19 Mar 92. Get More Eyes on Your Book

Discover 6 simple ways to attract more readers before and after your book launch.

Your book launch is important, but it’s just one small moment in the entire lifespan of your book.

With these strategies, you’ll get more eyes on your book and make the most of the time, energy, and creativity you’ve invested in writing it.

For more writing tips and inspiration, follow me on Instagram @candiceldavis.

Mentioned in This Episode

Jump-Start: A free guide to help you jump-start your nonfiction book.

Complimentary Consultation Call

Complete Author Coaching (1:1 Coaching)

Episode Transcript

Hey there and welcome to Nothing but the Words. I’m your author coach, Candice L Davis.

I hope your week and your writing are both going well.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting online with an old friend with whom I’d lost regular touch a while back, and I had to hold myself back from typing in all caps with all the exclamation marks.

The reason for my typing rage was because this friend has written a useful and unique book.

I saw it launch last year, bought a copy, and went on with my life, meaning to reach out to her, but never actually making it happen.

A few weeks after her launch last year, I noticed she wasn’t mentioning it in her posts anymore.

I thought maybe I just wasn’t seeing her book-promoting content, or perhaps, she had a plan happening behind the scenes that I wasn’t seeing—like promoting her book directly to an organization.

When I finally asked her about it, however, she said she didn’t have anything going on. She had just kind of fallen off and stopped talking about her book.

Her book is not a little pamphlet she whipped out on a weekend. It’s substantial and it’s solid, so I know she invested a substantial amount of time and energy in writing it.

The book’s design was clearly done by a professional, and my friend has high standards, so I know she also invested money in publishing her book.

I want her to sell more. I want more readers to benefit from her book, and I want her to earn a return on her investment. And of course, we’re friends so I told her all this.

If you’ve written a book, or you’re in the process of writing one, here’s how you can tell people about it (and sell more books).

#1. Add “Author of Title” to your bio everywhere.

“Everywhere” includes your website, your business card (electronic and paper), and all your social media platform bios.

You can actually add this even before your book is published. Just add in parentheses (May 2022) or whatever your launch date is.

Don’t just call yourself an author in those bios. Include the title of your book so you brand it in people’s minds.

They come to associate the book with you and the title becomes familiar to them, making it much more likely that they’ll eventually buy your book.

#2. Post pictures of your book in different locations.

This might seem silly if you’re not big on self-promotion, but it’s an easy-to-create campaign that has visual interest, and you can tie the content of your book to almost any setting.

So take pictures of your book in places your audience would like to be—from a bar to a boardroom—places tied to themes in your book, or places that show the behind-the-scenes view of the story or the knowledge that went into your book.

Take your book into various bookstores, even if they don’t carry your book, and take pictures there.

Create amazing tablescapes for various seasons or holidays, all starring your book.

You want your followers and future readers to become familiar with the title and the cover so when they’re thinking of what to buy your book comes to mind—or when they see an ad for it or your book comes up in an Amazon search, they remember, “Oh yeah. I’ve been meaning to read that.”

#3. Ask readers (or people who love you) to take selfies with your book and post them.

If you haven’t published your book yet, you can send advanced copies to your launch team—a group of friends or even family members who agree to promote your book in exchange for a free copy—and perhaps some other bonus love from you.

Ask them to take pictures with your book—smiling, happy pictures of course—post them on social media, and tag you.

Then, you can share or repost their posts.

With their permission, you can even use these photos on your sales page for your book.

These pictures will show your audience that real people like them have read and love your book.

If you don’t have an audience, reach out to the people you know.

It doesn’t matter if the first pictures come from your aunt and uncle and baby cousin.

If they’re not on social media, have them send the pictures directly to you to share.

#4. Pull quotes from your book, make cool graphics, and post them on social media.

It doesn’t matter what your book is about.

If it’s a novel, pull cool lines of dialogue or super-short but suspenseful action scenes.

From your memoir, you can pull dialogue or surprising moments or some of the insights you share in your book.

For other nonfiction, you can share surprising statistics, images of your framework, or graphs and charts that illustrate attention-grabbing concepts.

#5. Pitch yourself as the author-expert who solves X problem or helps you achieve Y goal to podcasts and other media.

If you don’t have a lot of media experience, this can be intimidating to start, but you don’t have to start with pitching yourself to Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, or CNN—all of which my clients have appeared on, just to brag on them a bit.

You don’t have to, and honestly shouldn’t, start at the top.

But there are tens of thousands of podcasts and video interview shows that need guests. They’re hungry for content.

I love podcasts and online TV shows because they live online forever. The podcast you do today could earn you new readers a year or more from now.

You can use a service like matchmaker.fm to get started pitching to podcasts without spending a lot of money.

And local radio and television news and talk shows also need guests.

If your budget allows and it would support your goals you can invest in more expensive and more customized media placement or public relations service but that’s totally optional.

#6. Write for other platforms (articles/essays/blog posts).

When authors want to get traditional book deals, they often build their platform by writing articles for other media outlets—magazines, newspapers, journals.

Of course you can write articles, essays, and blog posts for media outlets before you publish your book.

But you shouldn’t stop once your book is published.

Your short bio should include “author of TITLE,” so readers who want more from you can look for your book.

All of this is doable.

None of this requires a huge investment of money.

It’s all available to you.

You can start building an audience for your book well before you publish it, but you shouldn’t stop once you launch.

A year after its launch, your book should still have life because you’re still breathing life into it by talking about it.

I have six more ways to get more eyes on your book, which I’ll share with you next week, but in the meantime, know this.

It’s never too early or too late to start building the audience for your book.

Your book launch is a small point on the timeline of your book’s lifespan.

You don’t have to employ all of these strategies.

Choose a few that fit your brand, your budget, and your schedule, then go all in with them.

That’s all for this week’s episode, friends.

Listen next week for the additional 6 strategies, and for more writing tips and inspiration, follow me on Instagram @candiceldavis.

Thanks for listening to Nothing but the Words, I’m your author coach Candice L Davis, and I’ll see you next time.

Enjoyed This Episode?