A Roadmap to Marketing Your Self-Published Book

You’ve just finished your book and you’re wondering… “What do I do next?”

Your book’s been out for a while and you’ve tried ads, giving it away for free, posting incessantly on social media… but sales are non-existent.

Whether you’re prepping to self-publish for the first time or trying to figure out where you went wrong, you’re in the right place.

This isn’t your typical “here are five marketing tactics to try”. This is more of a roadmap, a start-to-finish outline to find your readers. If your book is already published, you can use this as a checklist to see if you skipped an important step or need to revise a strategy.

1. Know yourself.

When you publish, your book becomes a business and you become a brand. Determine your “vibe”, the key messages and themes in your stories, your why.

What do you want people to get from reading your books? It could be life lessons, encouragement, a moral, or sheer entertainment value—there’s no wrong answer.

EXAMPLE: My author vibes are historical, cosy, whimsical, introspective, cottagecore… My overarching themes include discovering your inherent worth, overcoming mental obstacles like anxiety, and discovering your identity.

2. Know your audience.

“My book is perfect for readers age 8 to 108” will get you nowhere! Narrow down your niche, then narrow it down some more. The more specific you get, the easier and more effective future steps will be.

EXAMPLE: My ideal reader is an unabashedly feminine young woman aged 16-25 who struggles with anxiety or self-confidence, loves fairytales, flowers, and Jane Austen, and wants to live slowly and meaningfully.

3. Find your audience.

Now that you know who your ideal reader is, what they enjoy, and what’s important to them, start thinking about where you might find people like that. You’ll probably find them primarily online, but don’t discount in-person networking!

If your ideal reader loves anime, con events will be a perfect place for you to meet them. In high school when I wrote heavily Tolkien-inspired fantasy, I hung out on relevant forums constantly.

Get creative, think outside the box, imagine where your ideal reader would be, and go there.

EXAMPLE: Instagram is the perfect place for me to post cosy mornings, flowers, and myself wearing historical attire. Your audience might be on Instagram, in Facebook groups, on specific blogs, on forums…

4. Connect with your audience.

Make friends with your ideal readers, even long before release day. You’re not connecting with them as customers: make genuine connections, build trust and relationships, care about the person—not dollar signs.

Some ways you can connect with your audience:

Website (and maybe a blog)

Even if it’s just a single page that lists your books with links to purchase, a bit about you, and a contact form, make a little corner of the internet your own. If your target audience might enjoy some sort of blog, start one.

EXAMPLE: Instead of blogging about books, I’d probably find more of my ideal readers by blogging about my experiences wearing historical clothing, tips for romanticising your day-to-day life, lessons I’ve learned about overcoming insecurity, etc.

Not sure what to share? Think about what you enjoy in author newsletters, or what you’d want to hear from your favourite authors. You could even treat it like a blog (see above for examples of what I might talk about).

→ Offer an incentive like a free, exclusive short story or novella to give a taste of your writing, plus a reason to subscribe.

Social Media

You probably already have at least one writerly social profile, but if not, start one or two. (Don’t overextend yourself trying to be active on every platform.)

Not seeing results? Here are some things you might be doing wrong…

Not optimising your profile. Make sure people can tell at a glance that you’re a writer, and what kind of books you write. (What’s in it for them?) Communicate your personal brand in your bio.

EXAMPLE: My Instagram bio is “I write character-driven fairytales inspired by beauty and the simple joys of life.”
Only (or never) posting about your book. Nobody wants to be spammed with salesy content. They want to get to know you. Once they know, like, and trust you as a person, they’ll be more interested in what you have to offer.

Post about your book often enough for people to know it exists, but dream bigger than “Only 99 cents on Amazon!!” and let your audience know why they should care.

EXAMPLE: Post snippets that reflect the vibe of your book, use photos to showcase your book’s aesthetic, tell readers what tropes to expect…
Talking to writers, not readers. If you want to reach readers, this approach won’t serve you. Readers may be interested in the occasional peek behind the scenes, but they don’t care about writing tips and plot structure.

Instead, create a little community around the kind of content your ideal reader would enjoy. Make genuine connections and engage with people as friends.

EXAMPLE: I’m most active on Instagram, where I post pretty historical clothing, flowers, landscapes, cosy updates about my life, some books, and the occasional snippet or teaser about my WIP.

I tried Bookstagram, but realised I would probably do better with a focus that was both broader (targeting non-readers) yet more specific (targeting ideal readers). You’ll need to consider whether a book-oriented account or a broader approach would work best for you.

