You wrote a book, now you have to sell it. Especially if you self-publish your book, book marketing is a must to attract readers. The content of a book is of course the most important thing, but that will not get you there. How do you get readers to pick up your book in the first place?
1. Know your target audience
By knowing which people are likely to pick up your book, you can better tailor your book and make it as appealing as possible to readers. Think about how you can best present the book marketing and what you can say about it so that you stimulate the interest of potential readers and motivate them to buy your book marketing. To get a better idea of your target audience, look at the genre and themes of your book.
Do your research and see how others who have written similar books are doing. What is their approach and does it work? What can also help is to ask people from your target group for their opinion. What improvements would they like to see? Which cover attracts them the most and why? If you yourself belong to the target group, do not rely solely on your own opinion. It is important to research what a large part of the target group finds attractive. Also pay attention to substantive matters, such as the way of writing and the length of chapters. Are they sufficiently geared to what the target group finds attractive?
2. Put time into formatting and formatting
Something many writers say is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Yet that is often what readers do. A striking, catchy cover and title is therefore more important than you might think. You can have such a good story, if there is only a dull gray area on the cover, everyone will walk right past it. Especially the young target group, teenagers and young adults, is looking for colorful and graceful covers. For them, the more beautiful and detailed, the better. However, you have to be careful not to go over the top and make it too busy, because that can scare off potential readers.
Covers with symbolic meanings and a profound title work much better for poets. Once you have attracted readers, you still have to convince them to buy the book marketing. Are you going for a slogan? Provide a sentence that is catchy, clever and intriguing. The blurb should also arouse curiosity and concisely state what the reader can expect. You have to be careful not to create expectations that you cannot live up to. For example, if you mention that your book is perfect for fans of two other books, they must be really similar books.
3. Don’t forget the layout inside the book
The formatting is more about just the outside. The format, font, font size and chapter titles are just as important. You can also be creative in the layout there. If you read a lot of Young Adult books, you’ve probably seen that chapters are often decorated with small illustrations. In addition, the first letter of each chapter is often graceful. These are examples to make it even more attractive to the target group. If a reader flips through your book and sees all those little details, their attention will be drawn much more than if little effort was put into it.
You can also think of relevant images or illustrations on a page in the book, for example with each new part. Or cite an appropriate quote from a famous person for the chapter. However, you have to be careful not to use too many small additions, otherwise it will be too busy. It has to be woven into the story in such a way that it is natural.
4. Play on emotions
One way to make readers remember your book is to play on readers’ emotions. You can think of what the target group cares about or you can respond to fears, such as thrillers and horror stories. The best thing is if you can achieve that before a reader opens your book. For example, what emotions does a cover of a dark room in which a lonely baby carriage can be seen evoke? ( The Witch in Me , Loes den Hollander) Or a cover showing an empty wall with cracks? ( Evicted, Matthew Desmond) In addition, important themes for the target group, such as inclusivity, can make a book more attractive to readers.
5. Be active
You can of course hope that readers see your book, pick it up, and share it with friends, but you can’t depend entirely on that. It is important to tell a lot about your book yourself. Books are very popular on social media such as Instagram and TikTok and you can increase your reach by regularly posting something about your book, provided that the target group can be found there. Think of quotes from your book or drawings of characters. Who knows, readers might get excited and curious about the rest of the book. In addition, you can visit book events and bookstores to meet your audience and potential readers to make people aware of your book.
