Over the years I have gotten to know a lot of indie authors who are like me. They either self-publish their books or work with publishers that are small presses. What this means for authors is that they have to do a lot, if not all, of the marketing themselves. When I have asked them what they have found to be most effective in terms of marketing I get told:
1. Email marketing - every author tells me that cultivating an email list and sending out a regular newsletter is the best way. The problem is that the new GDPR rules stating what data you can collect from people is so confusing that this is now a very risky venture. If you do it wrong - you can lose your Amazon rankings and even end up sued. Also - I have always found it difficult to impossible to find subscribers and then maintain a regular monthly newsletter.
2. Social media ads - I have a few authors who put tons of cash into their social media ads. They spend half their time just following dozens of ad campaigns. That's fine and having ads is certainly a good pillar of your overall marketing campaign - but if you decided to become a writer just to then spend your time monitoring ads, I think there's a bit of a problem.
The biggest tool in your arsenal is your website. However, when I have asked writers about what they do with their websites I usually get the same response: "I have a blog, but I don't really understand all that stuff about SEO."
Well, for more than 10 years, I have held down a day job doing SEO marketing for clients and for myself. I, along with my wife Melanie, have now written a book for all of those authors who say they do not understand SEO.
What Every Author Needs to Know About SEO is now out for Kindle and in print. It is the perfect primer outlining why your website should be your biggest tool. It costs the least to update and maintain. It does the work for you once you get it set up. It should be the foundation of your entire author marketing campaign. This book tells you how and why and introduces you to tools you need to make sure this happen.
If you're a writer and you don't understand SEO - this is the book for you. Your website may be lacking and you may be missing out on sales by not optimizing your site.
Click on the cover image above and get your copy of What Every Author Needs to Know About SEO today!