Lindsay - February 11, 2021For this week’s show, the three of us picked some of the book marketing tactics we’ve tried over the years and that ended up being duds for us. We thought this might be useful for those of you trying to figure out what’s worth spending your time on and what you can safely avoid. Keep in mind that some things that don’t work for one author will work for another (we even had that among the three of us), but if you’ve been on the fence about some of these tactics anyway, this may help you decide.
So the episode wasn’t a huge downer, at the end, we each shared a book marketing tactic that has worked for us over the years and continues to work for us.
Before that, we shared some of our news.
Jo talked about working on his epic fantasy and dealing with piles of snow in New Jersey.
Lindsay talked about her experience putting audiobooks up on YouTube. You can check out her channel here.
Andrea talked about getting a nanny to help out with her kids in the mornings so she can get more work done.
Marketing tactics that we discussed (that were duds for us):
- Trying to use non-fiction (blog posts, podcasts, etc.) to sell your fiction.
- Book trailers.
- Google/Goodreads ads.
- Accepting a Bookbub sponsorship in a category that isn’t right for your book.
- Social media gimmicks like the “Thunderclap.”
- Wattpad.
- Facebook events and giveaways of e-readers/iPads.
- Collaborations with creators of other media.
- Bookbub ads.
- Anything marketing that isn’t in your voice.
What we have found worth our time:
- Giving away free Book 1s (or novellas/short stories related to the series we’re trying to sell).
- Having conversations with your fans on social media and elsewhere.
- Creating a small group of like-minded authors in your genre for group promotion efforts.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for listening, and thanks to Joshua Pearson for producing the show!
