Book Marketing: There's NO Secret to What Works

What is the #1 thing that sells books?

What is the secret of marketing?

Word of Mouth.

On every survey ever done, the #1 reason people buy books is because someone enthusiastically told them about the book. Word of mouth is the best non-secret way to sell books. We know what we need to do! Just inspire people to talk about your books.

The problem, of course, comes down to how to encourage word-of-mouth (WOM)? It’s like asking how to create a viral video? The answers aren’t straight-forward. Write an amazing book is the short answer. But good books get ignored all the time because no one knows about them. So, after you write that great book, you have to find ways to enter the ongoing conversation about literature. Let’s look at marketing activities through the lens of WOM.

Make Makes Something Remarkable?

The first thing required for WOM is that there is something to talk about, something to remark upon. For your book, what could someone make remarks about? You can control the conversation when you give them something to talk about.

• Appropriate Humor. Top of the list of desirable attributes is humor. Add it to your story first, and then to your marketing.

• Controversial - Shock. We remember controversial attitudes! Either side of an issue can provoke engagement. Be careful here, though, or you could make enemies.

• Feel Good About Themselves. When people read a story, they are self-centered. It’s all about them. Is there something that will make them feel good about themselves. After reading your story, could they say, “I’m a good parent.” Or, “I have good taste in wines.” And so on.

• Eye-Catching. Flashy visuals have potential to up the WOM factor. Have you seen the recent AI-generated fake baby peacocks? See? We both remember that eye-catching image. Add some flare to your visuals!

This is an Ai-generated, fake image of a baby peacock. No. They don’t look like this!

• Connection. If you build connection points into your story, ways that people can relate, you’ll create WOM. Make them cry. Make them laugh. Make them remember a poignant time of their life. Connect. And WOM will follow.

• Timely. Yes, it’s good to pay attention to current events and play off them whenever possible. One of my favorite marketing techniques is to play off important dates: holidays, birthdays, or Talk Like a Pirate Day (or other “days”). For Women’s History Month, I had images of my picture book biographies of women.

  

  This was a timely image for Women’s History Month, picture book biographies of three amazing women.

• Entertains. When a story entertains, it brings plenty of WOM. This goes beyond just humor to create a story that sweeps up the audience into a story that is bigger-than-life, and leaves them engaged and happy.

• Teaches. On the other hand, some stories are meant to teach. When they do this well, WOM is easy. The reader comes to this book/story with a problem, and the story teaches them the skills they need. Oh yes! They’ll talk about this one.

• Sharable. My daughter regularly bakes sugar cookies to sell. These are highly decorated works of art that taste amazing! When she posts on Facebook that a bunch of cookies are ready, she likes me to Share the post. But—often, she forgets to mark the post as Sharable. When you post on social media, always double check that the material is Sharable!

  

  Highly decorated sugar cookies made by my daughter. We all liked the pumpkins with warts.

• Luck. No doubt about it, it’s hard to understand why this or that thing goes viral. There’s always a sense of luck to WOM. You can do everything right—and bomb. Still. Do everything right. Sometimes, Lady Luck smiles on you.

Seed the market

Giveaway as many books as you can. If one person has your book, they could shout from the roof and you’ll never sell books. In fact, you need lots of someones to read your book and talk about it. One reason I submit to book awards is because it’s my way of seeding the market. The people on the book award committees are influential in their respective areas. Even if a book doesn’t win an award, the social studies teacher on the award committee might find that the book works perfectly for a class, or a summer camp, or just as a gift to their neighbor. A big chunk of my publicity budget goes to books for awards.

But I also try to give away using NetGalley (review service open to the public), Edelweiss (review service more geared to publishing industry), or Bookfunnel (give away ebooks through your website). You may even want to develop a formal street team or ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) team. Other review services open to indies include Story Origin, Booksprout, Book Tasters, Book Sirens, or Hidden Gems. Check the sites to see if they have success with books similar to yours. I tend not to use these services, but I hear others rave about them.

In the end, I try to keep a list of reviewers who will consistently look at my books with favor. They come from many sources, and I value them because they will help jumpstart that important WOM.

When I send out books, I often stuff the book with promotional material. For example, right now, I’m including a promo sheet about the illustrator. He’ll be doing a lot of library visits this summer, and hopefully sell books at those events. I add any tidbits of information that will feed the WOM machine.

Grassroots

When I talk about grassroots marketing, I mean looking for places where you can develop a one-to-one relationship, usually with someone actually working with kids (since that’s my audience). I know that certain reviewers, teachers, and parents will be interested in my next book. For those people, I try to give them something solid to talk about! Besides the book, they want and need the behind-the-scenes info. Develop that list of people who will consistently love your work and talk about it to others.

Give them something to talk about - ideas, events

Here are some things that people might talk about: cover reveal, celebrate great reviews, launch, milestones, and awards. Or perhaps, they want to know the story’s inspiration, the trials and tribulations writing and publishing it, and where you received encouragement. Failures are great for WOM. Successes work, too.

Give them the right words

One important thing to remember is that you are giving your readers words with which to discuss your book. One reviewer of BE STRONG told me that it would be a great book to read alongside of MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS.

When kids are frustrated by art, building, creating, athletics, or life, and they want to quit, sculptor Nancy Schön’s story will inspire them with two simple words: Be Strong.

Yes, it’s the story of the woman who sculpted the duck family that lives in Boston’s Public Gardens. The ducks are based upon Robert McCloskey’s Caldecott-winning book, MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS.

But the story is far more than that! It’s an inspirational story meant for kids who face creative problems and despair of ever finishing. It should be in every Makerspace area of every library. Lego moms and dads should read this to their kids to encourage creativity and perseverance with the lego building bricks. It’s a social-emotional story of perseverance. Yes, Nancy Schön’s story began with a duck family, but her story is bigger than that!

I try to put these words and ideas into the minds of everyone who reads this book! I’m seeding the discovery in the marketplace by giving away books; but I’m also seeding the conversation with statements about the book’s place in children’s literature. I want the WOM to take the book to new places!

For every marketing activity you do, ask this question: How does this add to the Word-of-Mouth conversation about this book?