When writing a book, most authors invest in drafting, writing, and editing it to perfection. But that’s only half of the equation for how to make a book a success. To achieve the desired result – getting people to buy and read their work – authors need to invest just as heavily in the marketing side of things.
Think of it this way: You may be writing one of the most wonderful books in the world, but if no one knows about it, it’s never going to make the impact in people’s lives and businesses you know it can through wide distribution.
Executing a carefully designed marketing plan makes all the difference. “In today's saturated book market, it's not enough to write a great book—you need a solid marketing strategy to stand out from the crowd,” Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse recently said.
It’s advice Kami herself adopted when launching The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever and helping catapult it to top positions on Amazon in Advertising (#1 in Kindle and #2 in Paperback).
Here are some of the ideas used by Kami and the rest of the team with great success to promote their book:
Encourage Early Sign-Ups
People interested in receiving announcements about the book's availability were invited to register through a dedicated sign-up form so they could “Come along with us as we create this valuable guidebook, take a peek behind-the-scenes and be the first to get your hands on the book and all of the thinking behind it.” A teaser added that “there might be a few surprises for you along the way. They also invited their followers to help them choose the book cover, with over 800 people voting and many signing up for the launch email.
Dedicated Book Launch Site
The book was initially promoted via a landing page on international marketing expert and co-author Mark Shaefer’s website and later through a stand-alone website to promote the 24 Hours of Amazing Marketing Ideas event. This site was regularly updated as it got closer to the launch date.
Cross-Platform Dedicated Hashtag
Since the authors hail from 10 different countries and have different audiences, they felt it was important to create a unifying hashtag that allowed interested people to track the development and launch of the entire book. They chose #amazingmarketingbook, which they used on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms.
Attention Grabbing Event
People love to be part of something exciting and unique, and a live 24-hour event featuring all 35 authors of the book definitely qualifies! The mega event, which took place on May 17, allowed readers to participate and listen in real time, thus offering a highly personal experience.
Authors in Their Own Words: Each of the 35 authors agreed to participate in the livestream, which was broken down into six separate segments running over two-and-half hours each. Kami Huyse and fellow authors Joeri Billast, Ian Gray, Dan Nestle, Chad Parizman and Fiona Lucas served as hosts.
- Part One covered experiential marketing, live streaming, marketing mix, the metaverse, and podcasting.
- Part two covered word-of-mouth marketing, strategy, promo products, Web3, and consumer behavior.
- Part three covered research, strategy, messaging, origin stories, and Instagram.
- Part four covered YouTube, newspapers, billboards, radio, TikTok, branding, and measurement.
- Part five covered Twitter, behind-the-scenes marketing, marketing messages, podcasting, direct mail, and community building.
- Part six covered personal branding, content marketing, social media, artificial intelligence, customer experience, and SEO.
Maximizing Reach: All of the authors promoted the book on their platforms, helping maximize the book’s reach with their own voice and style. For example, Joanne Taylor, who admitted to initially being nervous about the 24-hour event, excitedly noted, “Some people showed up to the live and I was pretty moved, actually. Thanks for your unexpected support! We can achieve more together.” Meanwhile, Lisa Apolinski shared a video of her beautiful dog Prue happily looking at the book.
Reward Your Audience and Keep the Momentum Going: The authors invited readers to register for a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the book and additional industry insights. In addition to a “ VIP pass to author livestreams” they would also receive “the Amazing Marketing Book Instant Replay.”
If you didn’t get a chance to watch the livestreams on May 17, you can get FREE access through this link:
• Watch the videos consecutively or by segment.
• Locate a specific author’s interview or topic through the search function.
• Download the video as an MP4.
• Download the audio as an MP3.
• Get access to a detailed, downloadable transcript of each video.