When to start promoting your book
We DO know something about marketing as messaging strategists and copywriters for our business. But this is a new industry for us, so take our approach with a grain of salt.
That being said, our strategy to promoting our novel has been to start immediately. We knew from the get-go we were onto a compelling story and that we wanted it in as many hands as possible.
But more valuable to us than selling books after publication has been developing a relationship with our readers.
This would be true regardless of whether we chose to go the traditional or self-publishing route. We’ve been learning that, even when a publisher sets aside a marketing budget for a book, it’s never enough to cover all costs. Even traditionally-published authors need to advocate for and promote their own book. They need to build a rapport with their readers, show up, and spread the word.
Priority one: Setting up an email list
This past weekend, Marie represented us at the inaugural New Mexico Comic Expo. She didn’t have a book to sell, but she had an email sign-up. And once we do have a book to sell, we’ll still have an email sign-up. Because selling a book is great! But we want to be able to let interested readers know when new books are coming out or other announcements.
Plus, we both have our own fiction writing projects, so we can leverage the list as a way to let Grigori readers know about those novels, too!
We’re using Active Campaign to manage our email list because it has great integration and tagging abilities (plus we use it for our business).
Priority two: Setting up social media and this website
Sure, we don’t DO much with any of it yet, but it exists, and garnering Instagram and Facebook followers — plus blog readers — is almost as valuable as gaining email subscribers. It’s a great way to pull back the curtain on our process and progress, building up those relationships.
We’ve chosen to focus on Instagram, Facebook, and our personal Twitter accounts.
So that brings us to what we call the CTA in copywriting terms: the Call To Action. We’d love to have you join our email list. We don’t bombard your inbox, promise.
It’s not best copywriting practice to have multiple CTAs, but…
And if you’re a writer, feel free to ask any questions you have about our promotion process! We’re happy to weigh in.