Budget-Friendly Book Marketing for Authors

Knowing how to create a marketing plan filled with a mixture of free and paid marketing is crucial

While book marketing is crucial in the promotion of your book, it shouldn’t break the bank.

Many authors sway one way or the other:

Pay nothing for marketing
Pay a ton for marketing

But the truth is, there are wonderful approaches in both of these regions that can create a budget-friendly book marketing campaign that doesn’t break the bank.

Start with What You Already Have

What we shouldn’t be doing is overlooking the avenues and tools that are already available to us.

Personal Facebook Account: You never know what talking about your book to friends can lead to. Maybe they refer your book to a friend.
Social Media Profiles: Each social media platform brings its own audience. If you happen to be on more than one, use it to your advantage.
Email Contacts: Why not send your email contacts an offer to join your newsletter? The worst they do is not answer.
Local Libraries: Local Libraries are always willing to consider a book to add to their collection, or they may have events coming up that you could be part of.
Community Groups: Whether online or at your local library/community center, it’s worth checking out what groups could be interested in your book.
Book Clubs: These sometimes take some time to find and get into, but once you manage to do so, you could make it big with a small group. Libraries host these, and you can even find some online.
Local Businesses: Have you ever checked out local businesses to see if they are interested in taking on new vendors? Maybe this could be your opportunity to reach different shoppers.
Existing Readers: Take a moment to add to the back of your books a section asking readers to kindly leave a review if they have time or if they loved it, to recommend it to a friend.

Before spending a dollar on advertising, look at the audience and connections you already have.

Focus on Relationship Marketing

Fostering relationships with people is the best way to make progress for yourself.

You can try:

Replying to comments on social media, let these people know they are seen
Answer any reader messages you receive
Send newsletters on a regular basis, and try to provide an engagement prompt
Participate in reader groups, but not just on an author basis
Attend local events at small businesses and more to make connections
Support other authors, we are stronger together

Readers will often feel more inclined to purchase books from a personable author who makes their audience feel seen.

Use Free Content Marketing

This is where authors have a ton of materials at their disposal, but they need to know how to use them.

Social media

Character Spotlights: Throughout the writing process, sharing insights into your characters can go a long way with readers. It builds their interest and allows them to gain some perspective on your book before they read it.
Behind-the-scenes writing updates: Sharing milestones you’ve reached, or even an issue you are having, allows readers to feel invested in your journey. If you have a chance to share some of your book research, that would be great.
Reveals: Why stop at cover reveals? Try character reveals, location reveals, book description reveals, and more.
Quotes from your book: Who knew that sharing some of your favorite lines from your book could capture a reader’s attention?
Reader Reviews: The good old social proof aspect of reader reviews is a tried and true method to attract readers.

Blogging

Why not try writing articles on:

Themes in your books
Book research you have conducted
Writing experiences and background into how you got your career started

Email Newsletters

Did you know that one newsletter can promote:

New book releases
Backlist books
Upcoming events
Reader bonuses

Partner with Others

Once you begin networking within the literary world, you are bound to meet and build relationships with a few authors in your genre.

Many authors forget that an author collaboration is free. And you can reach more readers from another author’s audience.

Newsletter Swaps

Why not promote another author in your newsletter? You could share their book, an interview with the author, and anything else you think your audience would enjoy. And the other author would do the same.

Social Media Takeovers

Planning ahead for it, provide the collaboration author with premade posts and a photo of you that they can post for a full day. My suggestion would be one book post, and the rest of the posts to introduce yourself to their audience.

Joint Giveaways

Partnering with another author in your genre to host a giveaway could make a huge impact. Especially if both authors throw in some specialty items with their books.

Being Strategic With Your Spending

As hard as it is to spend our precious hard-earned money on marketing, we can’t never spend money on it.

Here are some budget-friendly ways to make a huge impact:

Professional Cover Design: You don’t need to spend a ton of money here to get a quality product, and it beats releasing a book with a crummy cover.
Newsletter Platform: There are some platforms out there where spending money to boost your reach is worth it.
Business Cards: I have yet to regret investing in business cards, and they are relatively cheap to get a bunch. In addition to this, you can keep some in your wallet for spur-of-the-moment opportunities.
Local Vendor Fees: There are businesses that allow you to be a vendor for a small monthly fee, even as low as $30.

However, here is what authors typically overspend on:

Random and unresearched advertising
Expensive promotional packages
Paying for services that show no clear return on investment

While it’s difficult to put together the perfect marketing plan for yourself, remember that it doesn’t have to cost thousands.

You can mix and match free marketing options with paid ones and can make just as big an impact.

Just remember to:

Do some market research to see what others are doing and what you can realistically do
Set yourself goals and a doable budget
Stick to a consistent plan and follow through

When you come up with a plan, you can achieve great things.