Dijatul

If you have a book deal, a publisher, and a book launch date, you should be proactively looking at ways to market your book for free. Not every new book has a large marketing budget. Even traditionally published books have very little dollar spend behind them, even if they are supported by a Big Five publisher. And self-published books? Forget it. Every dollar you spend eats into potential profits from the sale of your book.

Frankly, even if you do have a great publishing deal and a huge marketing and PR team, you should still be doing everything within your power to promote your book on your end. And please don’t tell me you don’t like marketing or the idea of creating your personal author brand. You’ve taken all this time and effort to write a brilliant book, it’s going to be published (yay!), so force yourself out of your comfort zone and do your darnedest to get people to actually buy and read the thing.

And it’s not just your book launch you should be interested in hyping up. Preorders are counted in your first week’s sales numbers when being considered for bestseller lists, including the holy grail: The New York Times Bestseller List. In other words, you should be actively pushing for orders and sales months before your book is set to launch, with a ramp up as much as six months prior, and full steam ahead at six weeks.

It takes takes time and effort to market your book for free, but it’s perfectly achievable. You just need to get a little more creative with your marketing strategy. Here are 75 ways to market your book for free that you can use before, during, and after your book launch.

Market your book for free on social media

1. Create a Twitter profile and tweet book updates from it
2. Follow and engage authors and writers using the #AuthorsofTwitter hashtag
3. Create an Instagram author account and use it
4. Follow book lovers and social influencers using the #Bookstagram hashtag
5. Follow authors and writers using the #WritingCommunity hashtag
6. Create Instagram reels to engage your audience via short video promos
7. Post to Instagram every day in the run-up to your book launch
8. Engage in Instagram takeovers to leverage other authors’ followings
9. Create a Facebook author fan page, and invite your social network to join
10. Run a contest or giveaway for your Facebook fans
11. Join Binders and Sub-Binders groups on Facebook: communities filled with thousands of authors and associated author promotion
12. Create a TikTok account and upload videos under the #BookTok hashtag
13. Engage with other people’s content under all of these hashtags – they’re more likely to pay it forward if you do!
14. Create a book trailer on YouTube
15. Record yourself reading from your book and upload to YouTube
16. Interview other authors on YouTube
17. Include links to your author website and your book sales pages on YouTube
18. Add your book as a publication on your LinkedIn profile
19. Use a mail merge tool to send a notification to your multiple LinkedIn contacts about your book
20. Pin your book cover graphic or quotes from your book to Pinterest, and include a link for people to buy
21. Use Book Brush to create professional social graphics and sharable images for your book
22. Create a Linktree account in order to share multiple links from your social profiles where there is limited space
23. Use Hootsuite to manage and schedule of your social media
24. State that you are an author on all your social profiles

