hello and welcome back to my channel one of the questions that i get asked a lot is from
self-published authors published authors or aspiring authors and it's about how can they
market their book better so one of the things i thought about doing is creating a video like this
on youtube to talk about what it's like from my point of view working in marketing and pr
in a publishing house so being a self-published author and being traditionally published there
are some similarities and some differences but i'll try and highlight that throughout
this video so the way that traditional marketing works is you have a marketing and a pr department
and they will essentially be in charge of getting your book out there making people
aware that it's available to buy the difference with self-published authors is the fact that you
don't have a publishing house you don't have a representative and therefore you have to do a
lot of it yourself obviously depending on your budget you can outsource that to freelancers
but these are some of the things i'm going to talk about which might be helpful for you
to do yourself so my first lot of tips is knowing your basis getting the basics right
first of all you need to know your audience and then tailor your marketing and your publicity
accordingly so for example if you're writing a thriller book you're not going to want to send
that and pitch that to people that are under 10 years old likewise if it's a picture book you're
not going to want to be picturing that to people that are obviously not going to be reading picture
books so you're going to want to be pitching that to parents librarians teachers nursery teachers
so whether it's demographic whether it's their interest their genre who they're buying it for
whatever know your audience and then start tailoring it like that so you're seeing
everything through your audience's eyes the next thing is knowing your goals this will help you to
get off on the right foot and and continually monitor your progress throughout your journey
some authors goals isn't just to sell loads of books sometimes it's just recognition getting
their book out there sometimes it's views social media like a cover reveal or something like that
some authors just want reviews they want a load of review coverage to see what people thought about
their book and some people some authors want sales they want lots of books actually being
sold so they can make money from it so have this in mind throughout your journey as well so you
know what you're aiming for and then also the basics is knowing you and getting you right as
well make sure that you're being nice you're being really friendly publishing is a very small world
whether you're being traditionally published or not so the likelihood that you're going to bump
into someone that you've already met before is very very high therefore if you're an author at a
publishing house and then you move to a different publishing house for your second book word might
have got around if you're particularly rude or if if you had lots of problems my next thing is make
some buddies as i said the publishing industry is a very small world therefore you want to get
on with everyone you can and essentially you are your own brand you are the author of your book and
therefore you're gonna know your book the most out of everyone but this also means that you're
not going to want to be too pushy because everyone will know it's your book obviously
so if this book sellers for example it would be so lovely if you were to go into a bookshop and say
hi i'm this author you know if my book's in your store or can i can i get some in your store that's
more like a sales thing anyway but going in and making those relationships if you go in and you
go straight away to booksellers and say this is my book read it i want you to put it on your stores
coming across really demanding and really pushy sets off the completely wrong message and you're
not going to make friends with those booksellers instead go down to your local bookshop spend some
time there buy some of their products get to know them start making friendly conversation with them
go back a few times a week whatever it is to kind of build that relationship from a really
authentic place first and then once you have that connection and your book is out or it's coming out
you can mention this to the bookseller that is now your friend similarly with authors they are not
always your competition they can be your peers as well you're often at the same stage in your
publishing process they're gonna know exactly what it's like what you're going through at the time so
instead of seeing these people as people that you need to sort of compete against consider them your
friends and consider you working together on that so ask how it's going for them comment on
their stuff on social media congratulate them when their book is out this also helps us as publishers
as well because we can reach out to authors in future and say hi we'd like to send you a copy of
this new author's book would you like to review it i always think it works best if authors can always
work together as opposed against each other so i mentioned reviewers there so reviewers are really
important people bloggers bookstagrammers book talkers booktubers whatever that can impact the
sell of your books lockdown saw a rise in booktop recommendations which saw a rise in book sales
and this is just one way to prove that word of mouth and recommendations has a huge impact
on the books that are sold and how many are sold so being on good terms with reviewers and
sending it to the right people can make a huge difference by all means contact some reviewers
