Independent Publishing: How to Market Your Independent Book

Did you know that self-publishing has grown since 2018? Are you pursuing the independent publishing route? If you want to learn some tips on how to market your book, we can help.

In this guide, we’ll go over how to market an independent book.

Want to learn more? Keep reading.

What Is Your Brand?

When beginning to market your new book, you’ll need to consider your brand. Try to build your brand.

Readers will want to know who you are and learn about your background. What books do you love to read? What kind of books will you plan to write?

Work hard to build a relationship with your audience. You can create a brand persona.

Build Your Website

You will need to work on a website. The website is where you will begin to build your brand persona. It’s a place where people can learn more about you. Your website is where people will visit to learn about your book.

Make sure you include a professional author photo, biography, and little excerpts from your book. You should also include a link to buy your new book.

Will you offer an audiobook to readers? You’ll need a narrator to read your audiobook. Some authors will look into reading audiobooks as well.

Create a Launch Team

Before you launch your book, you’ll need to create a street team.

Your street team is a group of engaged and dedicated book fans who will help you make your launch a success. You want to look for readers who love your particular genre.

Where Do You Find the Team?

If you have a small circle following you at the moment, you should try to start branching out. Look at connecting with other book lovers on different social media platforms.

Reach out to your fellow authors. Connect with old friends from college, fellow volunteers, or work colleagues.

Some of those individuals might want to be part of your launch team. They will feel excited about your book and want to share it with their audience.

Once you brainstorm, you can create a potential list of launch members.

Start the Recruitment Process

After you figure out your potential members, you’ll want to start the recruitment process. It would help if you began to gauge the interest level of potential members.

When searching for people to join your street team, you want to find quality members. Look for a dedicated team.

You can create a questionnaire for interested members to fill out. This will help you understand why they would like to be part of your street team.

Ask people why they would like to support you. Find out information about why the individual finds your book interesting.

Are there unique skills that the individual could offer? What’s the person’s available time commitment? Are there some influential people the members could end up connecting with in the future?

Think about how you can encourage people to sign up. Offer a free signed copy. You could also offer a highlight in the Acknowledgements section at the back.

Welcome Your New Street Team Members

You’ll want to welcome your new supporters by sending them a video. Congratulate the new members on getting selected. Thank them for their help.

Explain your mission for the book and your expectations. In this video, try and make a personal connection with your launch team. Show them why you decided to create the team.

How Will You Communicate With Your Team?

The main secret to success for your launch is communicating with your street team. You should keep your team updated. Provide new ideas, progress, or different tasks to complete.

Make a goal to send an email once a week before your book launch. During the launch week, you might want to send out a couple of emails.

You can use a Facebook or Twitter group to share ideas, engage, or provide feedback. Make your expectations clear about how people should communicate. Ask them to keep their conversations positive and focused.

Boost the atmosphere of the group by posting encouraging gifs or funny pictures. Treat your street team well. They will feel appreciated and want to work hard to support you and your book.

Give Street Team Members Fun Assignments

To engage your street team and market your book, come up with little assignments. You should choose assignments that will help you launch your book.

Make sure you’re gracious and thankful. Your street team will be happy to support you and complete the little tasks.

Most authors will use Facebook Groups as a spot to highlight new team assignments.

Ask your street team members to submit their reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.

Your members can share your book on social media channels or a book review on their YouTube channel. Some street team members might even have some unique book marketing ideas.

If street team members have special talents, you could ask them to do something specific. Manage your team well by assigning them skill-based assignments.

When you first connect with your team, you should post that comment if anyone has unique talents. You can ask them how they might use their skills or connections to boost your book launch.

Use These Marketing Tips for Independent Publishing

We hope this guide on how to market your self-published book was helpful. If you pursue the independent publishing route, you will need to market your book.

Consider starting a street team. The passionate book lovers will help sell your book before the big launch.

Are you looking for more helpful marketing tips? Check out our different resources on the blog today.