When the manuscript is finished, it is but the first step before the book can hit the store shelves. Next comes editing, book cover design, book interior design and formatting as well as ISBN registration and publishing. And, this is the easy part!
Promotion and marketing are the hardest part. The big publishing sites are pushing out thousands of books a day. Therefore, it's very hard to promote new books with a few or no ratings, less than 100 reviews, and less than a few thousand sales.
But in order to get high rates and reviews, the book has to sell as many copies as possible. But how can it be done when readers are not aware of the book? The only solution is to promote the book every way possible.
Let's look at different types of book promotion methods:
NEWSLETTER CAMPAIGNS
It sounds great when a promoter tells you that they send out your book to 15,000 readers, doesn't it?
The truth:
Reputable, effective, long-standing newsletter services such as BookBub are very choosy, and they will only accept books that have many positive reviews and 4 or higher rating. Their service is pricey; it can easily cost $600 for one book promotion, which very few authors can afford, but those who can afford it report success.
We tried on a smaller scale:
We had over 3,000 subscribers to our newsletter, but this promo idea proved to be ineffective. After a few newsletters to readers about free and bargain books, the authors reported lots of free book downloads. But when we started promoting mostly regular price books, the newsletter opening rate drastically dropped because readers expected to see only free books. After the fifth newsletter to over 3000 readers, only about 14% opened the mail, most of the readers unsubscribed, and only 1-2% clicked on a few links.
MARKETING SERVICES
Well established book marketing services are effective. Their team of experts work tirelessly on promoting books to readers, book stores, and they use effective methods. They help the authors to write catchy blurbs and teasers, they create professional book trailers, they promote the books in newsletters, newspapers and so on.
The truth:
We did some research and the sad truth is that very few authors can afford this kind of service. Some sites charge $2,000 a month, others charge even more. The majority of the great, yet undiscovered authors don't even make that much money a month with their regular, full time jobs, and the money they make goes to support their families. They write in their free time because they're talented and passionate about writing. Therefore, this effective book marketing option is open only to a fe authors who can afford it.
The difficulties of book marketing and promotion