Book Promotion Ideas
Greetings! I’m Gail Grant Park, author of the Gallagher Girls Mysteries, and here’s some things I’ve done to promote my books.
Okay, so your book is published, and all your immediate circle of friends and family have purchased (and hopefully put in a review), but how do you reach out to a wider circle of readers?
First, let’s assume that the problem of slow sales has nothing to do with the book itself: You’ve uploaded a quality, edited product that has (minimal) errors, it’s got an eye-catching, genre-related cover, you’ve optimized your keywords and categories, and your blurb is short, dynamic and leaving the reader with that “I have to read this!” feeling.
How do you make more people aware of your book amidst the crowded field? Every day is ‘promote yourself’ day. Here are some ideas that I’ve used to market my books:
- Business cards. Be sure they are quality (i.e., not homemade) and have your website on it as well as contact info. Postcards with your book cover and salient info are also a good route here. Hand them out at every and any opportunity.
- Have a professional-looking website to send visitors to who get handed your card!
- Have a social media presence that you update regularly. This doesn’t mean you have to be on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bluesky and Substack; Pick one or two that you feel comfortable with and post consistently (once or twice a week is a good number, but weekly is also fine.)
- Read, Friend, engage, share, like other authors, book talkers, influencers. It’s just old-fashioned networking and it still works.
- Find those influencers you click with, whose style of promoting and reviewing books you like, and reach out to see if they’d be willing to give your book a look/review. Ask them what their requirements are, what genres they like (you should already know this one from checking them out). They may want you to send them a PDF or paperback copy to read and review.
- Do the same research and reaching out to book podcasters. They need people like you to interview!
- Visit your local bookstores to see if they would be willing to take copies on consignment.
- Attend local book discussion groups. Put together a kit of 6-8 copies of your book along with a discussion guide and offer it to the groups as loaners for their discussion. You may be giving away your book “for free,” but they’ll come back for more and maybe recommend to their friends.
I hope this is helpful and remember, never give up! It’s a daily “job” to promote your work. Let me know if any of this works for you! You can find me at
