The Ambitious Author

Three Proven Strategies for Marketing a New Fiction Book Release

Posted on May 31, 2016 Updated on June 30, 2016

I’ve been quiet on this blog over the past few months, as my life has taken a turn for the busy! With two new book releases and the birth of my third daughter, prioritizing has become a necessity.

But I’ve also taken the opportunity to spend focused time learning from some of the top teachers in the world of book marketing – experts like Mark Dawson (of Facebook Ads for Authors fame), Tim Grahl (teaches a fantastic course called Launch a Bestseller), and Nick Stephenson (Your First 10,000 Readers).

I applied many of the approaches I learned to my latest release (The Lady and the Mountain Call), and released the book with over 3,700 preorders. While not enough to reach the NY Times Bestseller list, these did give the book a nice kick-start as my baby entered the world. This was book 5 in my Mountain Dreams Series, and was available for preorder purchase on all the major sales platforms for just under 90 days (the most allowed by Amazon).

When I sat down to hold my launch post-mortem, the results were quite interesting! Over the next few weeks, I’ll share my data and observations about how each of my strategies worked, with the numbers to support each. Not sure what a post-mortem is? We’ll talk about that, too!

So stay tuned!

But before then, let me share a quick overview of the three main strategies that have proven successful for marketing a new fiction release.

So without further ado:

Three Proven Strategies for Marketing a New Fiction Book Release:

• Share with your Existing Readership: 

Thanks to the fabulous reader email list you’ve been growing, you have a way to communicate directly with your eager readers, right? If you haven’t been building your email list. Now is definitely time to start.

This is arguably one of the top two marketing strategies for any author, so we’ll go into a lot of detail about how to start and grow your list. I’m also working on a free course to help you create an incentive to encourage your true fans to join your list. Stay tuned!

• Connect with Influencers and Early Reviewers:

Here’s where you reach beyond your own readers to share your book with fans of other authors who share your target audience.

We’ll also talk about the role of the launch team for reviews and wider audience reach.

• Paid Advertising:

We have some great options available to reach even more new readers! From Facebook ads to email distribution services, I’ll share my most recent results.

Now I’d love to hear from you. Have you intentionally used these strategies for a book launch? Have you found one to be more successful than another? Share your stories!