I want to share five lessons I learned about promotion when I became a published author.

# 1  Promotion is about building relationships.

If you have no way of capturing the readers, you meet you are making promotion harder for yourself.  It’s like you are promoting to the wind.

I always say start the mailing list before you tell anyone about your book.   When you start to meet, readers ask them to join your mailing list.  Give them an incentive to join – an excerpt or check list.

Send out fliers and social media posts about your mailing list.  Your main goal is to get people on your mailing list so you can have a successful promotion.

I was able to presale all my books because I had a mailing list.  Presales are great because you can order books without having to come out of your pocket.  Use that promotion budget for promotion.

#2 Just because you have tons of friends doesn’t mean they’re going to buy your book.

You need to know who your audience is.  I hear so many people complaining that their friends or social media followers aren’t buying their book.  Everybody isn’t your audience. 

I know tons of authors but most of them weren’t my book’s audience.  I’m glad I sat down and figured out who my ideal readers were.  It saved me from a lot of stress.

#3 Promoting is hard

Promotion takes a lot of work.  You can’t wing it.  I highly recommend a Promotion Plan.  It helps you know what you are going to promote, when you’re going to promote, how often you are going to promote and who you will promote too.  

When you have a plan for your promotion it’s not so hard.

My plan helped me get on the Amazon Bestselling list with both my books.

#4 Promotion is about being consistent

You can’t promote on Monday, promote next Sunday, promote two weeks from now and think you are going to sell books.  It doesn’t work like that.

When I’m consistent with my promotion my royalty checks let me know.  When I slack.  I see those Starbuck Royalty checks (you know those $5.00 checks you can only buy a coffee with.)

#5 Promotion should be fun.

If you aren’t having fun with your promotion guess what you’re not going to do – promote.

Pick activities that are fun, pick platforms that are fun.  Don’t do boring activities.

I’ve learned that promotion is an everyday task and if I’m not having fun I will not do it.  I find what I like and I do it daily.  You can do the same.  You don’t have to dislike promotion. 

I’m sure I will have more lessons as I continue my writing journey.  Stop by and see what I have to say.

What lessons have you learned with promoting?