You Deserve to Market Your Book

Don’t sell yourself short by failing to market your book. You’ve put in the work and time to create — honor your work by sharing your story with the world.

You’ve finished your book. Yay!

Whether it’s a children’s book like mine or a sci-fi romance novel for people who love romcoms, one of the self-published authors' biggest mistakes is failing to tell people about their book.

You spent all that time coming up with the idea. For me, it took four years to get my book on shelves. You stayed up late, writing, editing, rewriting, etc. You designed a book cover and worked with an illustrator. You angrily googled, “What the hell is a CMYK file?”

Now your book is active and ready for print, and you’re too afraid to tell people about your hard work.

Why?

I was seeing a therapist, and during a session, I mentioned how I felt I was meant to do more. By this point, my book was out in the world, but after that initial excitement of first-week sales, the sales quickly cooled off. This is inevitable for every author, but it still didn’t feel great.

To me, more consisted of many things, writing being one. I had just been laid off, so my desires weren’t solely rooted in publicizing my book.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked.

“I guess I’m afraid of looking like I’m trying too hard or simply coming across as insufferable.”

“Do you think you’re insufferable?” she responded.

“No. I don’t think so. I’m just afraid that if I’m constantly sharing my book or writing about different topics, then people around me will get sick of me.”

Vocalizing this was big for me. We can all think of someone in our life who overshares on social media. Or how about the person who is pushing hard for an influencer deal?

Hey! Use my code ryan12804 to get 5% off your next purchase of sour patch kids (minimum purchase $200).

I don’t want to be that guy.

I wanted to share my book with the world because the story was good and relatable, and who doesn’t love ice cream? But I was afraid to go into overdrive, talking about my book too much and turning people off.

“If you don’t think you’re like that, then what are you afraid of? You deserve to give yourself a chance.”

That line rocked me in the moment, and it’s stuck with me since. I deserve to give myself a chance. We all do.

On the chart of “things, people are good at,” there is little overlap between self-published authors and extraordinary marketers. To me, it wasn’t natural, but if you’re going to work your tail off to self-publish a book, then you owe it to yourself to market it to the best of your ability.

There are countless ways to market your book, but the most obvious and still underutilized way is through social media.

“Wow, groundbreaking stuff, Ryan.” Hear me out. It’s not social media itself. It’s how you utilize your platform.

Everyone knows you need to post on social media, but the biggest issue authors run into is they’ll only post about their book when it’s first released. Maybe you’ll have a few more posts a week after its release, but then, all of a sudden, the sales slow down, and so do you.

Keep it going!

You don’t need a weekly media blitz, but you should be talking about your book at least once a week.

I use my Instagram stories to do this while including a link to the book. By sharing an old post in my stories, I don’t need to create new material every time. Some people share five memes per day. You don’t think there’s space for one post about your book?

Timing is everything.

Maybe you had people who meant to buy the book during its release and just forgot. We can’t expect everyone to be fully aware of what’s important to us. Remind your friends about your book with something as simple as “Is This Your Favorite Ice Cream? out now!”

One sale is still on sale. Don’t diminish the power that a single purchase can have on the following. You can’t approach the finish line before taking thousands of tiny steps, and many of those tiny steps include the not-so-sexy work of sharing your book.

Honor your work!

Promote it. You deserve to see your work through. Hope is not a reliable strategy, and success rarely comes overnight. Find ways to give your book a chance by overcoming your self-doubt.

You wrote a book. That’s impressive! And you’re still doubting yourself?

Maybe you don’t have a best seller on your hands. That’s okay! Are we only supposed to do things that we’re the best of the best at? I’m not a professional basketball player. Still, I love finding a hoop and getting up shots from time to time.

Most books aren't best sellers, so stop comparing yourself to anyone else. You don’t know their story, and that’s okay.

Every book has a different journey. Your book deserves to take its ride without its creator holding it back.