Common Questions About

Book Marketing & Publicity

1. Why do authors need publicity?

With millions of books published every year, book publicity is crucial to making yours stand out from others within your genre. Without publicity, you will be unable to attract your readership, create buzz about your book or grow your sales.

2. How do I get started marketing my book?

Start by creating a book marketing plan, which identifies your audience and competition, outlines your budget, and documents your marketing and sales goals and how you will accomplish them.

3. Do I need to hire a book marketing agency?

It's not essential to hire a book marketing agency, but doing so will help you achieve greater success. Book marketing agencies have the experience, resources and knowledge needed to market authors and their books.

5. Do I need an author website?

Every author should have an author website. Your website is the first place readers, media, booksellers and book reviewers will turn to gather more information about you and your book.

6. How should I set up my author website?

Your author website should minimally include the following pages: homepage, bio, excerpt, press room, events calendar, sample Q & A, and blog. The website domain should be your name or the title of your book, and each book page and the homepage should include links to where people can purchase your books as well as social media buttons directing to your social media profiles.

7. What's the best way to market my book online?

Along with your author website, you should create social profiles, an author profile on Amazon and a blog. Your off-site profiles should be connected to your website so people can easily access them. Click here for more tips on social media and blogging.

8. Should I sell my book on Amazon?

You should definitely sell your books on Amazon. Amazon is one of the top platforms for buying books and also provides many promotional resources for authors, like the Amazon Author Central program.

9. Should I participate in trade shows and conferences?

Trade shows and conferences are a great way to increase your exposure and position yourself as a leader within your industry or genre. At these events, you can build strong relationships with readers, book reviewers, booksellers, book distributors, publishers and other authors.

10. How can I get the media to respond to my pitches?

Rather than simply promoting your book, your media pitch should discuss a topic that's interesting and newsworthy and relates to your book.

More Information

For answers to more commonly asked questions regarding book marketing and publicity, visit our FAQS page here.

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