Five book marketing mistakes to avoid

Marketing is not a dirty word. It is simply introducing people to your book. Nor does it require a six-figure budget and a legion of Mad Men type executives. Anything you do to tell people about your book is marketing. However, whoever said “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” was a liar. There are a lot of mistakes to make when it comes to marketing yourself as an author, and these are a few of the worst you can make.

Please don’t mistake this article as a horrific warning aimed at discouraging you from trying anything! You can, and indeed should, try new things to help sell your books and grow your own personal brand as an author. But you can save yourself a lot of time, money and energy by learning from other people’s mistakes rather than making them yourself.

Mistake 1: Trying to do everything

When you first start marketing, the options can seem like a smorgasbord of possibilities. “Oooh! Well, I obviously need a Facebook page. And Twitter. And Instagram. And I’d be silly not to make a few YouTube videos…” Pretty soon, you’re spending more time creating content across every single channel than you are actually selling the book. One of the best things you can do as a personal brand, is value your time. Remember, time is a finite resource. Time you spend doing dozens of different things is time you could be writing. Now, here’s the awkward part: finding the balance.

You don’t have the time/energy/cash to do every kind of marketing under the sun. You’re better off picking a manageable number of channels that you can easily analyse the success of. Stick to the rule of three. Pick three channels that 1) you think will work for you, and 2) you know how to use and gauge the success of.

As well as conserving your energy by keeping your channels manageable, you’re also making life easier for yourself when analysing the results. Metrics for success can look like a range of things. The obvious one is book sales. But other metrics, such as growth in follower numbers/likes, Amazon reviews, mentions by other authors, etc. can lead to more sales later on.

The important thing to remember is, likes are addictive. Do not lose sight of your readership by chasing likes and retweets. The marketing you put out has to be relevant to them – both the content and the channel. For example, Diana Gabaldon uses Facebook, her blog, and Twitter. No messing about.

Mistake 2: Forgetting your readership

“Thou Shalt Not Covet” has never been truer than with marketing. Forgetting about your actual readers, and chasing after a new, exciting demographic who haven’t shown the faintest interest in your book so far has the potential to end in tears for all concerned. Drastically changing your message with marketing means you run the risk of isolating your loyal readers/fans, causing them to understandably lose interest – with no guarantee of swapping them for something better. Remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Or if it is, it’s probably because they water it.

Also, some types of marketing just aren’t going to click with your demographic. If your readers are 60+ middle-class women, you may be wasting your time on TikTok. Instead, know what media your readership uses to target your marketing more effectively. Meta adverts can be tailored, with varying success, towards a fairly specific audience, but there is no substitute for knowing who your readership is and properly engaging with them.

Look at Philippa Gregory. Although she does deviate slightly with her Princess Rules children’s series, which is a bit of a change from her normal work, she still sticks with her central selling point – interesting female characters with buckets of agency. You don’t see her releasing grim and bloody slaughterfests. She knows her audience.

Mistake 3: Crazytivity

Just because something is weird, doesn’t make it good. In the marketing world, “crazytivity” is coming up with a zany idea and falling in love with your own brilliance to the detriment of what you’re actually trying to sell.

Please, please do not become desperate. The writing world is brutally competitive and it can be so tempting to become obsessed with getting some attention, any attention, that you contemplate doing odd things. You don’t need to give away free T-shirts with your books. You don’t need to send two dozen roses to every literary agent in the country. And you certainly don’t need to rely on cheesy gimmicks or elaborate schemes to be a successful author.

Don’t get caught up in a marketing plan for the sake of it – instead focus on what’s going to sell. Say out loud to yourself “This is going to help me sell more books because…”

Some out-of-the-box marketing isn’t a bad idea, but it should be the exception rather than the norm. For example, Bernard Cornwell discusses his amdram stuff on his social media channels. This isn’t directly relevant to any of his books, but what it does do is helps build up his relationship with his fans. It helps them to get to know him and feel more connected.

Giving away a free gift isn’t always a bad idea, as long as it’s relevant. A chance to win a signed book if they subscribe to your newsletter, or an exclusive short story, are both good ways to market your work.

Mistake 4: Spamming

Reaching out proactively to relevant (and I’ll say that again, relevant) blogs, YouTube channels, and literary magazines is one thing, but bombarding strangers like a 90s pop-up advert with links to your book is quite another.

There are dozens of great Facebook groups and communities for writers. The History Quill Membership is obviously the best one, that goes without saying.

Don’t spam them. Give more than you take. No one likes it when a new member spams a group with a constant stream of Amazon links. Read the group rules, and if in doubt ask an admin.

By participating in these communities, you can learn from other people in the same situation and keep yourself aware of any trends in your marketplace. There is nothing wrong with asking other people what worked for them. Once you’ve got a decent following, it is also worthwhile to reach out to other authors in your genre and offer to promote each other’s books. If you’ve got a similar readership, you can recommend other authors who in turn can share your books via newsletter swaps or by retweeting and sharing on social media.

Mistake 5: Giving up

As John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Ditto for time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears.

Marketing is hard. It is neither an art nor is it a science. Rather is an awkward chimera with the worst features of both. You will do some stuff, and it won’t work. That’s a given.

But here’s the awkward thing – without marketing, how are readers going to know about you? And if they don’t know about you, they’re not going to buy your book.

The one thing that every author you admire has in common is this: They didn’t give up.

Try stuff out, and see what works. Keep detailed notes about what you do and any spikes in sales and engagement. Treat yourself to a nice new notebook just for marketing stuff.

You never know when a post will go viral, or when an avalanche of sales will fall.

It’s a tricky game, but you’ve got to be in the game to stand a chance of winning.