5 Creative Ways for Authors to Keep Promoting

How to maintain the promotional momentum.

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Ok, hands up! Well, vote in the poll:

It isn’t your fault.

Major publishing houses seem to use an unwritten promotional launch script. You can feel some effort during the three-month launch window but never hear from the marketing department again after that.

The onus is often on us writers to hype ourselves. This means you go from writer to Head of Sales and marketing without a pay rise. 

Fear not.

I will share a few easy ways to Hype Yourself without breaking the bank or your bandwidth. Rather than awkward and draining hard launch sprints, let's find a meditative, joyful sustainable launch.

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1. Hide your hype in plain sight

When you wrote your books, you most certainly would have had a target audience in mind. Thinking about your audience, who are they and where are they playing? You know what AI can’t do? Be physically present. Hide your book in places where your audience plays.

My first book Hype Yourself was very much aimed at creative entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. I would take my book with me to hotel rooms that would attract that audience co-working in the lobby or co-working spaces and place copies of my book on the shelves. 

I still receive messages online today of people who have spotted it there. 

Even sharing that I did this led to a DM from Alice Benham to appear on her podcast. You never know who is watching.

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2. Take it with you

I was lucky enough to attend an Adobe MAX conference in LA in 2022. I knew that several creatives that I really admire were going to be in attendance. Whilst most of the people in the audience were asking for a selfie I was marching up to speakers and gifting them a copy of my book. 

One of my giftees happened to be Chris Do. This led to me being featured on his podcast in 2023 

and YouTube channel which has millions of Subscribers and even teaching for his creative accelerator The Futur. It is worth flagging whilst this was the biggest podcast promoting my book it happened four years after launch.

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3. Calendar dates

I compile lists of two types of calendar dates. 

• External - national dates that could apply to you: World Book Day, Small Business Saturday, National Freelancers Day. Find the dates that could apply to the themes for your writing 

• Internal - book anniversaries, the day of your book deal, the anniversary of publishing date, review milestones, get them all down

With these two lists, you now have springboards for content opportunities. Think less; I’m selling my book, and I’m sharing my story more. 

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4. Review hunter

When was the last time you asked for your book to be reviewed? If you have downloads or a newsletter linked to your book, many of your readers will likely be there. Find a way to incentivise them to review your book—whether it’s one week, one month, or four years later. Can you offer a one-to-one with you? A stationery bundle? A voucher? 

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5. Share your stories

Whenever I talk to most authors or writers, they want to promote their book to the mainstream press by sending a press release. The problem is, one-size-fits-no-one: a press release is useful background information, but it needs to be a tailored pitch email to a journalist. 

My biggest article about my book wasn’t on the book review pages. It was on the property pages. It was an 800-word article that mentioned both of my books.

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How did I land this five years after launch? 

The easiest way to secure publicity is to respond to requests from journalists already writing articles.

There are two ways to seek these out on a low budget:

1. #journorequest on Twitter, where journalists are actively putting calls out for contributors OR my personal favourite for a small fee

2. Charlotte Crisps Lightbulb. A private paid-for Facebook Group that connects press and entrepreneurs.

It is unlikely that you will see a journalist put a call out for a book that matches yours, but you will very likely see a journalist do a call out for someone to share a story or a piece of expertise that relates to you personally.

Ask them to mention your book in the byline—it is super powerful and way more engaging than a thumbnail cut out of your book. 

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PR, personal brand and self-promotion get a hard time. You need to find a method of sustainable joyful promotion that feels good to you.

I’m not famous, with a big publisher or a Sunday Bestseller but I am unreasonably consistent in maintaining a low-level of Hype for my books.

Thanks Lucy!

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Coming right up:

• On Thursday, I’ll share my first ever Deep Dive post about a writer who made $100,000 last year part-time.

• On Saturday, it’ll be time for our next morning coffee roundup.

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Read this next:

Saturday Morning Coffee ☕ Edition #14

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