Free Resources to Market a Self-Published Book

[Updated July 2, 2022]

You’ve slaved away for weeks, months, possibly years creating your masterpiece. You’ve edited. You’ve proofread. You’ve tweaked the formatting. You’ve agonized. You’ve probably even cried a little. Hey, we’ve all been there! But you’ve finally hit ‘publish’ and launched your book. Now comes the hard part. Marketing. Fortunately, this article is here to help you figure out how to market a self-published book!

I’ve often said writing a book is the easy part; it’s the marketing that will kill you. Marketing a new book is a lot of work, and can cost a lot of money. I’ve created a list of options to help and all of them are free!

How to Market a Self-Published Book

Goodreads

Now that your book has been launched, it’s time to put that Goodreads account to work by creating an author’s account. Simply add your book to the Goodreads site and then claim it as the author from your personal account. This will convert your account to a Goodreads Author account. Your friends and follows will then get updates from you as you launch new books in the future. Communicate with your readers by answering questions about your work and your writing process. Set up a feed to your author’s blog. If you have a small budget for marketing, Goodreads offers the opportunity to do giveaways of ebook or paperback copies of your work. This is a great way to attract new readers and generate reviews for your book.

Facebook Groups

Creating a Facebook page for yourself or your book is a great way to market your book. The trouble is, you have to spend time attracting followers to the page. Instead, join Facebook groups themed around book marketing and reading. Many have thousands of active members, so the hard part is already done for you. These groups also offer a way to connect with other indie authors and book bloggers. Swap book reviews and generate followers for your other social media outlets. Look for groups specific to your genre as well as general book groups. Be sure to review the rules for posting in these groups and follow them carefully.

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Instagram

Instagram can be another great way to generate an audience for your work. Post promotional photos of your book. Follow fellow authors and #bookstagram accounts to connect with book lovers and bloggers. This is another great way to network with fellow authors and arrange review swaps. Use a business account to generate analytics to help you improve your marketing.

Instagram only allows one clickable URL in your profile. This can be limiting if you’re promoting work on promoting work on multiple sites. I recommend creating a later.com account (also free). This will create profile URL that brings visitors to a landing page where they can be redirected to other sites by clicking a copy of the image from your posts. These sites also allow you to pre-schedule posts, which is a great time saver!

Pinterest

Pinterest can be a good way to drive traffic to an author’s blog and to market your book. Use a site like Canva (also free) to generate polished and professional looking graphics for your pins. This is a great tool for creating posts for other social media sites too. Look for group boards themed around reading. Joining is usually as simple as sending a message to the board administrator. Group boards offer greater reach for your pins, generating more potential readers.

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