By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills

Professional writers work hard to market and promote their books. We want to reach our readers with a solid platform that enhances our brand and leaves no doubt to our genre. While we strive to follow guidelines, additional tips make our efforts easier and more effective.

Take a look at the following 60 tips to help you market and promote your book:

(I suggest printing them out so you can check off each one as the task is completed.)

1. Understand marketing, promotion, and social media are about meeting reader needs.
2. Develop a long bio.
3. Develop a 100-word bio.
4. Develop a 50-word bio.
5. Invest in a professional website
6. Invest in a professional headshot.
7. Establish a Facebook page.
8. Establish a Twitter page.
9. Establish an author page on Amazon.
10. Establish and participate in a BookBub account.
11. Establish and participate in a Goodreads account.
12. Establish and participate in a Pinterest account.
13. Establish and participate in an Instagram account
14. Establish a Street Team.
15. Provide each Street Team member with a copy of your book, either print or e-book.
16. Take care of your Street Team by contacting them weekly.
17. Develop a special contest or drawing just for your street team.
18. Share prewritten social media posts and images for your street team.
19. Schedule guest blogs and offer book giveaways.
20. Create and maintain a blog—or post regularly on a highly-respected blog.
21. Create a brand that reflects your writing, genre, style, voice, and expertise.
22. Create memes that raise curiosity about book content and themes.
23. Create all social media posts and images before the book is released.
24. Create a contest for the new book in which the prizes link to something in the book.
25. Create book signing/speaking events in which you are offering something of value to potential readers.
26. Create bookmarks and distribute them wherever you go.
27. Create Pinterest boards that rise from your book. Keep “secret” until close to the book release.
28. Create evergreen Pinterest boards.
29. Design postcards and invest in a library database.
30. Link your blog to Goodreads.
31. Link your blog to LinkedIn.
32. Link your social media platforms to your website and Amazon author page.
33. Add each book’s cover, blurb, and links to purchase options, book trailer or author interview video, and first chapter to your website.
34. Know your readers.
35. Engage your readers in open-ended conversations.
36. Develop an online social media library.
37. Enjoy what you do.
38. Use the same head shot in all social media.
39. Use hashtags.
40. Write a press release and use it.
41. Welcome new followers with a personal thank you, not a canned one.
42. Launch a pre-order campaign with a cover and teaser first scene.
43. Use a spreadsheet to begin marketing and promotion at the proposal stage and on to after release.
44. Use Advance Reader Copies ARCs to encourage reviews.
45. Partner with other writers to cross promote.
46. Research targeted Facebook ads.
47. Post story/book settings and research on Pinterest and/or Instagram.
48. Use Facebook live.
49. Print professional business cards.
50. Provide bookmarks for your street team to deliver to their local bookstores.
51. Use holidays to encourage book sales.
52. Develop speaking topics from your book theme, setting, or research.
53. Post a YouTube video with your book trailer or author interview video.
54. Establish hashtags for social media posts.
55. Consult with your publisher about ways to market and promote.
56. Inform your publisher about all marketing and promotion efforts.
57. Host a Facebook live party with prizes.
58. Take pics that reflect your book research, author engagement, setting, and theme.
59. Arrange blog tours.
60. Combine an online and personal event to double your visibility.

Edie Melson and I are planning an in-depth, hands-on social media conference for writers of all stages of their careers. Let us help you with your branding, blogging, and social media. Join us at the Mountainside Marketing Conference on January 18-22, 2019. Will you let us help you?