5 Off-Beat Ways to Promote Your Self-Published Book

The ways of promoting a self-published book are only limited by your imagination, but here are a few inexpensive ways to get the most out of your promotion dollars for a self-published book marketing campaign.

1 – Create a Facebook Author Page

Social media is replacing the traditional “word-of-mouth” that helps identify and promote popular books. Getting a presence on social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, as well as Facebook, are free ways to build an audience for your book and promote it to your interested readers. This helps establish a central location for your fans to meet up and communicate with you. It is also an awesome way to announce the release of new projects, provide links to your author website and other articles and books you have published online. Keep fans engaged using discussions, polls, and the occasional giveaway to maintain an active presence on Facebook.

Promotion event to print your own book

2 – Promote the Book on YouTube

Another social media platform that is often overlooked for authors is YouTube. Consider doing a live book reading of the first couple of chapters of your book using a YouTube Premiere event. Another way to promote your book on YouTube is to have a Q&A session with fans on camera or answer their questions in a “Dear Abby-like” format. You can also deliver some sort of presentation or TED talk-like event on a topic that might be of interest to your audience.

3 – Create a Book Trailer

The trailer has been a staple of movie promotion for decades now, and with the advent of the internet–along with inexpensive video design and production capabilities–has made producing a high-quality book trailer an easy way to generate some publicity for your books in an oversaturated market. Why not look at creating a book trailer as a concise way to build buzz about your book and target a specific audience for it.

4 – Donate Books to Target Audience

One great way to build and expand your target audience is to donate copies of your book to groups, organizations, or locations where your target audience gathers. This is an especially good strategy for non-fiction self-published books.

Both fiction and non-fiction are popular at senior centers, retirement homes, hospitals, churches, libraries, and locally-owned book stores.

5 – Host a Virtual Book Club Meeting

During the time of COVID-19, meeting in-person is not only impractical but also unsafe. Many libraries and bookstore-based book discussion groups have taken their gatherings online using software such as Skype or Zoom to meet virtually.

Prepare a list of discussion questions about your book specifically designed for book club discussions and include it with your book. Also provide a means for book club organizers to reach out to you and schedule an online book group meeting that includes you, the author. Readers absolutely love book club meetings that include the book’s author.

InstantPublisher is Your Partner for Self-Publishing Success

InstantPublisher is a full-service self-publishing book printer that provides a variety of services to help support your self-publishing efforts. These include book covers and custom book cover designs, interior book design, and custom printing services to provide promotional materials for your books such as bookmarks, calendars, posters, flyers, and much more. Get more information about these services by calling 1-800-259-2592, filling out our online contact form, or sending an email to questions@instantpublisher.com.

How to Choose the Right Book Binding Option for Your Book

When you look at the thousands of books available in your average bookstore, they use many different types of bindings. But what are the different types of book bindings available and how do you select the best one for your book?

Perfect Binding

Perfect bindings–AKA paperback bindings–are the most common book binding option available in the industry right now. Paperback bindings are popular because they are versatile, able to be used on a number of different sizes of books, from novels, to trade paperback books, to large reports and manuals. Perfect bindings are also popular because they are portable while still being durable for standard reading use.

Book printing and binding process

Hardcover/Casebound Binding

This is the highest quality of book binding available on the market today. These have covers that are made of heavy binder board where you can have your book cover design printed and glued to it to make it a smooth cover. The book is then sewn and glued to the inside of the board making it extremely durable. These are primarily used for books that store important information and stand up to heavy use over time.

Hardcover/Cloth Binding

This hardcover book binding option is the one that you see most often for hardback books sold in book stores or in library collections. The book has a binder board covered with cloth, with minimal ornamentation or identification information on it. This is typically paired with a full-color dust jacket that is used to identify the book and provide all other information typically on a book cover such as ISBN number, pricing, back cover copy, pull quotes from book reviews, etc.

Wire Bindings

There are some books that work best when they can lay flat on a surface. Books such as cookbooks, reference materials, and even calendars work best if they can lay flat when in use.

Saddle Stitch Binding

This is another common book binding style. Saddle stitch bindings use folded sheets of paper (in multiples of four) up to 64 pages which are folded along a “saddle” and then stapled into place along the spine. These are commonly seen in catalogs, booklets, brochures, magazines, and direct mailers.

3-Ring Binders

Printed material that can be inserted into custom-designed, full-color laminated binders using 3-hole punch paper to allow pages to be inserted within the binder are also common for publications such as training manuals, reference guides, and even cookbooks. The 3-ring binder is also designed to be flexible and allows the content to be expanded by printing and inserting additional pages into the binder as necessary. This is great for training that covers multiple closely-related topics.

Whatever book binding you select, just make sure that it meets the specific needs of your book buying audience.

Let InstantPublisher Help You Select the Best Book Binding Option for You

We offer all of the book binding options listed above and a few others as well. Contact us at 1-800-259-2592, fill out our online contact form, or send an email to questions@instantpublisher.com to get more information.