How to Market Your Novel
- Cully Perlman
- 6 days ago
- 12 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Even if you're published by the big publishers, you're going to need to learn how to market your novel online, in print, and via other means, including reading in public.
Marketing your novel, both before and after it’s published, is one of the most crucial (and annoyingly difficult) things that you, the author, must undertake if you plan on selling your books. Marketing is about promotion and it is about attracting readers, the goal being to have readers purchase your book. In order to do so, you have to understand what readers are searching for, and how you, the author, can fulfill that need. This post is about steps you can take to get your book out there, and it’s about what you must present to readers/consumers once they’re aware of what you’re selling. You’re a writer, but in this world, unfortunately, you’re wearing another hat as well: Salesperson.
To give you a quick picture of how I know this works for products: I hold an MBA in Market Strategy and International Business and have worked at 3 of the top 4 advertising companies/digital agencies in North America for nearly twenty years. Some of the clients I’ve worked with include Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, HON, Danone, Home Depot, LG, and others Fortune 100 companies. That said, I hate performing marketing activities for my own work. But, here are some tactical things you may consider implementing into your book marketing activities:
Have an Author/Book Website
You are your brand. Your readers (and hopefully future readers) need to know who you are, and what you represent. In your case, you represent books that readers will find compelling. Your website (if you have a novel or collection of short stories already out there) should present your book in an appealing way, and it should have a link(s) to where your site visitors may purchase your work.
Metadata
Metadata is important for SEO. There’s different types of metadata, but it basically lets people searching on google and other search engines more easily find your book if they’re entering specific topics and keywords by tagging your blog posts or other posts in general. According to Wikipedia:
Descriptive metadata – the descriptive information about a resource. It is used for discovery and identification. It includes elements such as title, abstract, author, and keywords.
Structural metadata – metadata about containers of data and indicates how compound objects are put together, for example, how pages are ordered to form chapters. It describes the types, versions, relationships, and other characteristics of digital materials.
Administrative metadata – the information to help manage a resource, like resource type, and permissions, and when and how it was created.
Reference metadata – the information about the contents and quality of statistical data.
Statistical metadata – also called process data, may describe processes that collect, process, or produce statistical data.
Legal metadata – provides information about the creator, copyright holder, and public licensing, if provided.
Metadata is not strictly bound to one of these categories, as it can describe a piece of data in many other ways.
Keywords and SEO
As mentioned above, SEO is critical to your marketing activities, and organic SEO of White Hat SEO means you’re including keywords and keyword strings in your marketing activities. If your novel is about a mad professor who loves dragons and microcomputers, you’ll want to use those words (and others) that are related to your book. Most blogging software contain areas that assist you when you’re making sure to optimize your content for search engines and their SERPs (search engine results pages). But you should also make sure to incorporate keywords wherever possible. There are tools online that can help you select your words based on the number of daily/monthly searches people do on certain keywords. Give it a go and see what you find.
Social Media
Social media is the most obvious (and “free”) place to get the word out there on your novel.
Facebook is probably the easiest and most natural place for authors to post their marketing posts and to interact with their readers directly. I primarily post on Facebook because I’m part of a great many groups geared towards writers and readers. It’s easy to share (as it is on other platforms), and if you have a lot of friends and followers, you’ll personally reach readers who feel closer to you than perhaps on other platforms.
X (which used to be Twitter and is owned by Elon Musk), is a quick way to share a link and a few words. I tend to just blast my blog posts on all of the social media platforms I have and then set and forget them. But you may want to interact more with your audience if they seem interested in having a conversation about your novel.
You can share photos or short-form videos of your book/book trailer or you or whatever you want to share. Same with YouTube, if you have a YouTube channel, which is a good way to discuss your novel and work. It also tends to show up pretty well when it comes to search.
Every week (almost) I post my blog post on Pinterest, just like I do on Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Facebook. By now, it’s just part of what I do. These platforms allow you to track the number of views your posts receive, but whether or not you’re going to see much of an uptick in your sales depends on a lot of factors that are out of your control. I don’t see much impact on my sales from it, but the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) aspect of posting on any platform will help you get your face and product out there. Choose your social media platforms wisely, as you’ll have to devote time to each, which can lead to marketing overload depending on how much free time you can devote to your marketing activities.
