Writing your book is only half the battle. If you plan to self-publish, you’re going to be in for a large task of promoting it as well. And I will tell you from experience that can be a tough challenge. There may be times you want to just give up but the thing is, if you really care about your book, you have to keep trying. You have to be in it for the long haul.
Now if you’re going to take your online book promotion seriously, there are some common mistakes you want to avoid.
Here are 5 Don’t’s to an Online Book Promotion:
Don’t overhype
Imagine someone was planning a birthday party for you and they spent 2 solid weeks telling you all about it, every last detail. They boost you up with how awesome it’s going to be and how many clowns there will be and the balloons! And cake! No, two cakes! And all-you-can-eat icecream… on and on they go. You’re so excited you can hardly sleep and the big day finally comes and you walk through the doors and you see everything they promised you was going to be there and you feel… deflated. Why isn’t this more exciting? You know you should be happy but somehow all the wonder has been taken out of it. They’ve robbed you of your feelings by spending two weeks leading you up to it.
Don’t tell your reader what to think/feel/expect
Similar to the above example, don’t tell you’re reader they’re going to love it. Don’t tell them it’s going to change their life. Don’t tell them it’s going to change the world. This is HYPE and it’s your opinion. Allow them to have their own opinion. Let the book be good all on its own. When you tell people what to feel, that’s just irritating and presumptuous. Let me be pleasantly surprised by my own experience with your book. Let me savor the feelings and appreciate them. Don’t rob me of that by telling me what I am going to feel. If you do, why should I buy the book in the first place?
Don’t apologize
Don’t apologize for what your book is or wasn’t or for how a reader feels about it. Let them own their own feelings. There is a time to apologize and that time is not when it comes to your book. When you do this, it’s like admitting there is something to apologize for. And if there is something to be sorry about, you need to set out to fix that before promoting.
Don’t attack your readers
Sometimes authors do this without even realizing it. We get so passionate about our books. They are a piece of us, like our babies. We feel angry, frustrated, confused, irritable and any other number of feelings when the readers don’t respond the way we expect. But don’t insult or attack your readers, no matter what you’re feeling.
Don’t give up on yourself
Sometimes writers want to quit and move on to the next book as soon as one doesn’t seem to be as successful as they had hoped. When you throw in the towel, everyone else will, too. When you give up on your book and move on to the next thing that “might take off”, especially after only a short time, you’re telling the reader it really wasn’t that important to you after all. If you care so little, why should we care enough to buy it?
Keep an eye on these mistakes and try to make sure you don’t make them yourself. And if you have questions and concerns about marketing or promoting your book online, seek the help of someone qualified like a book press release company to help you with it. It will benefit you when you when you begin to sell more books.
