Connect with your contacts and promote regularly
John Kremer is a great authority on book marketing and I came across his 1001 Ways to Market Your Book at an internet conference at Wembley in 2000. He has been publishing since the 80s, has revised this book several times, and remains a top content creator about book marketing.
Here are some of his top tips which I have paraphrased from an interview with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn.
The top three tips are all about the need to Connect …
Connect with people that can help you – with the distributors, the editors, the producers of TV shows, the bloggers, the podcasters, and so on. Review your connections and contact them.
Authors need to connect with each other, interview each other, do cooperative marketing.
Connect by email. If you don't connect the first time, you try again.
Hire somebody, if you don't like doing a particular activity or you don't want to do it, or you don't have the time to do it.
Marketing your book needs time and money – set a budget; it can be small for Amazon.
Marketing takes 3 years or more but try to do something every day, or at least regularly. Most authors give up after 2 weeks, says Kremer.
Many authors would be better off doing a podcast rather than a blog.
Video your podcast and put it on YouTube, Vimeo or Rumble – “People think Rumble is a political platform but its most popular videos are on dogs”.
When one form of marketing is not working, give up and find another. People say “Facebook advertising isn’t working any more, not like in the old days”. If that is the case, don’t use it.
Social media: “I use Pinterest a lot – 3 times a week. Twitter doesn’t work for me, but if it works for you …” says Kremer. Find what works for YOU.
Find partnerships for marketing, social media, creating content.
Build an email list on substack.com, a free platform.
Podcast on Substack for free.
The most successful authors don't make all their money just from book sales. Create writing courses for a start. Many people dream of writing so tell them about your process, whether it is fiction or non-fiction. Harry Potter has merchandise, movies, plays and even a theme park.
That’s the view from John Kremer.