How Much Does Book Marketing & Promotion Cost?
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There is great pride (and relief) in finally publishing your book — and deservedly so. But if you’re looking to sell that book on the open market, you’re about to embark on a new and altogether different journey. The skills required to write and publish a book are quite unlike those you’ll need moving forward.
Luckily, you don’t have to be a marketing guru to build and connect with an audience of loyal readers. At FriesenPress, we believe that all authors can succeed if given the right coaching and support, and it starts with identifying the right opportunities for you and your book.
But with so many marketing and promotions services available at so many price points, where do you begin? How do you determine what you need to succeed? And how much does all of this cost?
That’s where we come in. Here, we outline the top three marketing & promotion services we recommend to all first-time authors, the factors influencing their costs, and reveal the average industry prices for each service.
The 3 most important book marketing & promotion services for authors
No matter what tools you use to promote your book, it’s essential that you are the face of your book marketing campaign. Potential readers won’t want to hear about your book from anyone else.
The following three services provide authors with the knowledge and tools they need to take their book to the market with confidence:
1. BOOK PROMOTION PLAN
While there’s plenty of room to get creative in marketing specifically for books, it’s still fundamentally the same as promoting any other product. It will always take time and energy, but especially good planning.
Your promotion plan should outline your goals, your target audience, your competition, what differentiates your book, and where your book should be available for purchase. In order to maximize your success, it’s crucial you have a detailed plan to launch and support your book well before you even begin to navigate the book market.
What influences cost: To ensure your book isn’t lost in the shuffle at launch and beyond, you’ll want your book promotion plan to be comprehensive and proactive. While the planning process can be extensive, the cost is often less involved with time spent and more with the expertise and experience of the marketing specialist. You can sift through freelancers on gig sites with different offerings and interpretations of services at hourly rates or get a flat fee with a publishing services provider.
2. SOCIAL MEDIA COACHING
Social media can be a powerful tool for building your author brand and connecting with readers. A good social media coach will not only help set up your social media presence and execute an online promotion campaign, but also leave you with some tools to adapt and succeed on your own. Typically such a service is carried out in an hour-long one-on-one session with a trained expert who will educate you about online book marketing best practices, and help you develop your skills as an ad-hoc marketer.
What influences cost: As the rates for social media coaching are often set hourly, the amount of time you spend with your specialist will be the major factor that determines cost. You might want an introductory plan of action with an understanding of how to utilize various platforms or you may seek something on a more ongoing or intermittent basis. Speaking of platforms, while there are functional similarities across social media platforms, there are many meaningful differences that influence the strategies needed to succeed. The more of them you want to optimize for, the more you’ll be spending.
3. AUTHOR WEBSITE
Favorable media exposure can boost your credibility as an author, help get your book stocked in stores, and ultimately improve your sales. But breaking through the noise can be a challenge without the right support. We’ll equip you with the right tools and develop a custom plan tailored to your goals — a solid and strategic foundation for you to build on.
An author website is where potential readers will go to find out more about you and your books, which gives you an opportunity to present an image of professionalism and develop your author brand. Social media can somewhat contribute to these benefits, but you won’t have the same control over the design and presentation as you do on your own website. On the business side of things, as many potential readers will be searching for and purchasing books online, it’s important that your website is equipped to sell books directly and/or provide links to the relevant retail outlets.
What influences cost: The scope of your website can remain as small as a single, concise page with links to purchase your books from retailers, or a full multi-page site with e-commerce capabilities to sell books directly. The more you diverge from a simple template to an intricate, custom design, the more it’ll end up costing you. Plus, the more experienced the experts you hire, the more they can charge.
Average costs of marketing & promotion services
Now that we’ve covered the essential marketing and promotion services and some influencing cost factors, exactly how much should you expect to spend?
We surveyed the industry to determine the typical costs associated with self-publishing a book. The following figures are the averages we found for the cost of book marketing and promotion services:
While this article presents an outline of promotional services that apply to most authors, each book is its own unique project with its own unique set of needs. These figures are a starting point that provide a good understanding of what you can expect to spend on marketing for your book (and how those numbers can vary) before you enter the market.
There are millions of new books released each year, and if you don’t grab potential readers’ attention, no matter how brilliant the book, it will inevitably get lost in the shuffle. This is where the FriesenPress promotional support team can help make sure your hard work and passion doesn’t go unnoticed. By developing your marketing skillset, supporting your efforts, and identifying the right opportunities, they’ll give your book the best possible chance to succeed.
