Authors often consider that writing a book is the most difficult part of a book’s journey. Well, it’s not. A book’s journey can be divided into three major stages: Writing, Publishing and Marketing. In other words, if you have written a book, you have completed just the first stage of the book’s journey. The next stage is publishing the book.
Before you go ahead with publishing your book, here is the homework that you must do in order to market your book well when it is finally available for sale:
Do Your Market Research –
You must know your readers. In other words, you should know the demographics of your target audience. For example, if yours is a romance novel the target would be people in the age group 16 to 28 and it can be sold to both males and females in any part of the country.
To understand how would you brand your book, you must research how other bestselling books in the same genre have gained popularity. The best way to know what are the top bestsellers in your genre is to check out the amazon bestseller list. Research about the authors on Google to see how they have arrived at the top spot.
Select the Theme of Your Book Cover –
Discover the common themes of the book cover been used in your genre of writing. Ex. A romance novel would be having a couple with happy or sad expressions depending upon the ending of the story in the book. Similarly, a crime thriller would use more red color to showcase the blood, danger or suspense involved in the story.
Pre-decide about the theme, color or situation to be used in the cover to help the cover designer make a fantastic book cover for you.
Choose a Title & Subtitle for your Book –
A title should be as crisp as possible. A long title makes it difficult for readers to remember it while searching for it on Google. Search on Amazon or Google Play Books if a book with a similar title is already there. If yes, prefer choosing a title that is unique and has not been used. Try to avoid using a subtitle for fiction books, it is often used for non-fictional books where the writer has to be more specific about the subject.
Curate a Great Book Description (Blurb) –
A reader often reads the back cover content before making his buying decision. Your back cover should have the author’s bio and book’s description in not more than 300 words collectively. Keep the author’s bio to the point. Simply include your achievements, dream and your background. The book’s description should be curated in a way that it tells the reader about the theme, story of the book and must leave the reader curious about the book.
Setup Your Social Media Profiles –
Setting up your Author profile on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter is very important these days. You have to create your profile well in advance before the book is out in the market. Post several one-liners, excerpts and dialogues from the book to create curiosity in the reader’s mind and persuade them to buy and read the book when it is finally released.
Create Your Book Marketing Plan –
A good book publisher always offers you a great marketing plan which is designed as per your requirements and budget. However, it is advisable to have your own marketing plan as well before you go ahead for publishing your book. This will help you harmonize your marketing plan with the publisher’s marketing strategies and create a grand promotion for your book pre and post-publishing.
Here is a list of 12 Book Marketing Tips to Boost Your Book Sales
2 thoughts on “6 Things You Must Do Before Publishing Your Book”