It’s a shock to the system. Really. You’ve finished your book, you’ve either landed a contract with a traditional publisher or made arrangements to self-publish. You’re sitting back, waiting for the first printed copies of your book to arrive, reveling in the feeling of being done.
Then it hits you.
You have to promote the book now! And yes, I mean now. Many channels for book promotion only stay open for a short window after promotion. If your book is two years old, newspapers won’t write articles about it, bloggers won’t interview you about it, you won’t end up on the speaker list at book conferences. You need to get rolling on promotion right away.
“But wait,” I hear you cry. “I’m traditionally-published. Promotion is the publisher’s job!”
The world has changed, my sweet summer child. Unless your name is Stephen King or Jo Rowling, the days of writing a book and letting the publisher do your marketing for you are long gone. Publisher marketing budgets have been slashed to the bone, and your readers want to interact with you, not with a PR agent.
Sometimes the publisher will pay for things, and sometimes you have to do it yourself, but either way you need to do it. As an example, one of my publishers agreed to donate 100 copies of my latest book at a book conference, but it was still me that needed to fly out to the show, talk up the book, and sit at a table signing them for bookstore owners and staff. If I had a bestseller with a big New York house, they probably would have paid for my travel expenses. If I was self-published, I would have had to pony up the 100 free books out of my own pocket. Either way, though, I would have been there.
These are in no particular order:
Make your book available through all major sales channels
For print books, this includes direct sites like Amazon and wholesalers like Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Also, check out Bookshop.org. It gives you a direct sales channel for print books that supports independent local bookstores instead of Amazon.
For ebooks, it includes Amazon (Kindle), Apple (iPad/iPhone), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and Kobo.
Establish a presence on sites where readers congregate
Goodreads and Amazon are the obvious ones here. Set up an author page, do promotions, engage with your readers, and do not argue with people who post negative reviews. Bite your tongue and move on.
If you aren’t already on Reddit, go check it out. There are a lot of good subreddits (forums dedicated to specific topics) and there’s probably one that will fit your genre. Just make sure to be a contributor instead of just jumping in and promoting your book.
Create a website
It should have both information about you (people are curious about authors) and your book(s). Include book signing schedules, links to articles and blog posts about you, pictures, excerpts from the book, and other goodies that may get people engaged and interested so that they’ll buy the book.
Establish a strong presence on social media
This is a lot more complex that it used to be because there are so many different options. Do not try to maintain a presence on every single social media platform. You can’t possibly keep up unless you make a full-time job of it.
Once upon a time, you could set up on Facebook and Twitter and you were covered. Facebook is still #1 in MAUs (monthly active users), but X (neé Twitter) has fallen out of the top 10. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Quora, Pinterest, Discord, Threads, BlueSky, and Mastodon are all possibilities. Unfortunately, they all have different requirements for message lengths, picture sizes, and video orientation. They also have significantly different cultures. You can’t just use the same content everywhere.
Pick a couple and check them regularly. When people ask questions, answer them promptly. I’m not the best example to follow, as I’m bad at putting out a steady stream of new content.
Market to bookstores
If yours is a print book that has potential to sell in bookstores, promote it there. The American Booksellers Association has a number of ways to market to their members. If there’s a bookstore in your town, introduce yourself to the owner, give them a review copy of the book, and ask if they’d be willing to have you do a book signing in their store. Contact any bookstore in an area you’re willing to visit and ask them, too.
Contact local regional bookseller associations
In addition to the American Booksellers Association, which is a national organization, there are regional bookseller associations as well. Figure out which one(s) cover your area and try to get yourself on their speaker/signer list. This often requires paying a fee or giving them a stack of free books, but it gets you in front of hundreds of people that spend their whole day selling books to people.
Give away some free copies!
Get your book into the hands of bloggers, podcasters, book reviewers, magazines, and anyone that will agree to review it. Prepare yourself for the fact that some of those reviews won’t be good.
Don’t fall into the trap of paying to appear on podcasts and blogs. You can waste a lot of money doing that. It’s better to look for platforms that fit your book, so you are giving them some valuable content.
Re-use your content
Talk to magazines, websites, and newspapers to see if they’d be interested in running an excerpt from the book as an article, or perhaps doing a story about you, the book, or something in the book. This tends to work better for nonfiction books, as you can find a specialty publication or site where your book really fits in well.
Make the announcement
Send out press releases to radio, TV, blogs, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and businesses that may have an interest in the book.
Keep it up!
Once there are stores carrying your books, stop by every so often and offer to sign their stock. Buy a roll of “Autographed Copy” stickers to put on the books after you sign them. This helps sell copies, and the stores like that!
Think outside the box
Look for other places to talk about your book. Is it a children’s book? Offer to talk in schools (these can be paying gigs). Is it nonfiction? Offer to speak at conferences, museums, and colleges. Is it a genre novel? Try to get on the speaker list at cons.
Much of the content of this article came from a post I wrote on Quora in 2015. I updated it for this site in 2025.
Gary D. Robson 