I post a blog post every Tuesday or Wednesday, week after week, year after year. I don’t miss a week. It’s just something I do, and I enjoy it because it keeps me “in the know,” and, I believe, just helps my writing in general as I do research for each blog post I write. LinkedIn is a professional networking site, and it’s also one of the sites I post a link to my most recent post on so that visitors can read my latest post. There are plenty of writing groups on LinkedIn, and I’m a member of a lot of them. They’re private, but you can join them easily enough. LinkedIn also allows you to post on pretty much every group page, whereas some of the other social media sites won’t allow you to promote yourself or your book. They’re pretty strict about that, so LinkedIn is a good choice if you don’t want to battle the gatekeepers on sites like Facebook, where writing group administrators often reject your proposed post.
TikTok
Book Tok, a subcommunity on Tik Tok, is apparently watched by 56.8 million users. I personally don’t use Tik Tok, but many authors swear by it, and a certain number of authors have sold a lot of books off the platform. The group started in 2019 and has been going strong ever since. Book Tok has caught the eyes of not only readers but publishers, especially in genre fiction, in particular young adult fiction, fantasy, and romance. Read up on Book Tok and Tik Tok in general if you don’t know anything about it. There’s some controversy to what Tik Tok collects from its users, and so you may not want to participate on the platform. Then again, you may.
Goodreads
Goodreads has been around nearly twenty years. It’s a subsidiary of Amazon, so it has the muscle and money to make it a valuable platform for authors and their works. The site has more than 150 million members, and a pretty easy user interface, meaning it isn’t that difficult to use at all. The site features Book Discovery (through friend recommendations), Reading Challenges, Content Access, End-of-Year Reading Reviews, and other neat features and benefits to users that may interest authors trying to sell their books. Some complaints about users manipulating reviews have been around for a while, but that sort of thing goes on on other platforms as well.
Excerpts
Whenever I hear about a book from someone or read something about a new book coming out the first thing I do is look for an excerpt on Amazon or some other site. If I can’t read an excerpt, the chances of me shelling out money to buy the book is pretty much zero. There are too many books published each year for me to buy a book whose style I can’t experience, if even just for a few pages. So, put out excerpts in blogs, or on Amazon, or wherever you can. Don’t give away half the book, but readers want to know if they’ll enjoy the book and excerpts along with interviews and the copy on the book itself are excellent ways to let prospective readers know if your book is for them.
Book Giveaways
Book giveaways are fun. Goodreads does them all the time. Authors do them on social media. It gets people excited about the potential of winning something, even if they don’t know who you are or have any experience in what you’ve published. It’s also a great way to capture email addresses while you’re creating an email list for your email campaigns, which will keep you around prospective buyers of your work. There’s a rule called the “Rule of 7” in marketing that states that consumers purchase a product after they see or interact with a product 7 times. Obviously that’s not exact—it can range from 3 to 20 times. But the conclusion of studies says exposure to something prior to purchase averages 7.
Interviews
I’ve been approached by fiction podcasters and publications to do literary podcast interviews, and I’ve approached authors for me to interview them. It’s a fun way to get to know someone and their work, and it also provides prospective readers to get a feeling of who the author is as a person. Personally, I enjoy listening to and reading author interviews for a number of reasons. I get to hear the author’s perspective on the writing life, on the influences that make up their works, and sometimes on the “tips and tricks” of how they achieve what they achieve. If you can get someone to interview you (or maybe get someone that you can interview and then publish in a respected journal), you’ll get your name out there, which can lead to sales but also lead to your becoming a figure in the literary world people know and respect. Which will lead to more sales.
Press Release
Some press releases are free, but you’ll probably have to pay for the majority of them if you’re to get the most out of your release. There are plenty of services out there—just google “Book press release” and you’ll see what I mean. I won’t promote any of the companies here, but do your research on what each company offers, and check out the success rates/customer ratings out there to see if their services are going to be worth your money. As authors, most of us are on a limited budget, if we have any budget at all. So, do your homework before entering your credit card information. There’s nothing worse than getting zero return on investment (ROI) on your marketing spend.
