How to Market Your Book If You Hate Marketing

“Ugh, just leave me alone to write my books in peace!” This is the lament of authors across the world. However, when your book hits the shelves, as an author, you need to be doing marketing, not just writing.

Here are some tips on what to do if the idea of marketing your book fills you with dread:

Accept that book marketing is part of being an author

I really, truly sympathise with authors who hate marketing. Personally, I’m an introvert, my self-confidence can be wobbly, and the idea of repeatedly shoving my book in people’s faces makes me feel rather unwell at times.

However, it’s time to gird your loins, because marketing your own book really is non-negotiable for authors. If you’re self-publishing, you’ve just become the marketing exec in charge of your book (congrats!). Even if you have a traditional publishing deal, you’ll likely wish your publisher was doing more to promote your book (and so you’ll want/need to fill the gaps).

Take a deep breath, though, because while it may feel like an impossible task, it’s really not.

Give yourself grace, because marketing is HARD

The first thing to remember as an author-turned-reluctant-marketer is that marketing is hard bloomin’ work. You’re not alone in struggling with it.

A lot of authors start out naïve to the difficulty of marketing, thinking, “Oh, I can just do a bit of marketing for my book on a Sunday evening and that’s fine.” Then your entire Sunday evening is taken up by crafting one (1) social media post.

The reality is that marketing is a specialised profession, and a well-paid one at that. If you ever get clickbaited into reading a blog post with a title like “The 10 Best-Paid Jobs In the World”, I guarantee that marketing manager will be on that list.

Therefore, it’s time to stop thinking of marketing as something easy that you can do in a spare half-hour. Once you give it the respect it deserves, you’ll also be able to give yourself a break if you don’t become an overnight whizz at marketing, based on no experience and with zero studying.

Get ready to learn marketing the same way you learned your writing craft

Marketing is specialised, but it’s not rocket science. You can learn how to do it, the same way you learned how to write a book: lots of study, some trial and error, and plenty of perseverance.

However you learn best, dive in. Read books, watch video tutorials, take courses. Approach it with a growth mindset, step by step, and you’ll feel more confident marketing in no time.

The good news is that the skills of writing and storytelling are the absolute bedrock of marketing and, hey! I bet you’re pretty good at those two things already!

Think beyond social media

For many authors embarking on promoting their book, “marketing” is synonymous with “social media”. This is because social media is something you’re probably already familiar with (even if it’s just a dusty old account you rarely update). Plus, you’ll have heard unicorn stories about suchandsuch who became a bestseller because of TikTok.

But social media is just one of dozens of types of book marketing. I would argue that it’s not even one of the most effective forms of book marketing, when you factor in how time-intensive it can be.

In general, social media is great for alerting people you already know to the fact that you have a book out. It can also be useful for connecting with other authors (“networking”, to use a term that strikes fear into introverts’ hearts) and as a way for your existing readers to find and follow you.

It is much harder to use social media to market your book to complete strangers. I’m not saying “don’t bother, give up”, but weigh your options and decide if your limited time is best spent on social media marketing or on a different type of marketing.

Other types of marketing you should think about

On the subject of different types of marketing, when you say you “hate marketing”, does that include all of these varieties of marketing…?

Author website – try adding interesting content to your website that connects to your book and improves your visibility and SEO

Author newsletter – send out regular emails to your existing subscribers and work on building up your database of readers by offering exclusive bonus content

Attend book fairs – rent a table and sell your books to readers in person

Speak at literary festivals – or, if there aren’t any in your local area, organise your own on a low-fi budget

Run digital advertising campaigns – whether it’s Amazon, Facebook, or somewhere else

Get your book featured in Daily Deal emails (such as BookBub, FreeBooksy, Fussy Librarian)

Guest on podcasts or pitch yourself as a local radio guest

Influencer marketing – approach readers with free copies of your book in exchange for reviews

YouTube videos – if you don’t mind being on camera, film yourself talking about books or writing or a subject related to your own book

Send out press releases to local newspapers

Yes, this list may feel overwhelming, but it should show you that there’s a wide, wide variety of ways to market your books.

Focus on the parts of marketing you’re good at

Of the above list, pick one or two that actually appeal to you and focus on those, rather than forcing yourself to toil at marketing activities that you hate.