and say hi i hope you're well i really like your page this is my book this is what it's about i'd
love to send you a copy no worries if not and the difference between doing that in that very
kind of like monotone friendly voice as opposed to some of the messages that i've received in the
past where i get messages to say hi i'm norfolk review my book now it seems ridiculous but i've
had so many messages along those lines where it's just a hard sell a hard push and that actually
discourages me so much more than if you were to tell me why you think i'd like it because you've
seen something on my feed a book that i've liked before it also means that you've you've given me
the right impression of you as an author as well and i feel like some consciously that's going
to make me want to leave a better review as well equally if you're not self-published and you work
with a publishing house to publish your book in the traditional sense give your publishers a list
of people that you want to send your books to say i really want to send it to this person i really
like their reviews and and we can find out their addresses for you and send that to them and
making buddies with your publishers as well if you have them we are here to help you
we want the best for you a lot of the time we are working on a lot of titles at once as well so
things may slip through the crack sometimes we might overlook some reviewers that you might want
but keeping friendly with us keeping up today asking us any questions that obviously really
helps from our point of view to end my point about making buddies and it's kind of going back to my
original point is stop spamming don't go and spam a load of people whether it's people that work in
publishing and say i need you to help market my book which i've had ridiculous amount of messages
on linkedin for and i'm like that is not my job or if it's reviewers don't just drop them a cold
message and send them a link and be like buy this book now that's not going to work unfortunately
so my next point is about free stuff basically everyone loves free stuff and this applies to the
publishing industry as well if you have written a let's say ya or an adult book offer your first
chapter for free put a link on social media send it some people privately and get their thoughts
get them excited about your book use that as a kind of teaser to what's to come this can be
whether you're self-published or traditionally published if your book is fictional introduce
your characters tell us how old they are what they like what's their main purpose in this story and
if it's more of a children's book if it's got loads of illustrations in it show us some sneak
peeks of the illustrations do a time lapse of you doing it people engage with that stuff and they
like to see the free stuff they like to see the behind the scenes if you or your publishing house
have designed this beautiful cover show that off get that in people's minds that this they've seen
that before do a cover reveal do a week after the cover's been revealed constantly push that cover
out so people can see it and a giveaway is another way of offering free stuff as well giveaways work
really really well for exposure and they are super simple and super easy to do so ask your publishers
if you can do a giveaway on their social media site do a giveaway on your social media site offer
a free copy of your book if people just retweet that tweet whatever it is offer some free stuff
and people will love it okay probably my biggest advice is gonna be about social media social media
has taken over the world basically and this is no exception when it comes to publishing so again get
your basics right when it comes to social media if you're an author keep your username consistent
uh it's a bugbear of mine when i'm scheduling social media posts on twitter instagram facebook
tick tock and your username is different across all of them it's such a simple thing that makes
a huge difference keep your username consistent and people are more likely to tag you you can
see reviews that you've got and publishers can tag you in anything that we're posting as well and it
sounds obvious but make sure that your username is your name as well make it so mine would be eleanor
marie rose make it obvious so like don't have like bananas one two three four five or something where
people are not gonna recognize that that's you it's all about exposure and then with your bio as
well your biography on social media account a lot of the time this has character limits but keep it
simple keep it professional keep it approachable and put your book in there people are not going to
know going straight on to your profile if you're an author or not so make that obvious and the
author of this book and if it's by a particular publishing house as well you can tag them in your
bio just on that as well tag your publishers in things we don't always see everything that's going
on and especially when a publisher has lots of imprints we may very very easily miss things so
tag us in everything you can even if it's just i'm off to this bookshop tag us in it so we can repost
it again it's all about exposure so engagement is a huge part of social media you don't want to be
super pushy and be known to be that author that just wants to sell copies of their book you want
to engage so firstly you want to engage with your book post when you're writing the final draft post
when your final copies have come in post when you spot it in a bookshop post about your journey as
an author and how excited genuinely you are about your book being out there again engage with other
people engage with authors congratulate them on when their books out comment on how things are