Guest Posts
On my blog, I occasionally have guest posts by other published novelists. It provides the with exposure to my audience, but it also provides me, the blogger, with content and new perspectives on the same topics that I write about. It also draws new eyes. I have had posts by friends who’ve brought decent amounts of traffic that I would not otherwise have had, and the guest bloggers seem to enjoy it as well, as they can promote their work not only to their audience but to mine as well.
Book Promotion Websites
I’m not big on book promotion websites that promise you the world. They cost a lot and I’m doubtful about any of their success stories, as I’ve heard and read a lot of horror stories where they just take your money, post your book on different sites (as you could do on your own), and that’s about it. But there may be some out there that are more reputable than the ones I’ve heard about. Pay at your own risk.
Reading/Speaking Events
Reading and speaking events and being on novelist/writing panels are a great way to set yourself up as a subject matter expert and/or get yourself in front of people who’ll buy your book. There are plenty of opportunities out there at bookstores (Indie bookstores are great about letting local authors read), but don’t ever be afraid to reach out to the big chains in your neighborhood either. My first reading was at Books and Books in Coral Gables Florida, but I’ve also read at Barnes and Noble and literary festivals and other events. Just go to the Google! and search for reading events, fiction panels, and so on and see what might work for you and your novel.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your readers and to sell them your books. But you have to offer something to your readers/prospective buyers in order for them to be interested in visiting your site (you should always put a link to your website in your emails) and buying your book. Maybe provide a free chapter to your next book. Or a free book contest. Or Monthly or bi-weekly writing advice. Or whatever you think will interest the people who sign up to receive your emails. My advice is to never overdo it. There’s nothing quite as annoying and likely to get your recipient to unsubscribe as authors who provide nothing of value and do it too often. The goal is to build a rapport with your email recipients. Sometimes, less really is more.
Amazon Advertising
Yes, you can pay Amazon to sell your books (and anything else, really). Here’s Google’s AI pitch: “Amazon Ads allow authors and publishers to advertise their books to reach potential buyers on Amazon and other relevant platforms. Authors can use Amazon Ads to promote their Kindle books and print books through Sponsored Products and other ad types.” But again, any monies you pay out directly affect what you’re bringing in by selling your books.
Podcasts
If you listen to podcasts at all, you know there are good and popular podcasts, and there are poorly run and irrelevant podcasts. You have to decide where you’ll spend your time and if it’s time well spent when doing a literary podcast. Penguin’s put together a list of 39 of the best literary and book podcasts for book lovers you may want to check out. But there are plenty other ones out there. Search for ones that cater to the type of book(s) you write, but don’t be afraid to chase the whales either.
Blogs
The blog you’re reading right now? That’s my blog. I blog weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays for a number of reasons. I’m a marketer, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy marketing my book (I have one book published right now, and ten on the backburner, or at least in varying stages of rewrites). I like to write. I don’t want to then go market my book, as that takes time away from my love of writing. I understand writers’ need to sell sell sell! But I’m not in it for the money or fame or whatever. I want to write books that I’d enjoy reading, and my goal is to write books that people continue to read long after I’m gone. But blogging is a great way to build your audience. Search Engines pick up blog posts that are rich in keywords and that have content that is valuable and original. No, I don’t know Google’s algorithm, and neither will you. But I have some pretty high ranking blog posts and images, and a lot of it is just luck. So, I get traffic, but I’m not going to get rich from my posts. And like I said, I do it because I enjoy it but also because I believe in sending the elevator back down when it comes to writing. Plus, it keeps me sharp in terms of the craft.
I hope the above has provided you with a little bit of knowledge and some helpful tips and tricks in terms of marketing your book and marketing you as an author. But remember, these things take work. They require consistency and patience and, if you’re going all out, it’ll also require money. But there are plenty of things you can do without spending a cent. Try some of the above. Get yourself a website (you can do that pretty affordably with free blog software and a few bucks to set up your domain). And you have to be in this for the long haul. You shouldn’t expect to have tons of traffic or sales when you first get going. It happens, but it’s a fluke. You’re a writer. You’re a reader. Time is not your friend. Time is your friend. Just keep at it, and adjust the things you do, focusing on what works and avoiding what doesn’t. Good luck!
Cully Perlman is author of The Losses, a novel. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com
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