The great news is that a ton of marketing-related activity is… writing! Hopefully you love writing (most of the time), so throw yourself into writing content for your author website, or interesting articles for your author newsletter.

Get better at the things you struggle with

Marketing shouldn’t be a grind, but the caveat here is that there’ll probably be parts of it you’re nervous about, and it may be worth taking some time to get better at those.

For example, I used to hate the idea of video content. Editing video? Couldn’t do it! Seeing my big face on my phone screen? Gross, didn’t want to do it!

But I pushed past my anxieties and devoted some time to getting to grips with video and found that… hey! It’s not so bad. You can get over the gross feeling of seeing yourself on video. What’s more, using editing software is actually pretty straightforward.

Therefore, my advice is: don’t count yourself out of excelling at a marketing task just because you’re not good at it right now. Give it a try; you might surprise yourself.

Batch marketing tasks at a time when your energy is high

“Batching” can be a game-changer in general, but especially when it comes to something, like marketing, that causes you stress and anxiety.

By “batching”, I mean, doing a bunch of the same marketing tasks at the same time. That might mean scheduling half a dozen social media posts at once, or writing a number of blog posts which will keep your website active for weeks in advance.

For me, having an hour or two dedicated to batched marketing is always more effective than psyching myself up to do one task at a time, and spreading the pain over several days.

If marketing brings out your anxiety, batching can be particularly helpful. I tend to schedule that “marketing hour” for a period where I have plenty of energy and I won’t go into Eeyore mode.

Embrace content marketing

There’s a misapprehension about marketing that it’s all about “SELL! SELL! SELL!” That might mean posting constantly on social media, soliciting people to buy my book, omg, have you seen my book? my book is for sale, did you see?

This type of uber-salesy marketing is very old fashioned. I’m not even sure it worked back in the Mad Men days, but it definitely doesn’t work now. People are cynical; they hate to be sold to. In addition to making you feel a bit icky, this type of overt marketing also won’t produce many, if any, sales.

The dominant philosophy in marketing now is content marketing – that is, using interesting content (articles, blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.) to build a relationship with a prospective reader. It’s unlikely to result in an instant sale, but what it will do is tug strangers into your orbit and make them more open to learning about your books.

The content you produce should be related to your book, but not in an overtly salesy way. For instance, if you write romance novels, create a round-up of the best romances of the year (and, of course, include a plug for your own book). If your mystery novel is based on a real life crime, write a compelling article or film a video where you talk about this real-life mystery (again, with a plug for your book).

If you write non fiction, content marketing becomes even simpler, because you can parcel out parts of your book as bitesize content, with a lure to buy the book and read more of the same.

I love content marketing, because it takes an act that’s a little sleazy (buy my book! buy it, BUY IT!) and turns it into a benevolent gesture. “I’m not asking for anything from you, in fact, I’m giving you this fascinating article/video on a subject you’re interested in, and oh, by the way, I have a book out.”

Collaborate with other authors

One form of content marketing that may help to lessen the burden of marketing your books is to collaborate with other authors. Working with other people will help marketing to feel less like an individual toil and more like something fun.

Collaborations might mean interviewing other authors for your website, blog or newsletter. It could mean Q&A videos or a shared podcast. You could organise an in-person event or webinar together, or share a table at a book fair.

Work on your confidence

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas for how to hate marketing a little less, but I do have to end by asking a big question:

Could your reluctance to market your books have its roots in low self-esteem?

In my role as a marketing consultant, I talk to a lot of people about marketing and some of them are simply overwhelmed by the amount of work to do. However, many more have a psychological block around marketing that no amount of tips, tricks and upskilling can overcome.

I sympathise. For most authors, their book is extremely personal to them. Rejection of that book also feels personal. Therefore, if you don’t try (by not doing much in the way of marketing), you reduce the risk of being rejected.

If you do believe low self-esteem is an issue, I encourage you to find ways to boost your confidence overall. For me, improving my public speaking was transformational – I was previously very afraid of speaking in public, so when I got over that fear, it made me feel invincible!

For you, working on your confidence might mean facing a fear, or doing something out of your comfort zone. I promise that boosting your confidence in one area will also boost it in other areas of your life.

Maybe it won’t make you into a person who loves marketing… but maybe it will?

If you’d like my help with book marketing, check out my author marketing services.