Anybody has experience in marketing a self-published book?

Anybody has experience in marketing a self-published book?

I know I can upload the book via kindle, but how do you do the initial marketing?

Its not like one can just upload on kindle and expect to be read.

How does it work then?

What will you post on twitter or fb everyday.
Its not like you can tweet update info about the book, like you do with blogs.
With a blog, we can post a link to the new blog post whenever we write one, one or two every week.
But novels take months to write.

So then what do you tweet or blog about?
Can't tweet, my dog is licking my foot...

Anybody has any experience marketing a book?

 

Your question is way too broad here.

I self-published two books back in the mid 1990's long before a viable internet. What I did will likely not help you.

My books were technical manuals printed by two local firms. To advertise them I went to trade shows, ran ads in trade magazines, and had it included in a list of trade books sold by a trade magazine. Even though I made lots of money from them I still have hundreds of copies of the first while the second sold out. Third was never completed and never will be.

If your dog is preventing you from tweeting, get rid of the dog.

 

That in itself can be a great book title.

 

@qwikad.com
Yip, it can be a good title, if Kim Kardashian is the author!
I heard she released a book with almost just selfis.

 

@mmerlinn
I was thinking about a fiction thriller.
Long ago I started a crime thriller, never completed it. Thinking about doing it now.

 

One book I have on Kindle I took the first chapter, turned it into a PDF, and I give that away. It has links to the full book on Kindle.

You can also take one book of a series and give it away for marketing purposes. A lot of that going on right now.

 

Some one very close to me self-published a book in UK.
The person in charge of the publishing company was a very very nice guy and I am sure did all that he could to promote the book.
However, there were minimum printing charges and other costs which piled up over time.

Most importantly, the access to the high street book shops is limited to the established publishers, who deeeeeeeply discount the books for the retail shops!

This was about 10 years ago and of course the online sales are another factor now.

Even so, it is brave to self publish a book.
It can work of course but it is a difficult road to travel.

 

@mytechiestuff
I know its very difficult to self publish, specially marketing it.

@JoeSpirit
Thanks for the idea. This is surely beneficial.

 

I like this answer and suggestion.

 

According to me, you can do bellow things
- Promote via local e-commence sites
- Try to share few topic or information in free ebooks sites
- Google doc may help you to get some more conversion if you share some information and provide your ebook link
- Try to find out some relevant site and share info about your book
- Use some good directory

 

@uday_yadav2
Thanks for the suggestions. However I don't think any of those will work. I don't know many book readers who visit directories or ebook sharing sites.
Most are using kindle and social media websites only for reading and recos.

 

First of all, I’d like to congratulate you for pursuing a self-publishing journey. Be it in the academe or not, not all authors are as determined and less egotistical as self-published ones. I hope they don’t misinterpret my valid, accurate/truthful depiction. Authors dismiss the works of self-published works, thinking those are second-rate quality materials. Going back to your case, I have a few ideas. First, have an organic and web traffic blog or website. Second, use social media. Observe what kind of posts and promotions get the most attention (likes, shares, and retweets). Third, the classic, get reviews for your book.

 

I suspect that this topic will be more difficult to market than self-publishing a "How To" or other technical/practical type of book. It has been a while, but I recall seeing websites devoted to helping authors write and get feedback on their fiction works. Those types of sites might be a place to start and, as important as anything, to see what other of these authors are doing for marketing. Facebook immediately comes to mind, of course, and especially if you can target any discussion groups that focus on fiction thrillers. Reddit may also be a place for marketing activities.

 

@EvelinChamplin034
Thanks for the suggestions! I understand that I will need a blog or a website. Problem is, what do I post on the blog every week, which is also related to the book?
I can post so many things about other stuff, next book, about my life etc etc. But I don't think that will help build a fan base for the book already finished and ready for selling...

 

@jrbiz
I agree. The "How to" non-fiction books are slightly easier in marketing. Fictional mystery books, I have no idea how to market them, except fb ads, like you also mentioned.

 

You could do a several things on a blog.

First, every month or so publish a short excerpt (maybe two paragraphs) of the book which would pique the interest of readers, then write about the possible directions that the story could go from there.

Second, you could do the same as the first but instead ask readers for their comments.

Third, you could serialize the whole book over a period of two or more years. In that case, I would not put whole chapters in one blog, but instead break up every chapter where the story changes, maybe five or six blogs, a month apart, for every chapter. The exciting last chapter I would not post at all. If done correctly, by the end of the first chapter or two, many readers would buy the book rather than waiting years to find out who did what to whom.

Fourth, you could write bits and pieces of the book and tell people why you wrote it that way and what you thought of writing but did not include in the book.

 

As far as FB, what with their ghosting posts these days, you can take an excerpt (like the chapter example mentioned earlier) and post it in a files section on a fan, group, or business page. Doesn't even have to be your page as long as the subject is related to your book.

That way it has an FB URL. They ghost you because they don't want people leaving the site.

They'll allow people to go from one FB page to another all day long. You can tell people about it in your timeline and avoid FB ad costs.

 

@mmerlinn
Many thanks! Brilliant ideas!

@JoeSpirit
I did not get this completely. FB allows people to post on other people's pages?
Thanks

 

Maybe I could be more clear. As an active member of a group, you can normally post into the files section of the group page. Or submit your content to the group admin. If it's related and good I doubt it would be rejected.

 

@JoeSpirit
Thanks, I understand now.