4 Ways to Start Promoting Your Book Before You Publish
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It’s hard to know what to do or where to start when it comes to the beginning stages of promotion after publishing your book. There are so many possibilities, and it’s a phase that often rewards authors for innovation and creativity. That might make you feel like you need to completely reinvent the wheel — a daunting prospect, especially if this is your first publication.
But while there’s no singular path that you should or must go down when it comes to early book marketing, starting to promote your book early is always a great idea. There are plenty of tried and true methods for setting yourself up for successful publication. Here are some suggestions that might help you put your best foot forward on your publishing and promotion journey:
1. Build and strengthen your author brand on social media
Social media is an incredible tool for making early connections with your audience. Even if you aren’t ready to share your book, growing your audience over social media by engaging with your followers, posting frequently, and joining the conversation will ensure your audience stays active when you do begin sharing info about the book. Sharing writing-related content will also help solidify to your audience that you are an author.
More than that, you can begin curating your brand within your specific genre. If your book includes birds, for example, you might start following and reposting content from bird watchers, wildlife refuges, birding hashtags (#birdsofinstagram, etc.), and even artists that feature birds in their artwork. By engaging with and sharing that content, you’re showing your audience what vibe to expect from what you create. This will hopefully encourage people to stick around for long after the book is launched as well, because they like the content you post just as much as they liked your book.
Consider the 1-2-3 rule when it comes to social media: for every 1 post you share, comment on 2 and like 3 posts from other accounts. Engagement is key to boosting discoverability and growing your audience.
2. Create bonus content for your growing audience
Bonus content is a great way to entice people to pre-order the book, sign up for your mailing list, follow you on social media, and connect on a deeper level. To encourage that heightened engagement with your audience and the messaging in your book, consider providing more than just updates on your life and where you are in the publishing process. Let your readers understand your characters and key takeaways on the same level that you do!
For fiction authors, ideas for bonus content include:
deleted scenes;
bonus chapters;
chapters retold from a different character’s point of view;
additional lore for your world;
discussions of your inspiration;
thematic playlists, maps, and character art
There’s plenty of content you can create yourself, but if you aren’t the most design-savvy, consider hiring an illustrator to create a unique map or character portraits for you. It’s a great way to support talented artists who can help you portray the tone of your book and provide a deeper look into the world that you’ve created for your audience.
For nonfiction authors, ideas for bonus content include:
worksheets and one sheets for download;
your take on a recent and relevant article or news story;
paragraphs or chapters that didn’t make it into your final manuscript;
relevant photos;
additional resources from peers in your area of expertise
By showing your expertise and providing valuable takeaways, your readers will come to associate you as a go-to expert in your field. This can encourage word-of-mouth recommendations that may grow your audience and provide new opportunities.
Share some of these bonus content posts as teasers to get people excited about the book before publication, or hold onto content and share it in the months after publication to keep your audience coming back for more.
3. Network with other authors and reviewers in your genre
This is something that will be extremely useful in the later stages of your book publication, as word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. Find people already talking about your area of expertise and ask them to connect with you. Begin by reposting and sharing their content, like their posts, comment with questions and thoughts. Try to go a little deeper than just an emoji or generic platitudes.
Consider asking these people to read and review advanced review copies (ARCs) of your book, then pull quotes from these reviews for your website, retail pages, and social media — just make sure to credit them wherever you’re posting it. More than that, photos taken or created by reviewers are just as useful, if not more so. Reviewers, especially those in online book communities or running small blogs, often don’t get paid for their work. By reposting and crediting the creator, they get the attention of your audience, the same way that their original post got your attention from their audience. Your relationship with reviewers should be symbiotic! And it’s even better if they’re getting more from you than just a free review copy. Having an active relationship with them builds loyalty and connection and will keep them supporting you long after the book is released.
Many authors have begun having success in partnerships with other authors and influencers by cross-promoting and even offering guest content and takeovers on each others’ pages. This is beneficial for both parties as you’re reaching both audiences interested, ideally, in the same content.
4. Create a bank of content to be shared after you publish
Content creation is a lot of work — especially if you’re active on multiple platforms like social media, your blog, and your newsletter! When planning your content marketing strategy, one of the most important considerations is frequency. Different platforms will benefit from different posting patterns, but across the board, posting consistently is one of the most important ingredients for success. It’s good to have a healthy mix of pre-created and fresh content to ensure you’re maximizing your time.
Trends are a crucial part of social media strategy, which you will need to navigate while making a bank of content and planning ahead for when to post it. Some platforms favour trends more than others (like TikTok, X, and Threads) and jumping on that bandwagon is essential to reaping the benefits of the infamous algorithm. But other platforms (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn) aren’t so immediately ruled by trends in the same way. The good news is, while creating your bank of content, you’ll be honing your content creation skills and learning the most efficient ways to create so that when it comes time to hop on a trend you’ll be well prepared to do so quickly.
Some examples of pre-curated content can include pre-written blog posts, excerpts from your book, bonus content (see above), Q&As with the author, pre-order/launch/order graphics, author photos and headshots, and newsletter templates.
Don’t forget to reduce, reuse, and recycle your content as well! A blog post can be shortened into a social media post, and then the links can be shared on your newsletter. Consider content chunking — i.e., breaking your book into a series of smaller articles, excerpts, blog posts, and social media takeaway posts.
Although the most successful books often have the busiest authors, that doesn’t mean you need to overwhelm yourself either. The majority of your focus pre-publication should be on editorial and getting the manuscript where it needs to be. Our above recommendations are great ways to make the most of any free time — and turn any anxious energy into marketing wins after you’re published.
Shannon Donaghy (she/her) is a Publicist and Social Media Strategist at Smith Publicity. She works with authors of all genres, but works most often in the fiction space, particularly youth and children’s fiction. She has gained coverage for her clients in outlets such as Forbes, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, Insider, Salon, Parade, Homes & Gardens, Psychology Today, AARP, CrimeReads, Tinybeans, LittleThings, “The Social”, and NPR’s “Jazzed About Work”. She has the pleasure of running the Smith Publicity Instagram account. Shannon has a BA in English with a concentration in Poetry Writing and a minor degree in Public and Professional Writing from Montclair State University. She has multiple original poems published, and when she is not writing or reading, she enjoys hiking and hanging out with her wife and their two cats, Willow and Marlin.
