blog 3 Ways To Market Your Book For Free

[Chessie2]

Chessie2 submitted a new blog post:

3 Ways To Market Your Book For Free
by Rose Andrews

This is part one in our Free Marketing series.

Authors are ordinary people with ordinary lives. Most of us have jobs, families, and responsibilities out in the world that, well, cost money (bills, bills, bills). In my life as an Indie, I have come across few authors who have plenty of money to spend on promotion and visibility for their books. It’s why I’d like to share some ways that I have marketed my books for free and gained some traction from the effort. All of these will take time so be aware that it’s necessary to carve out space in your schedule to explore them. Any author can do these regardless of how their work is published. The focus here is community and audience building. None of these will make you into an overnight celebrity.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual medium. Pretty pictures of food, scenery, makeup, were what originally drew me to it. But what’s often missed about Pinterest is that the majority of users are there to purchase products. It has billions of pins and users from around the world, and it is estimated that over 50% of people on Pinterest use it to help them make purchases. Those purchases could be your books!

My Pinterest page gets around 13k views monthly, although I’ve had to pin a lot in order to increase my numbers. When I first started playing around with Pinterest it...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[Black Dragon]

Of these three methods, which have you had the most success with personally?

 

[argentquill]

It sounds like the greatest benefit of pinterest and wattpad is contact with a reading audience, rather than being dependent on getting an agent.
I have pics from my site's gallery on my pinterest account, but I don't think I've gotten an increase in traffic.
But I will definitely try your methods. I just need to find a way to appeal to people on pinterest whose boards reflect similar interests to mine, to click on links to my site, and repin my posts.
Thank you for sharing.

 

[Chessie2]

Of these three methods, which have you had the most success with personally?

Perma free has been the most successful by far. I've played with both my series intro books and eventually put one of them back on paid (.99 cents) but the series with the perma free intro book has the highest sell through. It also has the highest reviews. I've been able to get thousands of readers to see my work because of this. If an author is not in K.U. then permafree is a strong option to consider.

 

[Chessie2]

It sounds like the greatest benefit of pinterest and wattpad is contact with a reading audience, rather than being dependent on getting an agent.
I have pics from my site's gallery on my pinterest account, but I don't think I've gotten an increase in traffic.
But I will definitely try your methods. I just need to find a way to appeal to people on pinterest whose boards reflect similar interests to mine, to click on links to my site, and repin my posts.
Thank you for sharing.

Pinterest is so much fun! If you pin regularly then you should be getting some engagement. People with like boards and pins will follow you and you can look them up in the search bar as well. Best of luck to you. Pinterest has a lot of uses in regular life too (currently I'm obsessed with smoothie recipes).

 

[writeshiek33]

i am skeptical of whattpad as feel lot of people steeling work there so i am steering away from that

 

[Chessie2]

i am skeptical of whattpad as feel lot of people steeling work there so i am steering away from that

The work on Wattpad is protected by copyright but the site isn't for everyone. Good luck with your writing!

 

[Devor]

I've never quite understood the connection between Pinterest and book sales. Books don't usually come with a lot of visuals. So Pinterest seems like a way of gathering an audience and then saying, "Ohh, hey guys, I have a book." How do you know - or do you have any tips for making sure - that you're gathering an audience of people who will be interested in your book?

 

[argentquill]

It sounds like the greatest benefit of pinterest and wattpad is contact with a reading audience, rather than being dependent on getting an agent.
I have pics from my site's gallery on my pinterest account, but I don't think I've gotten an increase in traffic.
But I will definitely try your methods. I just need to find a way to appeal to people on pinterest whose boards reflect similar interests to mine, to click on links to my site, and repin my posts.
Thank you for sharing.

Pinterest is so much fun! If you pin regularly then you should be getting some engagement. People with like boards and pins will follow you and you can look them up in the search bar as well. Best of luck to you. Pinterest has a lot of uses in regular life too (currently I'm obsessed with smoothie recipes).

So, would you say it's a process of getting closer to people with similar interests? With more familiarity, they might click on the link leading to your story on another site?

 

[Chessie2]

So, would you say it's a process of getting closer to people with similar interests? With more familiarity, they might click on the link leading to your story on another site?

Yes. It's about building relationships and being part of a community. The community aspect is an important one that I'll be covering in the follow up to this article. If you post true to your interests, the audience you are hoping to reach will find you. From there you can join other pin boards that users have created that share the same or similar pins as yours. One thing that is helpful with Pinterest as well is creating your own pins that lead to articles, blogs, or books you have written that will help others.

 

[argentquill]

"Being part of a community." That is such a good point. There's reward in having comradeship and sharing interests with others. If you're trying to bring something to life with the written word, it's nice to talk with someone who would see that same life come into the world.

 

[Chessie2]

"Being part of a community." That is such a good point. There's reward in having comradeship and sharing interests with others. If you're trying to bring something to life with the written word, it's nice to talk with someone who would see that same life come into the world.

And we can all support one another. Mythic Scribes is that place for me and many others. The discussions are plenty and I definitely have grown as a writer by hanging out here.

 

[Arranah]

Of these three methods, which have you had the most success with personally?

