10 Effective Marketing Tips for Self-Publishers

As a writer, you feel most comfortable turning your ideas and inspiration into written content. Your poetry is the reflection of your ideas, thoughts, experiences, or your soul, and writing it is a process that comes to you naturally. But, it’s one thing to write poetry and a whole other to have it published, let alone do the marketing campaign for it. So, for self-published authors, marketing is one of the greatest challenges.

It’s only natural that you’re confused about marketing your poetry and your self-published work. After all, you’re not a marketing expert. Still, you’ll need to learn a few of the basic marketing tips to ensure your poetry reaches the right audience. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 10 best marketing tips for self-publishers.

Let’s take a closer look.

1.   Set up a Website

Every professional business or brand today has its own website. And, even though you’re not technically a business, you still need to build a personal brand around your name.

This is the first step towards building a strong marketing strategy for your self-published works.

Your website should be your online writer’s portfolio, containing all the information people might care about:

• your brief biography
• interesting facts
• list of all your published works
• some images or videos
• useful links
• your writer’s resume

Your website is your presentation to the other writers and your readership, so make sure you build a solid one. Use WordPress tutorials to build a website on your own, or hire someone to do it for you.

2.   Start a Blog

The most important part of your website is your blog. A blog is a place where you’ll write and publish interesting content that your readers would enjoy going back to.

This way, you’ll be able:

• attract more people to learn about you
• build trust
• provide useful tips and information

Think about what your target audience would want to read about and cover these topics in short but informative blog posts.

You could cover topics such as:

• How to Choose the Perfect Poetry Book For a Friend
• What Poetry to Read When You’re Sad
• 10 Reasons Why Poetry Cures Depression

Write about the topics that will lead your target audience from the Google results page to your blog.

3.   Get Active on Social Media

Social media is an extremely powerful and influential tool in today’s marketing world. Everyone from multimillion-dollar companies to street artists uses it.

And there are more than 3 billion active social media users worldwide!

This tells you that you simply have to set up profiles on the major social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Once you create your profiles, you need to get active:

• regularly create and share content
• post about your blog content and include a link
• share news about your work
• like and comment on other people’s posts
• invite people to engage with you

Social media marketing can make all the difference in the world if you know how to use it.

Make sure you’re active and recognizable, and speak up to have as many people hear about you as possible.

4.   Get Personal

To further develop your influence using online marketing, you’ll need to get more personal with your readership and followers.

You don’t have to reveal your deepest secrets, but you still need to give them something to hold on to and build an emotional bond with you.

That means that you should share content and social media posts such as:

• images of you while working, going out, visiting book fairs, etc.
• your team of people
• your leisure time activities
• your other passions
• stories about your life
• stories about your professional journey
• inside jokes

Give your audience a sneak peek into your life to have them feel more connected to you. This will help you grow as a contemporary writer and gain the trust and respect of a greater number of people.

5.   Team Up

Another great way to promote yourself as a writer and thus promote your work is to team up with the right people from your niche.

It could be anyone that shares a target audience with you:

• other poetry writers
• bookstore owners
• publishers
• poetry bloggers
• literature podcasts
• book reviewers

If you share a target audience with these people, they’re a perfect way for you to reach out to potential readers and have them learn about you as a writer.

Offer collaboration to these people, and find a way to be a guest writer for their blog, interviewee on their podcast, or simply have them share some of your content on their social media.

6.   Organize Events

As a self-published author, you have to organize events that will put you and your work in the center of attention. It needs to be something that people will enjoy being a part of.

Here’s what to think about:

• host a poetry reading event at a local bookstore
• host an online poetry discussion event
• organize Live Q&A sessions on Instagram

Think about the events that would draw the attention of your target audience and make sure they enjoy their time with you.

You can even hand out copies of your published work to the participants as a gift.

7.   Invest in a Killer Book Cover

Budget can sometimes be a problem for self-published authors. You don’t have unlimited access to all the tools, resources, and ideas you might want to use.

That means there’s always room for saving money.

But the one thing you don’t want to save money on is your book cover.

Yes, we should never judge a book by its covers. But most people still do. And, if your book cover isn’t a great one, your sales might be down, and people won’t show any special interest in it.

So, hire a designer and invest in a killer book cover since this will:

• increase your sales
• improve your online presence
• improve your image as a brand

Make sure your book cover is brilliant, and don’t save money on this segment of your campaign.

8.   Analyze Your Competitors

As a contemporary poetry writer, you need to stay updated about the other authors and what they’re doing. It’s important to stay informed and follow all the news, events, and happenings in your industry.

This will help you analyze them as competitors and take notes about:

• their social media activity
• their events
• their online marketing strategy
• their tricks and techniques

It’s important to know how other authors are handling their marketing strategy and what they are doing to attract more readers.

Once you learn that, don’t copy what they’re doing, but learn from their experience and come up with your own ideas.

9.   Organize Giveaways

A social media giveaway is always a great idea. Here’s why:

• it’s simple to organize
• it’s extremely low-budget
• it’s a powerful marketing tool

Choose a good occasion for organizing a giveaway. It can be the publication of your new book or reaching a certain number of followers online.

Set rules such as:

• like your social media profile
• tag a friend
• share in a story
• leave a comment
• etc.

Then, name the prize. It would be best to give out your latest poetry book or a ticket to your poetry reading.

After that, people will start spreading the word about your giveaway and sharing your content with their friends.

It’s a brilliant marketing tool that marketers love using.

10. Inspire User-Generated Content

Finally, another marketing tactic you simply have to apply to your strategy is using user-generated content (UGC) to promote your work.

If you already have a solid base of readers, inspire them to share UGC in the forms of:

• using specific hashtags for social media content regarding your work
• images with your favorite books
• videos
• Twitter comments and open discussions
• blog posts

If they like what they’ve read, invite them to talk about it openly.

Then, repost their content to your social media profiles and thank them for their love and dedication to your work. They’re going to love being recognized by you, and this will inspire other people to share their stories as well.

Final Thoughts

As a self-published author, you can’t expect anyone else to do the hard marketing work for you. You need to learn how to do it and invest your efforts into promoting your work the right way.

Use the tips we’ve shared above to build a strong and effective marketing strategy for your self-published works.

Dorian Martin is a freelance writer and a blogger with a passion for the written word. He currently works as an editor and a writing expert at the PayMetoDoYourHomework writing service where he gives academic help in native English to students all around the world. He’s also a skilled proofreader and amateur poetry writer.

This post first appeared here?.