!) here. will help you submit your titles as many times as possible in a calendar year.
stack price promotions
now, even if you don’t manage to get a featured deal on bookbub, you can (more or less) replicate its effects by booking various deals on other smaller but reputable sites. that’s what we call “promotion stacking,” and you can use our tiered list of recommended book promotion sites to discover the ones most relevant to your book.
The idea here is to secure a few promotions for each day of your price drop: one big one and a few smaller ones.
so a stacked price promotion might look like this:
- day 1: gangbooksy + ent + book barbarian
- day 2: robin lee + book rebel + my book cave
- day 3: the picky librarian + early riser books + book shipments
Of course, reserving these sites/newsletters shouldn’t stop you from posting your own ads if your budget allows.
9. learn amazon and facebook ads
Although they require a larger budget, ads are becoming increasingly important to both independent authors and traditional publishers trying to promote their books on Amazon. As more and more space is given to ads in search results and on product pages, more authors will jump in and take advantage of the opportunity.
These amazon hacks are quite advanced and will help you get the most value for your money, while staying ahead of the competition. but if you know nothing about amazon ads, start by taking this free course.
facebook, on the other hand, is not a “book advertising platform”, that is, a platform dedicated exclusively to books. however, it can be used just as effectively to promote your book. If you’ve never run Facebook ads before, you guessed it, we have a free course for that too.
find effective keywords in your auto targeting reports
One of the main challenges with Amazon Ads is finding relevant keywords to target your Sponsored Products campaigns, so that’s what all of these book promotion tricks will focus on.
The first trick is to follow Amazon’s example! For all of your books, be sure to set up an auto-targeted sponsored product campaign. This will allow amazon to automatically decide and optimize which keywords and products to target.
if you go into the campaign to analyze the results, amazon will not show you the keywords they targeted and how they performed; they will only show the general results of the campaign. however, you can get this level of detail in the “reports” section. just run a “search term” report for “sponsored products”:
then take the keywords that performed well in the automated targeting campaign and include them in the manual ones.
Note: If you want to save time and have the budget, you can purchase a tool like Publisher Rocket to greatly automate your Amazon Ads keyword research. that’s what we personally use at reedsy.
target bookbub featured books
another cool trick for finding amazon keyword ideas: subscribe to bookbub newsletters in your genre and target featured books (as long as they match your book closely enough).
Books promoted through a featured bookbub deal get a lot of exposure (think thousands of sales). so they become a prime candidate to leverage through amazon ads!
and if you also run bookbub self serve ads, you can replicate this technique there. bookbub featured offers tend to immediately increase an author’s number of followers on bookbub, making them a great prospect for targeting.
use facebook audience stats to find new targets
Selecting the right targets on Facebook is not as easy as it is on Amazon or Bookbub, where almost every author under the sun will be available to target. On facebook, only the biggest names will show up as “interests” when you set your targeting.
general advice is to use a mix of great build authors and limit it by “kindle” audiences.
but nowadays, everybody does that. So how do you find new “interests” to target? through facebook audience statistics. just enter an interest in the sidebar and look at the “page likes” tab. this will show you which other pages your audience has the most affinity with.
for example, here are the main page likes for the “harry potter” interest:
Obviously not all of them will be relevant, but playing around with this tool will certainly help you discover some new “interests” to target.
use (and review) dynamic ads
This is one of our favorite tricks on facebook as it allows you to try out a bunch of different images, videos and text within the same ad.
facebook launched “dynamic ads” in 2018 and the idea is simple. Instead of designing an ad by choosing an image, writing a headline, news copy, etc., feed facebook with up to:
- 10 different images and/or videos;
- 5 different headlines;
- 5 different texts;
- 5 different news descriptions;
- 5 different call to action buttons.
then, facebook will automatically rotate between them, monitor the results, and automatically serve the combinations that work best.
but that’s not even good. The good thing is that you can see how each combination performed! simply open the “breakdown” menu in the dashboard and sort the results by “dynamic creative asset”. Knowing what works (and what doesn’t) with your audience will give you great insight for future campaigns.
create your own polished book trailer
If you run Facebook ads, you’ve probably heard that videos tend to perform better than images. More importantly, videos allow you to create custom audiences based on the people who watch them.
“sure, but I can’t afford to produce a video trailer just to run ads!”
actually, yes you can. With the tools available today, it’s pretty easy to create a trailer. For example, Pond5 allows you to purchase amazing stock videos at a very reasonable price. and a tool like lumen5 can help you turn your ad into a trailer. combine the two and you can end up with a professional looking video that will improve your ad performance.
And those are our eight innovative and affordable steps! We’ll keep updating this post as we find more great ideas! In the meantime, make sure you’ve laid the groundwork by implementing all the fundamentals of book marketing.
See Also: 23 Books To Teach Diversity To Elementary & Middle School Students