going for how well things are going for them see them as your peers not your competition
engage with reviewers if they've left a really nice review about your book thank them comment on
it share it on your stories have that kind of like human aspect to you as well and i think that's
really important it's so easy to just hard sell all the time but but having a human aspect behind
you makes a big difference people can see that you're a genuine person you're genuinely excited
about your book and makes it more likely that they're going to pick up and linking onto this
don't always ask for favors build a relationship like i was saying about with booksellers but
online as well build a relationship with people even though they're just through the screen start
following people back comment on things engage with the community use visuals on social media as
well sites such as twitter which were primarily based to be text heavy is growing more on the
visual side use animations pictures photographs videos whatever it may be people like to see
things and also with social media start analyzing it's a key part of marketing in a publishing house
but you can do it yourself as well analyze if your followers are going up or down why is that see if
your posts are getting a lot of likes or if you're getting a lot of negative comments on one of them
why is that see what's working and what's not and analyze and tailor accordingly then i can't
mention social media without mentioning tick tock as i said this has had a massive increase
in sales throughout lockdown and afterwards try it that's all i'm gonna say i didn't start using
tik tok properly until i joined this job and i love it now and i can see what effect it has
if you're an author just try it just get creative if you do five videos and decide it's not for you
that's fine at least you've given it a go it's a huge platform for book reviewers booksellers and
more i'd be happy to share some ideas of what you can create as an author but some things
include doing a time lapse of your illustrations telling us why why we think you should buy your
book in under 10 seconds and coming with you on a day and a day in the life as an author again
if you have a publisher and they're on tick tock make sure you're tagging them in everything and
suggesting any ideas to them or providing content for them to repost so a lot of those tips were a
mix between if you're self-published author or if you're working with a publisher but these last few
things are going to be about how you can help your publishers i work at publishing house in marketing
and pr and these are some of the things that i've just picked up from my point of view of what
can really really help firstly be willing to do things and try and engage we're working as a team
we want what's best for you as much as you do so if we're asking you to attend an event don't put
obstacles in the way equally be self-sufficient if you see there's an event going on that you'd
like to join if there's a local bookshop near you be self-sufficient suggest these ideas it's great
to suggest ideas whether it be for marketing or publicity but manage your expectations don't be
too rude too demanding too pushy publishing as i said is a very small world we're working on a lot
of books at once and sometimes depending on budget and capacity it's not always possible to do what
we would like to do for your book and what you'd like to do for your book as well which is where
you step in answer your emails it seems like a really really simple thing but answer your emails
a lot of the time we're working on a really tight schedule for example if we want to print bookmarks
for you we might have to get these printed within the next couple of days it really helps to know
that you're a consistent and reliable replier on emails likewise stick to deadlines if we've sent
you an email and asked you to complete a feature writing for the 10th don't message us at midnight
on the night saying unable to do it please let us know if you don't have capacity but stick
to deadlines if you've agreed to them please be patient with us at publishing house as well
and appreciate what's going on behind the scenes the things that you don't always see
it might appear like we're not doing enough to push your book but there is a lot going on there's
a lot of pitching going on behind the scenes and a lot of budget management to get your book out
there as much as possible if you're someone that has a list of really influential friends send
that to us that can really help us get some review coverage of some social media content
going back to my point earlier so i'll tag us in everything if we're your publisher we want to see
everything that you're doing equally tell us if you've got anything planned if you've been really
self-sufficient and you're organizing an event or you're going to do a signing or something just
drop us a message and say hey i'm going to be on this radio show we can help to push this there's
quite a lot of things there and that is not an exhaustive list and i just want to reiterate
as well that i'm just saying this from my point of view working in martin pr when i work with a range
of different authors that all have different needs and requirements a massive good luck to all the
authors out there whether you are self-published traditionally published or looking to be published
i hope you've taken something away from this video and it's useful i have got other videos on what
it's like to work in publishing and tips to get into publishing but as more of an awful facing
video i hope you found this useful good luck enjoy and hopefully see in my next video bye