Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The Greenleaf marketing team recently published a Learning Center article entitled The Next Chapter: Promoting Your Book Post-Publication. Now, you can take a deeper dive into this all-important topic via the linked PowerPoint we created for IBPA’s 2022 Publishing University. As outlined below, this presentation is designed to walk you through a thorough analysis of the marketing efforts and campaign scope of your book to date in order to help you best craft an informed, efficient, and successful ongoing marketing strategy.

⇒ Reach out to the Greenleaf marketing team if you need further guidance or support on building out your revamped marketing strategy.

—

Central Question: Now that your book has been published, how can you maintain strategic marketing initiatives months and years post-publication? [slide 3]

• Reflect on book marketing that happened around publication. Without the excitement, urgency and newness of a launch, how can you still be effective in marketing at any point post-publication?

Overview [slide 4]

• A strong book marketing campaign targets three anchoring components: visibility (digitally and offline), reviews, and sales.
• As an author with your book already published, it’s of utmost importance when planning your ongoing marketing campaign to analyze all of the marketing completed up to this point in order to best strategize for the future.
• You will go through what a thorough campaign analysis entails, and how to implement the key takeaways in an ongoing and revitalized marketing push for your book.
• During and after the execution of your launch marketing strategy, you and your team should be evaluating the effectiveness of advertising and outreach initiatives.

Analyze [slides 6 - 20]

There are a few key reference points to consider when conducting your analysis. We can make this easy by following the ANALYZE acrostic:

• A - Angle
  • What messaging or pitch angle resulted in the most interviews? Worked best as marketing copy? Didn’t work at all?
  • Are there any new angles that are now possible? Examples: current events, awards received, or a change in the marketplace that can offer new opportunities.

• N - Network
  • How have you leveraged and incorporated your own network?
  • How have you NOT leveraged and included your own network?
  • How can you encourage your network to activate their network?

• A - Advertising
  • What initiatives were utilized, and what were the results?
  • Which initiatives drove the most traffic to the book page for purchase? Which initiatives converted at the highest rate?
  • Consider: Which initiatives provided other benefits aside from sales? Impact on category rankings? Pipeline of reviews?

• L - Lineup
  • Who was on your marketing team at and around the pub date? What roles did they play?
  • Will that look different as you revitalize/restructure the marketing?

• Y - Yes!
  • Who was an easy “yes” in supporting you at publication? What specific organizations, companies, platforms, or influential individuals?
  • How can you plug back into them for support?

• Z - Zero Cost
  • Note: Zero cost often means more effort.
  • What low- to no-cost initiatives were beneficial to your campaign?
  • Social Media: What platform did you most utilize? Was it effective? How was it effective?
  • Did you have a rapport and/or visibility with your local bookstore(s)?
  • Consider: Involvement with and support from organizations – writing groups, professional groups, topical Facebook groups, local library, book clubs, etc.

• E - Engagement
  • HUGE part of the analysis
  • Where and how were you able to connect with target readers for reviews?
  • Did the engagement lead to exposure with larger networks?
  • Did engagement lead to incoming interview requests or media coverage?
  • What are YOU doing to engage?

The answers to these questions will help you craft your ongoing marketing plan by providing insight on where to double down, where to pull back, and where new opportunities have been presented.

Implementation [slides 21 - 23]

Now that you’ve conducted a thorough analysis of your initial marketing campaign and/or your current marketing strategy, you can begin to use what you’ve learned and implement it in your planning.

This brings us to the first consideration: your book’s visibility. The best ways to maintain visibility are to continue advertising, interview, and social media efforts long term.

