For any job, from building a fence to marketing your book, your efficiency and results will depend in great part on the tools that you have at your disposal. It is near-impossible to build a fence without a shovel, fence posts, and a hammer (er, I think. I’ve actually never built a fence before, but you get my meaning). Similarly, it is near-impossible to market your book online without a great description, graphics, blog and social media posts, and all the other tools of the trade.
Luckily, book marketing is lighter lifting than fence building (or so I imagine), and there are many low-cost and free tools you can use to connect with new readers!
Below is a long list of the tools that I use every day to help market books on websites and social media. Technology is always changing, and so this list isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but these are the tools that I use regularly!
Book Description & Cover Design
I think that the most important parts of book marketing are the most elemental: your title, your cover design, and your book description. In today’s digital world, Google, Amazon, and other online search results play as big a role in selling your book as personal recommendations. So let’s start there!
Writing your book description copy:
Use Google Trends (free), Google Keyword Planner (free), Publisher Rocket ($97 one-time fee with a 30-day money-back guarantee), and Ubersuggest ($29/month and I think there’s a free version) to search for keywords and phrases that can make sure your book is showing up when people search for it. You might find that you tweak some of the words you have in mind when you do this research.
If you plan to market your book on social media, go on a fact-finding mission and search for the keyword phrases you uncover on Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, and take a look at the type of content that comes up.
Designing your book cover:
I think you should hire a professional designer for this. It’s so vital and unless you have the training and have done a lot of research around recent trends. You can find one on Dribble.com or Reedsy.com (Reedsy is a great marketplace for all things in the book industry—including book marketers!).
Distributing your book for reviews
Reviews are also essential to digital marketing efforts. In the biz, we call this “social proof,” and you’ll see it online in the form of testimonials, reviews, photos of people with products, etc. If you’re selling on Amazon, you’ll want to get reviews there—it helps people trust that they’re in good company when they buy your book.
ARCs and Galley Distribution:
For publishers - Edelweiss
eBook Creation:
Vellum.pub (both recommendations from Book Coach Anne Carley)
Marketing your book(s)
Once you’ve got all your elements in place, then you get to think about the day-to-day marketing efforts that help you connect with readers at your book launch, and over time—and the “long tail” of making sure your book is discoverable for years to come. If you want more advice on the day-to-day of digital marketing, take a look at my blog post on Author Power Hour—it’s worked well for a lot of authors!
Website Design:
Pub-site (sites just for authors run by the brilliant Fauzia Burke)
Squarespace ($12 or $18/mo)
Email Newsletters:
I recommend and use Mailchimp, although there are a lot of sites out there that work well.
Facebook:
Facebook for Authors advice from Facebook
A/B Testing:
Graphic Design:
Affinity (Adobe Suite alternative, a recommendation from Book Coach Anne Carley)
Book Mockups - free from Covervault, cute set-up shots from Creative Market, can also try Placeit.net or Book Brush
3D Book / eBook Mockups - DIY Book Covers, Media Modifier
Canva Pro ($9.95/mo and you can do sooo much with it! My #1 recommendation for all digital marketers everywhere.)
Hashtag Research:
Hashtagify for Twitter
And I use Later.com and just use the Instagram app for Instagram research
Email and Blogging:
I read Hubspot and Neil Patel for inspiration around subject lines.
CoSchedule has an awesome free “Headline Checker” to give you feedback on blog post headlines. For example, my original headline for this blog post was, “My Recommended Tools for Book Marketing,” but using the Headline Checker, I got to a higher score with the current title, “The Brilliant Book Marketing Tools Every Author Should Know About.”
As you’re writing, use Grammarly to check your spelling and grammar.
Also as you’re writing, you can use SEMRush’s SEO Writing Assistant to check your SEO.
Content Planning*:
Content Grids in Google Sheets
Content Calendar in Google Sheets
There are a lot of ways to plan and organize your posts—I prefer an “old-fashioned” spreadsheet to keep myself organized, and I recommend that authors be curious and experiment with different options, from a pen-on-paper wall calendar to workflow tools like Monday or Asana.
Scheduling:
Facebook Creator Studio for Facebook and Instagram (free)
Later.com ($7.50/mo)
Advertising
I think advertising is an essential part of book marketing. There’s definitely a lot that can be done organically with ingenuity and elbow grease—but time is money, and when you take the time to write a brilliant blog post and design a great graphic to appeal to your target readers, you want to go that extra mile and make sure your posts get in front of your audience.
If it works and you can tell it’s converting to sales, do more!
If it doesn’t work, or you can’t tell, pull the plug after $20.
You can do pay-per-click campaigns targeting certain types of readers and certain types of keywords on lots of platforms:
Amazon Advertising
Facebook Ad Manager
Google Ads
Instagram Promote
Pinterest Ads
I won’t lie—these platforms can be very complicated and it can be scary to think of losing money on something that isn’t working. If you’re interested in this, but not sure where to start, please consider emailing me to set up a consultation session. It’s one of my favorite things to do and I can help you get set up for success!
Deciding what’s working
One of the most important things that you can do for yourself is look back at your campaigns to see what’s working—especially when you’re spending money on advertising. The last thing you want is to throw money away.
First, and foremost, I recommend tracking your links. Use a service like bitly.com or geniuslink.com to see how many people are clicking on your link.
There are absolutely services that can make this easier, but depending on what type of advertising you’re doing, I would recommend that most authors look back at the
Amazon Advertising
Facebook Ad Manager and Ads Reporting
Google Ads
Instagram Insights
Pinterest Ads Reporting
Phew, well, that’s a lot! I hope this list is a helpful overview of some of the amazing free or reasonably-priced tools that are out there for book marketing. I will do my best to keep this list updated as I come across new tools that I find particularly helpful!
