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MenuWhat are the best practices for marketing a book?
I hear about landing pages, paid ads, etc. but what about pre-testing chapters?
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Such a great question, and one that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out with the last four books that I published. There are several ways that marketing a book can be done, but only a few ways that make the process fairly simple and give you the results you want.
Wattpad is a great way to test out your chapters and build a following online. When you create an account and profile with them you have the opportunity to publish your book one chapter at a time, two chapters at a time, or the whole book at a time.
What you'll find as you build a following is people are anxiously waiting for you to publish new material, and you can easily direct them to any published works on Amazon and other platforms such as Kobo or B&N,
You will still face the same challenges on Wattpad that you do on any other platform when it comes to building an audience, and growth can be slow, which is why I always recommend that you build a loyal list of subscribers so you have a built-in audience to promote to.
I've sampled plenty of authors' newsletters, and many of them will offer sneak peeks and first chapters to their fans who are eagerly waiting for the author's next release.
Not only does this engage their audience by asking them for feedback once they have read the sample chapters, but it builds buzz for the release of the book, and if your subscribers go so far as to share the chapters with others so much the better.
Pre-testing chapters can also be done with a launch team or street team. This is a group of people who have signed up to review your ARC (Advance Reader Copies) and give you feedback on your latest works. They also help get the word out about your book through their social media accounts and through the reviews they leave for your books on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
My launch team does a stellar job of reading my books and having reviews ready to post on release day. This is how I am able to get up to sixty reviews within a week of a book's release. I also have a large mailing list of eager fans who want that next book. So my marketing always includes that built-in audience
So yes! Pre-testing chapters on platforms that allow for this can get you some great exposure, but using this strategy with an actual list of loyal subscribers is a far better way to tackle that particular marketing strategy.
Yes, you should absolutely pre-test your chapters, and it can be a great way to market your book.
I'm not personally familiar with Wattpad, and it looks like activity is sparse for my genre. I instead tested my book directly to my audience, and it helped a lot with marketing.
Here's exactly how to test your content and market your book in the way that I did in order to write "The Heart to Start:"
1. Publicly announce a writing challenge for yourself. I set up a landing page with my outline, and promised a chapter a day for 30 days to anyone who signed up to my email list. ConvertKit is a good email marketing platform for authors, but I use ActiveCampaign, despite it being much more complicated. I have some content online about why, if you run a search.
2. Do the writing challenge, emailing chapters or sections to your readers on the planned schedule. Ask for feedback at the end of each email. It's okay if you write ahead of schedule to take some of the pressure off. I personally scheduled the following week's emails at the end of each week.
3. When your first draft is finished, put it on a Google Doc. Allow comments from anyone on the doc (but not editing). Send it to your email list and tell them you'd love their comments and edits. (You can do an edit before this, as well). Tell them you'll put them in your acknowledgements if you use one of their edits. If you're lucky like me, there will be discussion amongst readers on your book, and you'll get a good free editing job.
4. When you launch your book, you now have a bunch of people who have already read it. I personally offered my book for free for the first several days. At the very least, put it on Amazon for free just long enough for those early readers to snag a copy. You'll see why in a second.
5. Ask your early readers for reviews. They've already read your book, and if they picked it up for free on Amazon, they're now in the system as "Verified Purchases." When they review, it will say so next to their names, which makes their reviews more effective.
There you have it. Yes, those first readers got your book for free, but you got feedback, editing, and Amazon reviews out of it. That's more than a fair trade!
And that's a good best practice for marketing your book. The rest depends upon your genre. As a non-fiction author, I try to get on podcasts and write blog posts as well.
I hope that helps. Feel free to book a call if you have questions about details.
Related Questions
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If you wrote a book to send a message out to the world, is it OK to give it for free or to charge for it?
