What to Know Before Working with a Book Promoter
Options of book promoters authors should consider and what a book promoting process shouldn’t look like
When it comes to marketing, authors often wonder if they should do their own book marketing or spend some of their precious budget on hiring a book promoter to help.
If the author decides to take the next step and hire a book promoter, they need to keep these things in mind.
Look at the pricing each promoter offers
Research and form a list of possible book promoters you can work with
Come up with a plan you see for your book, and have all the information the book promoter needs ahead (target audience info, book genre, your social media and website links, and book links)
Having these things prepared ahead of time will help you in the long run.
Now, before you decide on a book promoter, you want to keep these things in mind going forward:
The promoter should provide you with a clear and detailed timeline and outline of their marketing campaign
Make sure there is open communication happening throughout the campaign
Know what happens if their marketing campaign doesn’t yield results (do they offer an extra week to the campaign free, do they do check-ins during the process to see if they need to pivot their strategies, will they offer a discount off the end payments if results aren’t seen?)
Know what you want from the campaign. By this I mean, if you want to run ads, do it. If you don’t have money for advertising, then use organic and free methods of marketing. But make sure the book promoter carries out these wishes.
Keeping these aspects in mind is going to help you get the most out of this process.
What authors should know next is that you can hire a book promotion company or a freelance book promoter.
Book Promotion Company
Before moving forward with this option, authors should know that it will be more costly than hiring a freelancer, but this higher cost could yield more results.
Know that when you begin discussions on what they will be offering, a good book promotion company will be upfront and confident with what they can offer. But also know that a good book promotion company will only deliver what they offer you, so please do not expect anything extra.
Typically, these companies work as a whole, typically assigning one to three people to your campaign.
During this time, they strategize after gathering key elements such as target audience, genre, social media platforms, and more. After creating their plan, they tell you what they feel would yield the best results. They will also finish by telling you what needs to be done on your end of things.
A typical marketing campaign takes 4 to 8 weeks to show results, so don’t feel sad if you don’t see results a day after the campaign begins.
A Freelance Book Promoter
If you don’t have a huge budget to spend on a book promotion company, another good choice could be hiring a freelancer.
Now, I caution you that you need to do your due diligence and research these people first. Look over their reviews, see any examples they have provided, and start conversations with them. By doing so, you can get a better feel for who may be right for the job.
Before you write this option off, know that there are very experienced freelancers out there who will do an amazing job.
What to be weary of:
Someone who says they can do it all (book promotion, editing, advertising, social media management, etc.)
Someone who is in a different time zone than you
Someone who over-promises at the beginning of conversations
Good things to look for:
Positive reviews
Realistic timelines
Decent but not over-the-top pricing
No spelling mistakes on their profile
Just like a book promotion company, know that it takes weeks of implementing a plan to see results. And know that there is going to be work on your side as well because it is a team effort.
My experience with a freelance book promoter
Recently, I had a freelance book promoter reach out to me on X and offer me their book promotion services in exchange for a recommendation to my X audience.
So, I took them up on their offer and this is how the process went.
I did let them know ahead of time that I didn’t have money to spend on a book promotion campaign and they assured me that there were ways to do an organic marketing campaign.
The Phone Call
We spoke over the phone where they gathered information from me and explained their plan to me.
First, they would have a research stage in which they would research my target audience to find out what social media platforms they were using, and what their age was. They would also research organic techniques that would work for my marketing campaign.
They then asked me for my website link, social media links, the link for the book I would marketing for, and my book cover image.
The Plan
Within three days, I received a working document via Google Docs that I could view.
This document showed me a breakdown of each social media platform I was part of telling me how many times I should post to the platform and provided one example of a book post for each. It also showed me some hashtags I could use with each post to expand my searchability and reach.
They also said they had some contacts within reading groups and book review groups they would reach out to.
They also told me that we would do this plan for 4 weeks.
Some of the examples were:
Character quizzes for social media
Book trailers
Quote images
Review images with the book cover
They also offered to create a new book trailer for me so it was fresh.
So far, everything seemed well and good.
Implementation
This is where things sort of got off track.
