If you want people to be buying your book, then you need people to be talking about your book. And if you want people to be talking about your book, then YOU need to be talking about it.
That doesn’t mean spam-posting all of your followers 24/7, but you do need to find ways to get them excited about your characters and your story. Share the journey of how you wrote the book. Explain your inspirations. Tell them who the story is for. Make them want to read your work.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked writers on social media to share their target audience. I’ve asked this before, and often I get a mix of folks who understand the assignment and those who share abstract ideas. That’s always fun, but the truth is that you need to know—seriously and from a marketing perspective—who you’re promoting yourself to.
Self-promotion can be uncomfortable for many of us. And there are times that the community can make it harder by suggesting it’s in poor taste to promote your own work.
But it’s not.
The truth is that unless you are writing purely for yourself rather than to sell your books, once you decide to publish you must begin to operate like a small business owner. And in that, no one is ever going to care about your success more than you will.
When I launched In the Margins full-time, my mentor told me that the only reason my business would fail is if I fail to market myself—if I fail to put the work into making it happen. I have her exact words written on a sticky note stuck to my monitor. When it gets grungy or wet, I write them out again on a fresh note so that it’s always in my face.
If you need a note of your own, then write down the main point of this tip: If you want people to be buying your book, then you need people to be talking about your book. And if you want people to be talking about your book, then YOU need to be talking about it.
Good luck!