This is a hugely important question. Thanks for asking it. You have to first understand the goal of your book. Book sales are a terrible return on investment for 99.99% of authors. The real value is in growing your business and creating new opportunities for more substantial returns. You can often put the same amount of energy into selling a book (and gaining a few bucks) as you would into creating a new client (depending on your business that can be substantial revenue). So know your goals. If your goal is to use your book as a lead generator for your business, then sure, you want to make it available for sale wherever people buy books (at least online), but you want to get that book into the hands of as many potential clients as possible. So plan on giving away lots of them for free. To do that, you're going to need a printing partner who knows how to get you fantastic bulk discount rates so you're spending no more than a few bucks a book. What you also have to consider is that if your book is going to be your calling card, it has to be exceptional. Not good. Not alright. But exceptional. It has to capture the essence of you. Your voice has to resound through the writing. And it has to be a page turner. So hire the right expert or team to help to ensure you are showing off your brand in a way that excites the kind of people you want to attract. Feel free to get in touch with me for more thoughts in this direction. This is the world I live in. Big Love, CoreyCM
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How can I grow an email list of 100 people to a list of thousands of qualified leads?
Obviously you need to generate more leads. But then you need to segment your list. Your basic list are those leads who "come aboard" and want to know what's going on. Your qualified leads list are your potential buyers. Between the two, you need a gate. So, they come on your big list. Then they need to get something that qualifies them from being a basic prospect to being a qualified prospect. That puts them on the second list. Leads >> Qualifier >> Qualified Leads. What's the topic of your book? Qualify by things people have said in similar book reviews. This is a lot easier if you are doing non-fiction, but it's possible with fiction as well. In the reviews you'll see people saying things like, "I bought this book because..." What they say after that is the pain point. Use this language, as they wrote it, in your qualifier. For example, in a review for SPIN Selling, someone says, " I don't do "hit and run," one-time sales. Tom Hopkins and Zig Ziglar offer great tactics for those kind of salespeople, but they don't work for me." Another says, "...I had no idea how to sell professionally. I had already read a few books by Tom Hopkins, but felt he was targeting used-car salesmen types. It seems as though Hopkins' techniques relied on "closing" gimmicks when it came down to it. (I must say I did learn some good principles from Hopkins, but his gimmicky style is not for me.) I was instantly attracted to SPIN SELLING when I saw that (1) it was based on extensive research, and (2) it dealt primarily with the large sale. Since I want to start my own corporation after my MBA, and want to have Fortune-500 companies as my customers, I realized SPIN SELLING was for me." See the commonality? So if I was launching a solid B2B sales techniques book, I would make use of this language. First, I would attract them to my basic list with the promise of a corporate B2B sales book. Then, I would qualify further with language like, "Are you looking to build real relationships with your customers, instead of hit-and-run one-time sales tricks? Are you eager to understand the secrets of professional corporate selling?" A Call To Action would follow. Those who respond to this language are qualified leads, as salespeople in other situations would not resonate with that copy. How can you transfer what I've shown you here to your niche? If you're writing non-fiction, as I said, it should be straightforward. If it's fiction, then you can find similar stories and pull from the reviews for those...the things they say they like about the author's style (assuming yours is like theirs), the story structure, the excitement, the thought process, or whatever. Why not just go straight for the qualified leads? Because your net won't be big enough. Better to grab a whole lot of interested readers, which you can make use of later as well, and qualify from there.JK
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As an author, how can I get people to subscribe to my newsletter?
What value do THEY get from subscribing to your newsletter? The answer should be: "lots of value, and I make it obvious to readers in language they care about." I've written two how-to books. In each, I point to a book-specific landing page with resources. For my first (on public speaking as a form of business development), I describe the resources as templates that will save them 20-50 hours of work. In my second book (on managing marketing & creative teams), it's how the templates will help them become a better manager. Throughout each book, I have relevant Call to Action (CTA) blocks that point to the resources—an easy "sell" for how-to non-fiction. If you write fiction, think about what would be compelling. Perhaps your subscribers get first updates about your next book, and private updates about your progress on the writing process (similar to what some Kickstarter campaigns will do). Make it about value to them, and signups will follow. I'm glad to do a call to discuss further. Good luck!KS
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I'm selling books on Ebay Australia for $25, postage is $3. How do I sell globally on Ebay & Amazon when postage is $25 or more?
Have you considered providing the book in electronic format. If somebody wants the book and are willing to pay the shipping fee, they get the paper copy, otherwise, it's a download.JS
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Are there competitors to Whattpad (besides Amazon)?
Here are some lists I found. Do you think that the competitors listed here are true competitors or just similar? https://datafox.com/competitors/wattpad http://www.startupranking.com/wattpad/competitors https://www.owler.com/iaApp/108863/wattpad-competitorsTC
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