Perma free has been the most successful by far. I've played with both my series intro books and eventually put one of them back on paid (.99 cents) but the series with the perma free intro book has the highest sell through. It also has the highest reviews. I've been able to get thousands of readers to see my work because of this. If an author is not in K.U. then permafree is a strong option to consider.

How do I find Perma Free? There is no website with that name that I could find. There are a number of sites that talk about it, but that's it.

 

[Chessie2]

How do I find Perma Free? There is no website with that name that I could find. There are a number of sites that talk about it, but that's it.

Permafree is a price point. You can only do it if your book is wide to all retailers and are out of Kindle Unlimited. For example, I use Draft2Digital, set my price across the retailers to $0.00, then contact Amazon with links to the other retailers letting them know to adjust the price point. The book will then be set to free on Amazon and everywhere else, where readers can download it without paying. I am able to change the price to paid in the future if need be.

 

[Arranah]

How do I find Perma Free? There is no website with that name that I could find. There are a number of sites that talk about it, but that's it.

Permafree is a price point. You can only do it if your book is wide to all retailers and are out of Kindle Unlimited. For example, I use Draft2Digital, set my price across the retailers to $0.00, then contact Amazon with links to the other retailers letting them know to adjust the price point. The book will then be set to free on Amazon and everywhere else, where readers can download it without paying. I am able to change the price to paid in the future if need be.

Thanks. So you have to be willing to use Amazon. They have despicable business practices and I won't use them. They don't even pay most of their workers enough to live on. All the while the owner makes billions upon billions. I don't buy from them either. My books are available through everyone but them. I won't sell out my principles for personal gain.

 

[skip.knox]

I figure pretty much every corporation has its share of corrupt people and bad practices. I can't really go around checking on them all. Granted, Amazon's sins loom larger, but Amazon itself looms larger.

None of that excuses anything, but it's not like Amazon is over here being Bad while all the other companies are over there being Good.

There's a line I've quoted before: By the time I finally decided to sell out, I discovered no one was interested in buying. Not entirely sure what that means, but the old hippie in my does like the line.

 

[Chessie2]

How do I find Perma Free? There is no website with that name that I could find. There are a number of sites that talk about it, but that's it.

Permafree is a price point. You can only do it if your book is wide to all retailers and are out of Kindle Unlimited. For example, I use Draft2Digital, set my price across the retailers to $0.00, then contact Amazon with links to the other retailers letting them know to adjust the price point. The book will then be set to free on Amazon and everywhere else, where readers can download it without paying. I am able to change the price to paid in the future if need be.

Thanks. So you have to be willing to use Amazon. They have despicable business practices and I won't use them. They don't even pay most of their workers enough to live on. All the while the owner makes billions upon billions. I don't buy from them either. My books are available through everyone but them. I won't sell out my principles for personal gain.

You don't have to use Amazon. Perma free can be done via Draft 2 Digital or direct to other retailers.

 

[Chessie2]

You're welcome, Joy! I'm glad you found the article helpful. Wattpad has a great community and there are a lot of talented writers on there, too. It does take time and effort to get reads but the best way to go about it is to post on a schedule. Congratulations on your #1 novel! That's not an easy feat! Best wishes with your writing career.

 

[Chessie2]

I figure pretty much every corporation has its share of corrupt people and bad practices. I can't really go around checking on them all. Granted, Amazon's sins loom larger, but Amazon itself looms larger.

None of that excuses anything, but it's not like Amazon is over here being Bad while all the other companies are over there being Good.

There's a line I've quoted before: By the time I finally decided to sell out, I discovered no one was interested in buying. Not entirely sure what that means, but the old hippie in my does like the line.

The wonderful thing about being independently published is that we have the freedom to do business however we wish. It's a pretty neat thing. Amazon has been a key player in granting us that freedom though and for that I am grateful.

 

[Chessie2]

I've never quite understood the connection between Pinterest and book sales. Books don't usually come with a lot of visuals. So Pinterest seems like a way of gathering an audience and then saying, "Ohh, hey guys, I have a book." How do you know - or do you have any tips for making sure - that you're gathering an audience of people who will be interested in your book?

Great question! (Sorry to respond so late--for some reason I'm not getting the notifications for all the comments on here)

How you want to approach Pinterest is by creating boards and pins that are related to your work then linking those pins to your blog posts or books. For example, I have boards on 1940's fashion, home life, Hollywood stars, and pictures of people just living their lives. I repin pins that I find in my searches and save them to the proper boards. Other posters then find those pins and follow my boards. They repin those pins. It's then a community effort to share pins of subjects and things we are interested in.

Over time, my boards grow with pins on the 1940's and followers to those boards that like that time period. I then create my own pins with excerpts of my work and blog posts linking to my website or retailer. The idea here is that, with consistent and regular pinning, I have gained followers who are interested in the 1940s. Perhaps they would be interested in my novels set in that era. Another thing too are author boards. I belong to a historical romance author group on Facebook that shares a pin board on the genre. We pin links to our new releases, promotions, blog posts, etc that is seen by our shared followers. A third option I've created is a pin board dedicated to historical romance. I pin all kinds of stuff on there related to the genre. I know for sure that the followers on that board like to read historical romance so I post my created pins on that board, too.

I hope this helps!