5 TRAPS TO AVOID WHEN AUTHORS DO A PAID BOOK PROMOTION

Recently, I did my first paid book promotion. Despite researching the companies for over two weeks, it wasn’t as successful as I hoped. These are some of the lessons I learnt which I hope to share with you so that you don’t fall into the same traps that I did.

1. Use at least one genre-specific website

The three book promotion websites I chose all had a blanket approach to genres i.e. they claimed to cover all other genres. This was a mistake. I should have picked a website that specifically dealt with Romance novels.

. In fact, I did email one company who specifically dealt with Romance who didn’t respond (another issue which I had with one of the promotion companies which I used, their non-response to emails.) If you have a book which has a specific genre, such as Romance, Sci-Fi, Thrillers etc., try to market your book on a website that caters for that genre. At least then, you will know there is an audience who is interested in the genre that you write in.

2. Promote your books on several websites

This is another trap you should try to avoid. When I did my last free paid promotion, I used at least ten websites to promote my fourth novel, ‘Betrayal of Love’. I chose to place my first novel, ‘The Fall of the House of James’ on three websites. I should have promoted the book on five websites or more. Three websites were nowhere near enough.

3. Increase the budget

The budget should have been a higher amount. I had a budget of £150. I think it would have been better to have a budget between £250- £300. Sometimes, the notion of speculating to ultimately accumulate is the one to have. Only increase the budget if you can afford to do so

4. Promote your books regularly

Paid book promotion companies can do some things but they cannot do everything. If you do not promote your novels regularly, then they will simply stop selling. Once it does, it can prove difficult to reverse the trend.

5. Lower your price

It does seem to be the trend that EPUB books need to be sold at a low price. It is entirely up to you as to what price the novel should be sold at. Most book promotion companies tend to want authors to sell their books at $2.99 or less. Perhaps, I should have been bolder and gone for a lower price than I eventually chose, which was $3.99.

Although it didn’t prove to be effective, paid promotion is still a good tactic for authors to use. By avoiding these traps, your paid promotion has a better chance of succeeding.

Annette Austin is a self-published author of four novels in the acclaimed The James Saga series, ‘The Fall of the House of James’, ‘Always A Slave, ‘A Slave’s Vow’ and ‘Betrayal of Love’ and her first novel spent some time at the Number 1 spot on Amazon (History of Antebellum U.S. Chart.) All four of the books in The James Saga have garnered five-star reviews on Amazon.

If you liked this blog post, please share it on social media, email me at anne.austn586@gmail.com or join me on Twitter at Annette Austin@Annettte91329398 with your thoughts.