Hi Reader,

Here's the second in a series I'm doing on book promotion, based on the questions the moderator asked the panel I sat on at the AWP conference. Today we tackle:

How do you know whether your book might benefit from a particular technique (i.e. a book tour, a blog tour, a social media campaign)?

In the first of this series, I emphasized knowing your comps and whether your book fits clearly into a particular niche or genre. Here we can see how that plays out.

First, in researching your comps you're going to see what other authors have done and whether it has worked for them. You're going to encounter writers, influencers, podcasts (etc.) that have reviewed or promoted them. You should be keeping track of these, and I mean in detail. Spreadsheets should be involved.

Start engaging with and promoting those outlets long before you ever approach them.

If your book is Amazon exclusive and fits into a clearly-defined genre, then you should absolutely participate in book promotion websites. I am talking about sites where you pay to give your book away for free or promote it when it goes on sale. This is even better if you have a series. If you can give away the first book as a "loss leader" this is the most proven technique to growing book sales. But not everyone falls into that category.

If you don't fit in, and you can't find a clear niche that you fit into, then you have to build something new. That is a lot more work. In that case you should lean more on advertising (to get traffic), SEO (to save money) and email (to keep people coming back). That is the case where you need to build your own platform.

Social media campaigns are best when your book is topical or can be tied into something people are actively talking about. Any way you can speak about what is relevant to your audience, do so. Don't sell books on social media. Talk about what interests your audience. They will find you that way, and find your books.

Ultimately there is going to be some trial and error. What works best for some authors won't work for others. Or you may fail at one platform only to discover your messaging was wrong and succeed at it on your second attempt. More on this in the next email!

Sincerely,

Karma Bennett
​WordPressBlogsForWriters.com​
​KarmaBennett.com​

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