5. Find comparative titles.

Also known as comp titles, these are books that have something in common with yours. It can be anything: maybe the setting is the same (Regency England), the themes are similar (discovering your worth), the vibes or writing style match (whimsical and poetic)…

Think of those lines you see in Amazon book descriptions like “Sherlock Holmes meets Jane Austen” or “The Selection meets Brave New World” (I made that one up and I desperately want to read it). The comps are vastly different from each other, but the combination gives you an instant sense of what to expect.

6. Put out a quality book.

Yes, you can self-publish for free, but that doesn’t mean you should. Here are some things you need to seriously consider collaborating with a professional on:

Editing

Never publish an unedited draft. Consider using beta readers—people in your target audience who read your book to give you feedback—and evaluate their feedback to determine whether you need developmental editing, line editing, proofreading, or some combination thereof.

Cover

Your book cover’s job is to indicate your book’s genre and vibe, drawing in your ideal reader at a single glance. It also needs to communicate that the story inside is high quality. A subpar cover suggests a subpar story. Fair? Perhaps not, but true.

Blurb

You don’t need to hire someone for this, but you do need to craft a fabulous blurb that’s short and snappy (the standard is 100-200 words) and covers the high points of your story to get your ideal reader curious. Study blurbs in your genre, analyse what makes them successful (or not), then mimic the ones that work.

6. Get your keywords right.

Using the right keywords can make or break your book’s visibility on search engines like Amazon. That topic is absolutely huge, but Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur has lots of resources on how keywords work and how to go about choosing them.

7. Create a launch strategy.

Instead of churning out your book the moment it’s done and dusted, take a break to develop a solid launch strategy. Here are some tactics to consider:

Send out ARCs (free advance reader copies) to a select group of your ideal readers, in hopes that they’ll review your book on release day.
Politely and non-pushily, contact authors whose readers might like your book too, and ask if they’re willing to read yours and give you an endorsement quote (like you see on many book covers).
Create a street team—a group of your ideal readers who, in return for incentives like ARCs or other goodies, will share about your book on their social media.
Make your cover reveal a big deal! Schedule it in advance, tease with sneak peeks, and finally share the full cover. Make sure to provide a call-to-action, like opening preorders (see below).
Set up preorders. Preorders aren’t a necessity, but they can be a great way to secure sales from people who might forget or miss the news on your actual release day, or even jump to an Amazon #1 new release.
Publicise your release date in advance. Showing up with “News flash, my book is available now!” means you’ve missed an opportunity to engage your audience and drum up anticipation pre-release.
Host a launch party. Virtual or in person, this can be a great way to interact with your readers and get them extra excited about your book.

8. Broaden your reach.

After creating your own community, reach new readers by borrowing someone else’s audience for a moment. In other words, collaborate with other authors, bloggers, and influencers to get your book in front of their viewership.

Some ways to do this:

Send influencers free review copies
- Remember that you can’t force or require anyone to post a review, and never pay anyone for a review (unless it’s a trade review like Kirkus)—you can get in huge trouble with Amazon over that. You could, however, pay an influencer to simply share about your book on their own platform.
Reach out to local businesses about a live event
- Don’t limit yourself to your local library or bookstore! Holding a book signing at a cafe, for example, can reach people who’d never normally attend.
Team up with similar authors to do joint giveaways
- You’re sharing each other’s audiences, gaining new followers, and getting a copy of your book into someone’s hands. What’s not to like?
Write guest posts or do newsletter swaps with similar authors
- I wrote a couple guest essays for TheOneRing.net when I was publishing Tolkien-inspired fantasy. You can also swap guest appearances in another author’s newsletter to get in front of each other’s readers; just make sure their readers would like your book too.

9. Keep writing.

The more books you publish, the more chances to get in front of new readers. Someone might pick up your second book even if your first didn’t catch their attention, and if they love your writing style, they can immediately go buy your other books. Especially if you want to make any sort of living as an author, you need to publish lots. There’s a Facebook group called 20 Books to 50k that you can join to learn more!

Conclusion

This isn’t an exhaustive list of every single marketing method out there. Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon ads, promo deals like Bookbub, Kindle Unlimited, making your book free for a limited time… the list is endless.

I didn’t include such tactics because if you don’t get the essentials right, nothing else really matters. If you don’t know your target audience, if your book looks unprofessional, if you’re just screaming into the void, it doesn’t matter how many ads you run.

Start with this essential roadmap, then think about adding other strategies. Just be careful out there in the wild, and beware the scammers who promise overnight success if you just open your wallet for them.