Unfortunately, this book promoter never told me when I should start posting on social media. As it was unclear when their research phase was over.
So I waited a few days and when I didn’t hear anything I reached out to them and asked when I should start posting and implementing the plan.
They responded that I should have already started. Naturally, feeling as if I was already behind, I scrambled to create some of the examples I had been given and then began posting. After I created content and posted it, I would send the book promoter what I’d made in case they needed it for the reader and book review connections they’d mentioned.
Since everything had begun, I continued to post and follow the plan.
I also set a free promotion on my book for four days to help our chances of success in the beginning.
Further Down the Road
After a week and a half in, I hadn’t received any more examples or evolution of the plan for week two.
So I began trying to think outside the box and researching other book promotion ideas to apply to my content. And as I created and posted, I continued to send what I’d made to the book promoter.
Then I saw that they had posted on X one of the content images I had made for the book. And when they posted they tagged some people on X such as a book reviewer and three other romance writers. I was admittedly a little confused because as I kept an eye on the post, no one liked it or shared it which made me question if the promoter knew these people or randomly tagged them.
So, I reached out and asked if there were any updates.
They responded that they had sent direct messages to their contacts about my books. That was it.
So now what?
After two more days, the promoter reached out to me and asked what results I was seeing.
The Results So Far
Unfortunately, I didn’t see wonderful results.
After doing a week and a half of the campaign, I hadn’t seen any spikes for my book. And yes, realistically, I knew that it takes weeks for a campaign to work. However, when I usually ran a free promotion deal for my book Anywhere Else, I would have between 20 to 100 copies go out over 4 days.
And over the first week of the campaign with all the posting across my platform, I only had 7 books taken the first day, 10 the second, and 4 the third day.
This was when I asked them what we needed to do next to see results, in other terms, how did we pivot our strategy? And unfortunately, I didn’t receive the response I’d hoped. The response I’d received was, “I’m putting a lot out here. I don’t know what you want me to do.”
Needless to say, I was disheartened.
After much discussion, they finally agreed to pivot and think of new strategies.
And the only other one they could think of was to create a book landing page. This wasn’t a bad idea, however, I couldn’t understand how if people weren’t clicking the link to take them to the book, why would we create more hoops for them to jump through? Because the person would need to go to the landing page and then click again to go to the page where they could purchase the book.
My Final Decision
After speaking with the promoter at length about this landing page, they continued to give me generic landing page advice rather than strategies tailored to my book.
I then asked them specifically how I could tailor my landing page for my book to attract readers and they sent me a website that had a list of authors websites and landing pages. Which was insightful, but not what I’d asked for.
This was when I took a day or two to think.
Was I getting what my book needed out of this? Did the promoter feel invested in my book? Why wasn’t the promoter willing to pivot our plan to better suit the book?
After lots of consideration, I messaged the promoter and told them:
After taking everything into consideration, I feel it may be best that we end this book promotion arrangement early. I realize that marketing takes time, however, in reflection on this whole process I felt that there was no real timeline, updates on your side of the process, and clear and tailored information toward my book in terms of planning and steps.
I appreciate how much work you put into this and I truly value everything we did but I don’t want to have you continue spending time on this for free when I wouldn’t be able to give a good recommendation to my audience based on the communication and professionalism of this process.
My Takeaways
After going through this process, I learned these things:
I wished the promoter would have provided me with a timeline of the campaign as well as a plan B in case our methods didn’t yield results
I wished the promoter would have done more of what they had promised in the beginning: making me a new book trailer (which they offered to do), reaching out to the reader/ book review connections they had (apparently, they were only messaging people to see if they were interested in my book), and being more communicative
I wished that I could have had more examples so everything I was creating didn’t feel the same and like I was spamming my social media feeds
In the end, book promotion is a tough area of the publishing world, because marketing always is.
Know that when you work with a book promoter, you are working as a team. And that open communication is key to having everything run smoothly. Also, be aware of the fact that it takes time to see results, but you need a book promoter who is willing to think outside the box if you don’t see results.
Do your research on the promoter of your choice, and ensure that your book is going to have the support it needs and you will see results.