How to market your new book

A guide to reach the readers you desireOne of my writing doodles.You do not market your book.

Most people think once the book is out you can market it to the readers and they will lap it up.

Wrong. People don’t care about the products. They care about identity and experience. Long before the book even comes out you need to identify your target audience and make effort to create a platform and identity that they would be willing to embrace. Your book is only an extension of this identify that should benefit from all the attention that the identity already gathers

The importance of attention.

I am going to address this from the perspective of an author who does not have a huge marketing budget and entire media marketing tools at his disposal.

You might write the best book in the world. But if readers do not know it exists, it won’t sell. And how will people know that your book exists? Before you give them this information, they should first have your attention. Attention is the only currency on which marketing works. The more of it you have, the more successful you will be.

Getting the attention.

To receive anything, you first need to provide something. In this world of continuous distractions, if you are not providing value, you are obsolete. You need to either entertain or educate those from whom you seek attention. So if it’s readers you are looking to attract, create and distribute content that would benefit the readers. I draw and post bookish wallpapers and doodles on Instagram for the same.

https://medium.com/media/b3c8feee8dc5f6d3fd19db5a4c04f34a/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/5e3f86ad75a4283a16cc161a6ab0b45a/href

You should create content that benefits readers. Write articles that helps readers and celebrates reading.

Examples:

6 reasons why readers have more fulfilling lives — Naveen Durgaraju — Medium

The guide to getting your first book published in India

How to start your novel — Naveen Durgaraju — Medium

I want to provide as much value as possible because I am genuinely interested in building a community of readers and writers.

The mindset of marketing:

Instead of giving you very narrow advice on how you should market the book, I am going to give a broader idea of how you should go about it.

Across all the different platforms, you need to follow these 3 simple steps -

Identify where the attention isAnalyze what value you can provide to your target audienceProvide and distribute this value in the zone of attention that you have identified in step 1.

That’s all. If it’s Instagram, you follow relevant hashtags like #bookstagram and see what people are reading/writing and be a part of the conversation. You also use the same hashtags on your post.

If it’s Facebook, you see where most of your target audience are going, which groups they are part of and then offer genuine value in those groups.

The actual book:

Finally we come to the actual book once it comes out. This is where I merge all my existing talents to create posts that would create intrigue and interest in my target audience. I draw and color character art and other posts that are relevant. How to create good content is again too vast a subject and will take an elaborate answer in itself to get into even the superficial details. Instead here are some examples.

https://medium.com/media/1eb14b35bec637261314ad151ed84be0/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/2392594be6c4e77fcd81903abc21a48e/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/8eafdc05b34366fcef71890fbdf815c9/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/309f83224f024c499a26d624bbfbaabd/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/276a0f2ccd006db9469e44124eeae7b5/href

Paid marketing:

Apart from all this organic growth you can leverage Instagram and Facebook’s paid advertising to reach out to more people who are likely to appreciate and engage with your content. How to do paid marketing is a whole different story and a whole different post.

Engage with your audience

Make sure that you engage with your audience and be open to feedback. Take both good and bad reviews in stride. The relationships you build your readers are far more valuable then mere sales in the long run.

I would be documenting my journey of trying to build this community and trying to get the readers of this country read my trilogy.(which started off as a Quora asnwer and then grew because Quorans wanted it to — engagement as I said). Feel free to join me in this journey.

My new book -> Buy Sinners — The Dawn of Kalki Book Online at Low Prices in India

Created a topic for the book in Quora —  Sinners: The Dawn of Kalki . Feel free to ask me any questions regarding the same.