• Targeted Advertising – Enables you to set your own budget and adjust as needed. It also ensures that you’re reaching readers who would most likely be interested in your book, so you would be able to spend your budget more wisely.
  • Amazon, Facebook, and/or Google Ads allow you to hone in on specific reader demographics, and when educated by your launch campaign analysis, can convert to sales at a rapid rate.
• Podcasts – Giving an interview on a podcast is great for visibility in a post-publication promotional push. By having a few months or years of life under your book’s belt, your enhanced podcast pitch can feature tangible metrics of your book’s success such as endorsements or reviews received, links to previous interviews, and a snapshot of reader engagement. All of that social proof makes you a more appealing interview guest for a podcast.
• Consistent activity on your preferred social media platform is essential during the lifetime of your book. Continuing to curate content for blog posts, engaging with your readers on Twitter and Instagram, and personifying your book’s brand can reengage previous readers and capture new potential readers. Social media is constantly evolving. There are always new and trending ways to connect with your followers.
• Local Bookstores – Maintain a rapport with your local bookstores. Visibility on the local level is essential.
• Celebrate your milestones! – Consider the different ways of leveraging your relevance in the current marketplace: book anniversaries, promote an award, National ____ Day!, etc.

Reviews [slides 24 - 30]

Consumers need relevance. As you’ve evaluated the visibility of your book, and redesigned the way you will target readers and prioritize your book in the current marketplace, it’s important to secure tangible and recent consumer support. Consumers see a publication date and will look at the most recent reviews for reference on the evergreen relevance of your book.

There are three types of reviews to focus on:

• In Network – Now that your book has been out in the world for a significant amount of time, you should have a better idea of which of your connections has read it. Asking your professional and personal network to provide honest reviews is an important and often overlooked marketing strategy.
• Consumer – Garnering consumer reviews is an excellent way to extend word-of-mouth for your book and bolsters your book’s credibility in the eyes of new readers.
  • One of the easiest ways to seed a large number of books for potential review is through Goodreads Giveaways. Specifically, with a Kindle eBook Giveaway, you have the ability to reach up to 100 new readers through each promotion. Avid readers on the platform tend to utilize the Giveaways page as a means of finding new books, and their interest in your book will notify their network, thus organically increasing the reach of your book.
  • If you’ve built a social following, host a giveaway on your social media and create an entire campaign around that string of posts. This can also aid in gaining new followers.
  • Ebook promos (additional details below; including bullet here as these promotional pushes can seed an influx of new readers)
  • If someone asks for a copy, give them a copy with the ask to share their honest review.
• Editorial – Utilizing trade reviews and endorsements in marketing copy can help reinforce the significance of your book and can be great to use when reaching out for interview/speaking opportunities.
  • Endorsements from credentialed/notable individuals can be utilized at any time.
  • Add pull quotes from all endorsements to the book’s retail pages, website, and create graphics for social media sharing.
  • If the book didn’t secure a review from an established publishing trade publication (Publisher’s Weekly, Foreword, Kirkus, etc.) in the pre-publication stage, it’s never too late to gain that potential stamp of approval through a paid review submission. When revitalizing your marketing campaign, these reviews can assist in taking your credibility to the next level.

Sales [slides 31 - 34]

The last core aspect of the marketing campaign you want to consider as you strategize is sales.

• Book Events: Whether virtual or in person, actually showing up and having direct conversations with readers is not only a way to strengthen your readership and support, but it’s also a sure-fire way to secure book sales. Offer a creative giveaway to incentivize registrants/attendees.
• Offer something for book clubs on your website – a discussion guide, extras, or offer to Zoom with any book club that purchases more than X number of copies.
• Ebook Promo: Offering a limited-time discount on your eBook is a great way to stimulate sales, reach new readers, build a pipeline of verified reviews which are weighted heavier in Amazon’s algorithm, and potentially secure Amazon Best Seller status. The limited nature of this offer serves to create a sense of urgency amongst readers and encourage immediate action.
  • To ensure that your eBook price discount creates an impact, it’s important to pair the price reduction with promotions in the form of targeted advertising via Amazon and Facebook, post it on social media, and submit your book to bargain-priced eBook newsletter sites, such as BookBub.

Closing [slides 35 - 38]

When you dovetail your marketing goals with an analysis of the efficacy of your current campaign efforts, you can better assemble an educated and informed plan for improved results.