Market your book for free on websites, blogs, and email

25. Build an author website on free platforms such as WordPress or Google Sites
26. Monitor your website visitors using Google Analytics, optimizing those pages that get the most hits for optimum engagement
27. Add an events calendar to your website share where you will be on your free book tour
28. Add a specific page for your book (one book = one page) and include plenty of “buy now” buttons, linking out to everywhere your book is for sale
29. Use free design tool  to create a media kit for your website that includes book graphics, author headshots, quotes and more
30. Always include the same author photo across all promotional materials so that people can recognize you and associate you with your book. Your face + your book = your brand
31. Ensure your book is listed on all the big directories and available for sale: Amazon, Bookshop.org, B&N, Smashwords, Kobo, and Apple iBookstore
32. Create an Amazon Author Central account and related Amazon author page
33. Populate your Amazon author page with your author bio, headshot, and book data
34. Add an RSS feed to your Amazon author page with a link to your blog
35. Ensure your book is tagged under the correct category (provided by Amazon), and write a full description, including your genre and relevant keywords
36. Create a Goodreads author profile so that people can review your book
37. Include quotes from your book on Goodreads
38. Answer interview questions on Goodreads to engage with your audience
39. Run a Goodreads book giveaway
40. Encourage people to review your book on Amazon and Goodreads. These reviews really do matter!
41. Submit your book to Kirkus reviews
42. Enter your book for literary awards
43. Sign up for a free BookBub account and create an author profile
44. Register for BookBub’s free New Release alert that will notify your followers on your book’s release
45. If your book is a debut, submit your book to be featured on Debutiful (be sure to give at least four months’ notice prior to publication)
46. Submit your book to promotion websites like Goodkindles who regularly choose books to promote from free across their website, newsletter, and social media
47. Reach out to relevant blogs and websites and offer to write a guest post, with a link back to your website and/or book
48. Offer to contribute to relevant newsletters in exchange for a link to or short promo of your book
49. Write and publish articles on Medium on topics relevant to your book
50. Comment on other people’s blogs and articles. You can leave a link to your book, but don’t make it spammy
51. Visit relevant forums and comment on threads; again, make it natural and not salesy!
52. Create a press release and seed it out to free press release distribution sites
53. Sign up to the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) newsletter and respond to calls for articles, blog posts, and interviews that are relevant to your book
54. Create an author newsletter and send frequent communications in the run up to your book launch
55. Add your book to your email signature with some nice graphics and include a link to purchase
56. Ensure your literary agent links to your book on their social media and website
57. Ensure your editor links to your book on their social media and website
58. Ensure your publisher links to your book on their social media and website
59. Ask your writing community, friends, family, teachers, co-workers, and dentist (basically anyone you know who has a website) to link to your book on their social media and website

Market your book for free in real life

60. Reach out to your writer network and authors in your genre and ask them to blurb your book
61. Send free galleys/advanced reader copies (ARCs) to influencers in exchange for honest reviews
62. Submit your book to trade publications like Publishers Weekly, who announce new releases in print, online, and in their publishing marketplace
63. Contact your local newspaper or magazine and ask if they will run a feature
64. Contact national newspapers and magazines – can’t hurt to try, right?
65. Host a real-life launch party that speaks to the theme of your book. Invite friends, family, and literary professionals (make it clear people are expected to pay for themselves, though!)
66. Host a virtual launch party livestream via YouTube Live, StreamYard, or Be.Live
67. Go “live” via social networks or use webinar tools like Zoom to host live Q&A sessions about your book
68. Go on a free book tour. You can reach out to coffee shops, consignment stores, schools, book clubs, writing groups, and more. Most will be happy to host you
69. Reach out to your local library and offer to do a free reading
70. Reach out to your local independent bookstore and ask if they can host a book signing
71. Encourage another author to host an “in conversation with” session with you. Two authors attract more audiences than one!
72. Contact relevant podcast hosts and ask if you can appear as a guest
73. If you have a Creative Writing MFA or related university degree, reach out to your faculty to ask if they can add your book to their alumni book listing
74. Similarly, you can offer to give a presentation or panel discussion with current students
75. Create a QR code that people can scan out in the real world, linking back to your website
76. Send Facebook event invites for all your in-person appearances

Remember, now is not the time to be coy about your book launch. Shout it from the rooftops. Use good old fashioned word-of-mouth whenever you can. You need to get the message out to the widest audience as early as possible. And when it comes to marketing your book, the best cost is always free.

Natalie Harris-Spencer

Natalie Harris-Spencer is an English writer, editor, blogger, and debut novelist living in America. In her day job, she’s Director of Digital Marketing for a global digital advertising technology leader, with over a decade’s experience creating, project managing, and delivering world-class web content and global digital strategies. Her passion is writing. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Allegory Ridge, the Stonecoast Review, The Dark City, The Satirist, and others. She is the winner of the Stubborn Writers Contest, the Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize, and she was selected by Oyster River Pages as one of their Emerging Fiction Voices. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Stonecoast, University of Southern Maine, and is currently working on preparing her debut novel for publication with her literary agent. Natalie enjoys surprise in fiction. And tea. Find her author pages on Amazon and Goodreads.