Five ways to market your business book

Congratulations on becoming on author! Now the hard work starts.

A book can be a great way to promote your business and bring in additional income - but only if you market it.

So here are my five tried-and-tested ways to get your business book marketing on track:

1) Start early. As soon as you decide to write the book start telling people. If you use social media then talk about it there, tell people what you’ll be writing about, give them a progress report periodically, share some tips or a short extract, let them know what the book will include and how it can help them, and of course tell them when and where it’s available.

2) Take your promotion offline as well. Online is great – but talking to people face-to-face is even better. So tell people that you meet about your book, and get out to networking events to promote it.  As with social media, don’t make everything you tell them a subtle (or not so subtle) sales pitch – but rather paint a picture of what the book could do for them. Take a copy (or two) with you to show them and have change in your pocket in case someone wants to buy a copy there and then.

3) Create images. Imagery really helps your message stick in people’s minds, whether it’s on social media, your blog or when you are giving a talk. Take photographs of your book in different interesting/relevant places, take pictures of you and other people (with their permission) with your book, create imagery to illustrate certain points within your book, and any other creative visual idea you can think of that will catch people’s attention!

4) Take an extract from your book and create a ‘white paper’. This can be a set of useful ‘top tips’ or perhaps your views on how your industry is changing – whatever you choose be sure that it is useful to your target readership. And keep it short. Then give it a cover, add your branding and your contact details and offer this as a pdf download on your website. Use it to collect the email addresses of potential customers. If they are willing to give you their email address in return for the ‘white paper’ then they are a partially qualified lead. So put them to good use.

5) Enrol your Kindle book in Amazon’s KDP Select and make the most of the ability to offer the book for free for five days in every three months. Reviews are the life-blood of sales on Amazon, and giving a few books away for free can really help to boost the number of reviews. Also, the more people you can encourage to read your book, even for free, the more you build your authority and visibility among your target audience. If giving the book away for free leads to one new paying client – the book has probably already made you a profit.

A book fits the family friendly working model perfectly; it works for you while you sleep, play with your children or just sit in the back garden with a glass of wine.  But only if you leverage it. So make sure you develop a strong, clear book marketing plan. And stick to it. That way you’ll not only drive book sales but you’ll also start to generate new client enquiries.

About the Author

Chantal Cooke is an award-winning journalist and author of The Authority Guide to Marketing your Business Book. She is also founder of boutique PR Agency Panpathic Communications specialising in working with small businesses and authors.