Creative Ways to Get Your Book In Front of Readers
Writing a book can feel like a constant, uphill battle, but once it’s done it seems like the struggle starts right back up as you try to draw readers to your book. Publishing a book is more accessible than ever with the advent of self-publishing and hybrid publishing, which is great! However, it means that you’ve got to work a bit harder to make your book stand out from the pack. It takes some out-of-the-box thinking, planning, flexibility, and creativity to get your words in front of readers. But the good news is, there are lots of great ways to get your book to your core readership apart from the traditional idea of a reader purchasing a book from an online or brick-and-mortar retailer. You’ve just got to be ready to be creative and a little flexible! So let’s talk about some creative or non-traditional ways you can explore to reach readers so that when you craft your business plan, you can figure out what places to put your resources to reach your audience effectively.
Where Does your Target Audience Hang Out?
It’s important to know who you’re writing to so you can make sure you don’t say anything in your book to alienate a target reader. But as you’re working to get your book in front of readers, figure out where those readers hang out. What social media platforms do they use? What subscription services? What streaming services? How tech-savvy are they? What kind of products do they use at work or in their homes? How are they consuming written, audio, and visual content? Once you know where your readers are spending their time, you can begin exploring natural ways that you can get your content onto those platforms and in front of your target readers.
Be Open To Non-Traditional Ways of Releasing Content
Audiobooks are a rapidly growing market, and they allow readers who otherwise might not pick up a book to start to enjoy reading. Subscription services like Substack are a way to not only release your content in a way that might be more digestible to readers (especially if they maybe gravitate towards serial content or short-form content). Making and releasing book trailers can be another great way to grab the attention of your readers, or even talking about your book, your characters, or even reading portions of your book on platforms like TikTok can help pique the attention of your core audience. The key is, once you know where your target reader hangs out, brainstorm some unique ways that you can authentically and meaningfully introduce your book in the spaces that matter most to your readers.
Partnerships, Merch, and Monetization
Don’t be afraid to explore other methods of monetization outside of traditional book sales! We mentioned subscription services like Substack, but you can even explore outside of the realm of paid outlets for readers to see your words. Perhaps your book is about camping, nature, or wilderness survival. A partnership with an outdoor gear retailer, a wilderness tour guide, or even something like a national park might be a really natural fit to deliver your readers a book they’ll enjoy along with goods or services they already consume. Exploring local or national stores or restaurants that might carry your book or allow you to hold an event promoting your book could draw in readers. Launching your own merch is another way to get the attention of your core readership. Clothing, patches, pins, and stickers are always great options, but think beyond things that are basically ways to display your brand. Is there something usable that you could create that could tie back into your book and delight your readers? If you’re writing about organization, perhaps creating your own planner or task-managing app would be the perfect add-on to your book. The item could even be simply tangentially related to your book. If you’re writing in the fantasy space, perhaps partnering with an artisan to create your own dice set could be something to grab readers’ attention. Think of the needs your readers will have before or after reading your book, and brainstorm how can you either partner with someone to deliver this item or make it yourself.
Charity Campaigns
If the idea of making merch gives you the chills, consider merch with a cause! Partnering with a charity that is either directly connected to your book or is just a cause that you know matters deeply to your base is a great way to create merch that garners reader interest. It not only introduces something fun for your audience to have, but readers will be more likely to purchase something because it’s not just a branded thing you’re selling people, you’re also letting them help out a worthy cause. There is something that creates a bit of love and loyalty from an audience when they get to partner with their favorite author or creator to help out a worthy cause. To see an example of fandom/content-based charity work, you can check out Stands and DFTBA, two outlets that partner with creators to make fandom-branded merch that is meant to support a variety of charities.
Once you figure out who your core readership is, where they hang out, and the things they care about, you can more effectively deliver your content to them. It’s what makes creating a business plan so important, so you can really understand where you need to put your time and energy. As always, we have our free simple business plan template available for use, and we have a book on crafting a business plan coming out soon, but you can always feel free to reach out to us to brainstorm different ways to market your book and reach your audience.