An Author’s Guide to Budgeting for Book Marketing
If you know Evergreen Authors, you know that our philosophy around book marketing is pretty simple:
Figure out a couple things you’re willing to do to get your book out there.
Do those things well.
Simple, right?
Not really. If there’s one question we hear over and over again it’s this:
How much should I spend on book marketing?
It’s a question we can’t answer with a specific number, no matter how much we’d like to.
Your marketing budget depends on many things: your goals, your disposable income, and your willingness to put in the work.
What if I don’t have any marketing dollars at all? Can I do anything then?
Of course!
You can start a blog on your author website and cross-post your posts to Pinterest and social media.
You can reach out to book bloggers to ask them to review your book.
You can pitch yourself as a speaker.
There’s plenty to do for little to no cost!
That said, you know what they say about spending money to make money?
If you want to go deeper, you’re going to have to have some honest conversations with your accountant and whomever you share finances with to figure out how much you’re willing to invest in getting your book out into the world.
The number you decide on in those honest conversations is the right marketing budget for you.
Whether that number is $10 per month or $1000, you’re going to want to spend it wisely.
That means getting unemotional about the marketing process, getting unattached to the outcome, and focus on achieving one milestone at a time.
Here are 5 ways smart authors optimize their marketing budgets, no matter what they are:
1) Educate yourself about book marketing
We wrote The Evergreen Author: Master the Art of Book Marketing to help authors at every phase of the publishing process learn about how to become smarter at book marketing.
That’s why we recommend reading it and applying the strategies to build a successful and sustainable book marketing strategy, step-by-step so that you save yourself tons of time and energy.
2) Find and focus on your 20%
We've seen far too many authors kill their book marketing efforts before they start, all because they didn’t follow the Pareto Principle.
The Pareto Principle:
80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs.
Learning how to apply the 80/20 rule to your book marketing is important because when you start focusing your efforts on the 20% of marketing strategies that actually WORK, you quit wasting time on anything that drains your time, energy, and budget.
When you discover how to use the 80/20 rule, marketing becomes easy, fun, and feels authentic to who you are, instead of feeling salesy and spammy.
The key to being successful for the long-haul as an author is to find your 20%.
Again, it’s as simple as:
Figure out a couple things you’re willing to do to get your book out there.
Do those things well.
That’s really it.
If you do those two things you will be ahead of the vast majority of authors when it comes to marketing, and you will save yourself so much wasted time and energy doing things to promote your book that just don’t payout.
Read More: How to Create an Amazing Author Platform
3) GET SMART ON YOUR CHOSEN PLATFORMS
Once you’ve found your 20%, those few areas you’ve chosen to focus your book marketing efforts on, then learn how to use them really well.
But before committing to marketing on ANY platform, you need to first ask yourself these questions:
Would spending a lot of time on this feel exciting for me? Will it bring me joy?
Can I do this for the long haul, or do I think I might lose steam if I need to do this more than a few times?
Are there examples of authors I respect and admire doing this?
Is this something I think my readers will find valuable, helpful, or inspiring?
If you’ve answered “yes” to these questions in concern to marketing on a specific platform, then you should definitely focus your efforts there.
If it’s a firm “no” to any of these then you’ll want to explore other options.
Here’s a few places we’ve seen authors have success, along with links to deep dive into each if you feel inspired to learn more:
LinkedIn: 7 Simple Strategies for Boosting Your Book Sales With LinkedIn [Blog Post]
Pinterest: How to Promote Your Book on Pinterest [Free Workshop]
Kickstarter: How to Create a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign for Your Book [Free Online Course]
Social Media: The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing for Writers [Blog Post]
4) Figure out an advertising strategy
Part of going “all in” on a platform is learning how to make it run without you having to be chained to it 24/7, and the simplest way to do this is through creating an automated advertising campaign.
This is not as hard as you think!
For many authors, Amazon is going to be the best place to focus their advertising because it’s the biggest search engine leading people to their books.
To learn more about how to use Amazon Advertising to your advantage, check out our free resources right here:
Does Amazon Advertising Work for Books? [Blog Post]
How to Promote Your Book With Amazon Advertising [Free Workshop]
5) Avoid hiring out your marketing works
We know, we know, it’s tempting to just throw money at someone and just have them do it for you because it can seem overwhelming.
But you should never hire anyone until you know these numbers first:
COST TO HIRE A PUBLICIST
Publicists work on retainer. Their tasks include creating press releases, contacting media outlets, and following up and scheduling appearances.
ESTIMATED COST: $2,000 for 3 months
COST TO HIRE A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Social media managers tasks include creating your online author profiles and posts, and creating ad campaigns for your content.
ESTIMATED COST: $500 a month + ad spend
COST TO HIRE AN ADVERTISING COMPANY
Advertising companies provide services to create and run paid advertising for your book on platforms like Amazon and other retailers where books are sold.
ESTIMATED COST: $500 a month + ad spend
That’s at least $3,000…just to start!
Any one of these options are a huge financial commitment. And when your time is up...then what?
Book marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Your marketing plan over the lifetime of your book will ebb and flow.
It just doesn’t make sense to pay for one-time marketing support that will only guide you through a certain step in the publishing process or a certain moment in time.
The more you take control of marketing your book, the better. It will help you make informed marketing decisions for the lifetime of your writing career!
