The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

  • Write A Novel
  • Write Non-Fiction
  • Publishing
  • Marketing
  • Make a Living Writing
  • Author Mindset
  • AI and Future Of Creativity
  • Start Here!
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Audio
  • Courses
  • Tools
  • About
    • Speaking
    • Press
  • Contact

Sell More Books And Reach More Readers. How To Market Your Book.

Authors have to do a lot of their own marketing.

That’s the reality of the publishing industry whether you get a publishing deal or you self-publish. But these days anyone can market globally using just a computer and their time. It will take effort but it doesn’t have to cost you much—and you might even enjoy it!

how to market a book

Everything I know about book marketing is available in the Amazon bestselling book How To Market A Book Third Edition. Click here to read more or buy links.

Below are lots of free articles, video and audio interviews and inspiration for marketing your books. [Please note: Some of the links below are affiliate links which means I make a small percentage of the sale if you buy through my link. I use all these services myself and only recommend those I trust, so I hope they are useful and you can always google them if you don't want to use my link. Thanks!]

(1) Start with the basics

Prerequisites for Author Marketing Success

The Book Marketing Mindset for Authors

Stop Worrying, Start Selling. Change Your Author Mindset with Sarah Painter

Book Cover Design. Your book cover is one of the most important aspects of marketing your book. If the cover isn't enticing or doesn't resonate with your genre, no amount of marketing will help sell your book. You will also use the book cover in other aspects of marketing e.g. paid ads, on your website and social media, so it's a foundational piece of book marketing.

list of book cover designers

Attract Readers with a Great Book Sales Description

Choose The Right Categories And Keywords For Your Book

Need help with choosing categories and keywords? Check out Publisher Rocket

Publisher Rocket

Ned help with researching the best categories and diving deep into genre reports? Check out K-lytics specific genre reports

klytics genre report

(2) Build your author platform with a website and email list

Tutorial: How to set up an author website 

How to build your author website

Tutorial: How to set up an email list 

How to set up your email list

Webinar replay with Nick Stephenson on how to build your email list and reach more readers

(3) Use your books to market your books

Pricing Books And The Use Of Free

How to Get Book Reviews

Writing a Series. Satisfy Readers and Make More Money with Lindsay Buroker

How to Structure and Write a Series with Sara Rosett

16 Ways to Market Your Audiobook

How to Get your Book into Libraries and Bookstores with Mark Leslie Lefebvre

(4) Paid advertising

Many authors now use aspects of paid advertising for marketing their books. You can use list services like Freebooksy, BargainBooksy, or BookBub Featured Deals, Pay per click ads like BookBub, Facebook, or Amazon Ads, or other forms of paid advertising.

But as with most things, it takes some time in to learn the skills. Here are some useful resources.

Starting from Zero and Success with BookBub Ads with David Gaughran

Free course on Amazon Advertising with Dave Chesson from Kindlepreneur

Premium course on Advertising for Authors with Mark Dawson

(5) Content marketing and social media

Content Marketing for Authors and Writers

Content Marketing Strategy with Pamela Wilson

Video Marketing for Authors

YouTube for Authors and Multiple Streams of Income with Meg La Torre

From Blog to Book and Repurposing Content with Amy Woods

How to be a great podcast guest

How to Podcast

5 ways to stand out as an author on social media

Mini course: Content Marketing for Fiction 

(6) Author branding and book marketing strategy

Building a Unique Author Brand with Gail Carriger

Building a Creative Business Brand with Pamela Wilson

Your Book Marketing Strategy

Aspects of a Book Launch

The Ultimate Guide to Launching Your Book — from the Alliance of Independent Authors

Book Marketing: Publicity Tips for your Book with Dana Kaye

Book Marketing Questions to Help you Sell More Books

How to Make Your Book a Perennial Seller with Ryan Holiday

How to Reboot a Flagging Author Career with Michaelbrent Collings

How to Take Your Author Career to the Next Level with Mark Dawson

Networking for Authors with Daniel Parsons

Want more help?

How to Market a Book Third Edition is out in ebook, print and audiobook editions.

How to market a book

If you'd like some more help on your author journey, check out:

  • My free Author 2.0 Blueprint ebook and video mini-series.
  • My Books for Authors
  • My Courses for Authors, including How to Write a Novel and How to Write Non-Fiction
  • The Creative Penn Podcast, interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing, book marketing and creative entrepreneurship every Monday
  • My videos at YouTube.com/thecreativepenn
  • Join the Alliance of Independent Authors for education, advocacy, help and networking with other indie authors

Books for Authors Feb 2021

Save

Save

Save

fb-share-icon
Tweet
Share

Connect with me on social media

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
© Copyright Joanna Penn. The Creative Penn Limited. All rights reserved.

Looking for something? Search this site with Google below

Inspiration and Information every Monday in The Creative Penn podcast

Thanks for visiting The Creative Penn

Most of the information on this site is free for you to read, watch or listen to, but The Creative Penn is also a business and my livelihood. So please expect hyperlinks to be affiliate links in many cases, when I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase. I only recommend tools, books and services that I either use or people I know personally. Integrity and authenticity continue to be of the highest importance to me. Read the privacy policy here. Read the Cookie policy here. I hope you find the site useful! Thanks - Joanna

Copyright © 2021 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in