New Podcast Episode: Post-Publication Book Marketing with Emma Boyer

Why is publication day the target for most marketing for books? Why don’t we talk as much about what authors can be doing post publication?

That’s such a good question and such a pertinent point. A few months post publication, it’s still the same book, so there’s not as much news to talk about. That’s why you need an amazing and creative publicist who’s going to do tie-ins and kind of manufacture the newsy connections. I think that publication date, publication and pre pub, are both finite. Pre pub only lasts until publication. Publication is really only the month. Meanwhile it’s a little daunting to think of post publication because there’s no end to it… it’s just forevermore your post publication. Regardless, there are things you can do post publication. What I usually recommend is setting a calendar and just every three to six months, do something. You can rotate what you’re doing, but, unless your book becomes irrelevant, you can be promoting it regularly for the rest of time.

People ask all the time how often they should run promos, and I don’t think there’s a set answer. It doesn’t matter as long as you have a plan and you figure out a cadence that works for you. Thinking about timing, I usually tell authors I love three months, six months, and a year anniversary since publication. In addition to that, I also tell them to try to find something happening in the media or the calendar that relates to your expertise. I actually found out the other day, when I was working on a finance book and going through awareness dates, it is hug an economist day… which is random. So if you need an excuse to promote your book, I guess that’s a good one. Find one of those days throughout the year that relates to your content and then use that to run some kind of promotion, as well as doing kind of a quarterly or bi yearly thing.

Can you tell us what authors can do to promote their book post pub? What are some actionable things for them to do to promote their book after publication?

The tenets of a post publication marketing strategy are ebook promotions. We don’t recommend running the same book more than once every 30 days just because audiences get a little tired of it. So for an ebook promotion, I always recommend running your book below $4.99 if it’s a paid promotion for audience building. You’ll see your ranking go up and you’ll see your reviews go up. eBook promotions are effective and inexpensive to run. You can kind of figure out what works best for you. Newsletters, obviously, if you have an email list and you’re emailing your readers, is something that you should do at least every quarter. Giveaways are going to help you build an email list. We have a subscriber search giveaway, which is a great way to do it. Also, if you’re not a member of genre specific author groups, I would really suggest that you join some. Facebook is a great platform to do this. Find other like minded authors who have written books in your genre. Ask them if they’ll do a newsletter swap with you.

Is there ever a time that an author should stop marketing a book post publication?

Most authors are not professional marketers, so this is going to be an experiment. There’s not one magic pill that’s going to make your book be marketed beautifully forevermore. Definitely approaching things with a spirit of curiosity, that  it’s all an experiment to take, you know, see what kind of works. What do you get good results from? What do you like doing? You might find out that you love filming TikTok videos. Or you might find out that you love connecting with your authors through your newsletter or vice versa, but you’re never going to know if you don’t try those things. Authenticity and finding what works for you is a conversation that I have with authors on a near daily basis.

We always recommend finding one, maybe two social media platforms that you don’t absolutely hate and work on doing ten minutes a day. Like, we’re not talking about posting every single day and being on there for hours at a time. Some authors have no problem with self promotion, and it’s easy for them to get up and share their expertise on social media and share their books and their passions. Some authors prefer to be kind of behind the screen and don’t like to be in the spotlight. Also check out Goodreads giveaways, Amazon, Facebook, Google Ads, boosted Instagram posts, Bookbub ads, and ebook giveaways.

Emma Boyer is the VP of Digital Operations at Written Word Media, a book promotion company that uses specialized and proprietary data-driven marketing techniques to empower authors and publishers to reach their audiences, and has been working in various capacities in the book publishing industry — from PR to marketing to consulting — for over 15 years. She holds an MA from Carnegie Mellon University and is very interested in the potential at the intersection of the tech and publishing worlds and is passionate about helping authors find audiences and audiences find books. Learn more at www.writtenwordmedia.com.