However, we all need to start somewhere, and if you don’t yet have a promotional platform, this post is all about building those platforms so that you don’t need to depend on Amazon to promote your book, but can drive sales of your a course in miracles audio whenever you choose.
You could of course pay for advertising to get your new book in front of people, but this post will instead focus on free methods for capturing people’s attention. And since with non-fiction there’s tremendous income opportunities far beyond book sales (courses, consulting… ), promotional platforms can be used for a lot more than just driving book sales.
Promoting Your Book Through a Minisite or Promotional Page
The core of your promotional platform is your own website. Some people advocate creating a new site to promote each book you write. However, such a site would generally only be two or three pages, and such a small site isn’t going to get any traffic without advertising. So let’s put this minisite idea aside for now.
Since it’s recommended you publish multiple books on related topics, and especially if you’re offering courses and other offers related to those books, having a site you build up significantly about the topic, with lots of great content, well, that can work very well to attract visitors and create new readers and customers.
It’s vital you publish fantastic free content on your site regularly as this attracts visitors through:
- Social sites (as people share your content)
- Links from other sites when they recommend your content/site
This all helps build up your platform, and is known as content marketing.
An example of a site that supports sales of his books is by Steve Scott.
Getting Interviewed on Podcasts for Rapid Publicity
Millions of people listen to podcasts every day, and there’s podcasts on every topic imaginable. Whatever you write about, you’ll find relevant podcasts for that topic.
So just like people listen to the radio when whatever they’re doing doesn’t require 100% of their attention, more and more people have replaced that with podcasts. Either through iTunes, or by simply downloading audio files from websites.
If you’re a first-time author, wait until your book is published before you start contacting podcasts. Because their priority is that you provide great content to their listeners.
You can promote a little bit, but it’s all about providing value, to help make that podcast great. Then people listening will want to find out more about you, and a percentage of them will become customers.
Or if you already have books published and have established platforms, it will be easier to get the attention of podcast publishers since you’ll have credibility you can leverage.
