Book Promotion Ideas for Indie Authors

All authors need to build an audience to promote their work, no matter if they are traditionally or independently published. This helps them get more reviews, build a larger following, and sell more books.

What types of audience building promotion can authors do? 

I'm going to outline a handful of book promotion ideas below to give you a big picture idea of ways to promote your book. If you are new to indie publishing, I recommend taking on one or two of these at the start and then adding more as you publish additional books.

Social Media

This is anything from Facebook and Instagram, to X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok. To get started, you should pick one channel. Build your processes, brand voice, and audience, and then add another. With the right type of content (audio, video, or images), you can cross-post.

Though many new authors want to focus all their attention here, it's important to evaluate if your audience is on these channels before you decide to spend your precious time creating social media content.

Features 

I'm calling features anything where your book is being put in front of someone else's audience. This might be because an influencer talks about your book on social media, someone blogs or vlogs about your book, or you are picked up for a featured book deal on a website such as BookBub. 

Other types of features could be a book swap with another author, where they send an email to their list about your book, and you do the same.

In-Person Events

If you have paperbacks, you can do book signings at local bookstores or find other community events to meet with readers. I sold my non-fiction book at grocery stores in my community and was able to promote it at community gatherings. Depending on the genre and topic of your book, you may find some specialty events to set up at to meet potential readers.

Street Team

This is a group of people who help you promote your book online and among their community. They might promote it to their social media followers, family, friends, workplace, or school group. Often a street team is rewarded for their work. Authors will give away free copies of the book, bookmarks, shirts, stickers, and other book-related swag, and will give shout outs in the acknowledgment section of the book.

Ads

Paid advertising is a valuable way to promote your book. Beyond Amazon, you can advertise on BookBub, Facebook, Instagram, and other online spaces where your readers hang out.

Web Content

One way to get in front of people is to create content on other people's platforms. Examples include writing a guest blog on a relevant topic, joining a podcast, or posting on LinkedIn or Medium. 

Depending on the type of book you have written, there are many possibilities to create content that will help your ideal reader get to know you and your work. It doesn't matter if it is fiction or non-fiction, there are opportunities everywhere once you start looking critically.

Book Deals 

Joining events such as genre-specific book blasts and Stuff Your Kindle days offers a way to give your book away for free while gaining a large new following. This doesn't add to your income in the short term but can massively impact your readership in the long term. 

Email

No promotion plan is complete without an email list. This is the first thing I would work on to promote my books if I had to start again. With an email list you can also swap book promotions with other authors in your genre, opening you up to new readers and a dedicated group of people who want to hear from you. 

Hopefully this list will help you to narrow down ways to start building a promotion plan. While there are sure to be other ways to promote your book, these are the most commonly used avenues used by authors.