Book Promotion Services and Sites (That Won’t Break the Bank)
Examples of Book Promotion Sites and What They Offer to Authors
Sites that offer online services are part of your overall book marketing plan
I want to share actual, tangible ideas for marketing your book with my Get Your Book Seen and Sold Substack audience. I have written a lot about the traditional marketing starting points, the basics and the fundamentals that once completed will be used again and again: identifying your audience, your message, your hook, then preparing your media kit items, and finally pitching to media contacts. Those tasks are crucial for successful book marketing. But there are also opportunities to promote your book through online sites that exist to promote books.
Many of the online sites that I will mention offer several different services that an author can purchase to promote his/her book. Gosh, guys, there are a lot of sites that offer such services out there. I could never research them all, but when I come across a site that I DO research and think their services are worthwhile, I am going to share it with you. No guarantees, though. Use the services at your own risk. Agreed? There is time and money involved here and most authors have a limited amount of both.
As a reminder, in the larger book marketing sense, deciding to invest in a “book promotion opportunity” is part of the overall “marketing plan” for your book. Promotion is as much a part of your book marketing plan as reaching out to media contacts with a pitch. We will cover “book marketing plan” further in future articles. Right now, let’s get back to promotion opportunities and the sites that offer them.
Book Promotion Site ideas:
Book Promotion Sites Explained: Two Sides and as a Business Model
Most of the sites that offer book promotion products have two sides to them. There is the side that serves a reader. The site is a community where readers can find books, interact with authors, and interact with other readers. And then there is a side that offers book promotion products to authors (and publishers) who would like to take advantage of the fabulous database of readers that the site has assembled. What’s more, if you are a published author (you actually have an exiting book for sale) you can become part of the site as (1) an author with a profile page (2) as a reader and (3) as a buyer. This concept of “two sides to the site” will make more sense once you begin to use the site and perhaps take advantage of one of the site’s book promotion offerings.
The easiest example I could probably give you for this type of site is Amazon. We all know that Amazon is a place where we can buy books. Amazon is also a place where as an author you can create an author page with information about yourself and link to the books that you have written. Amazon is also a place where you can purchase ads, you can offer discounts, and you can take advantage of featured book opportunities - these are the promotion services that Amazon offers as a fee to authors.
If you think about the business model of such an organization, it makes perfect sense. The organization collects an amazing database of readers (or purchasers) and offers that amazing database to authors and publishers who want to sell to that database. The readers get what they want in terms of the latest book releases, information about their favorite authors, specials, etc. and the authors (and publishers) have a ready-made customer base for the books they are trying to sell. It is a win-win. The trick for the authors (and publishers) who choose to invest in the promotion services through the site is to pick the best ads, promotions, and special deals, for the money. Further, the sites are always coming out with new, exciting promotion ideas for authors with new ways to connect a book with a buyer. It can be overwhelming to navigate the site, and decide where you will participate but the creativity in promotional services offered is exciting, too. My advice is to take one step at a time and focus on one site at at a time.
Examples of sites that offer book promotion services
I will list a few of the organizations that I described above here and I will summarize them to the best of my ability or link to sites that do a better job than I do in the coming weeks and month’s Substack posts. As you determine your marketing plan, the simple knowledge that these resources exist for you to invest to promote your book is important information for you. As well, these promotion services are available to you wether you are a self publisher or if you plan to work with a traditional publisher on your marketing campaign.
Some of the Organizations I plan to research to start include:
If you know of sites that offer terrific promotion services for your books and have found success with them please feel free to leave a comment with your experience. Thank you!
I’ll start my research with Book Bub as one of the sites that offer promotion opportunities for authors. I’ll be chatting about it and my use of it…coming soon.
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