How to Market a Book: 7 Steps From a Professional Marketer

Book marketing is the process of getting your book in front of the readers most likely to love it — and it’s best done in stages over time. When I advise authors on marketing their books, they often want to skip straight to the “fun stuff”: running high-impact ads, getting book reviews, or trying to go viral on TikTok.

But after working with hundreds of authors, managing over a million dollars in advertising spend, and literally writing the book on the subject, I can tell you that ads and virality only work once the foundations are in place. Marketing starts with a strong product, navigable product pages, and (if possible) an organic audience you’ve built yourself.

This post covers the seven steps I consider to be the backbone of any successful campaign. Here they are at a glance:

Step 🧭	Goal 🎯	When 📅
1. Write a book readers can’t stop recommending	Meet your target readers’ wants and needs	12+ months before launch
2. Build your mailing list	Gain a direct line to your readers	6 to 12 months before launch
3. Optimize your retailer pages	Convert browsers into buyers	1 to 3 months before launch
4. Secure authentic reviews	Build social proof for launch day	1 to 6 months before launch
5. Run a price promotion	Maximize early sales	Launch week
6. Invest in proven advertising channels	Scale what’s working	After launch day; ongoing
7. Publish your next book	Compound your readership and income	Post-launch

1. Write a book readers can’t stop recommending

No marketing tactic can match the snowball effect of readers actually recommending your book. Word of mouth is how breakout bestsellers are born, and it’s the one thing even the world’s best book marketer can’t manufacture.

What you need for this is product-market fit: a book that precisely satisfies what a specific group of readers is looking for. Books without it have no real chance of selling — which is the reason most books never sell more than a handful of copies a month.

So, how do you achieve product-market fit?

Study your genre’s market

Spend time on Amazon, Goodreads, or at your local bookstore studying bestsellers in your genre. Consider elements like:

• Are they series or standalones?

• Written in first person or third?

• What tropes, cover styles, and price points keep recurring?

You’re not looking to copy anyone here. Instead, you’re learning the conventions your target audience would expect, so you can either meet them or knowingly subvert them.

Refine your writing (and get an editor)

Be realistic about where you are. Writing is like playing an instrument: it takes time, practice, and feedback to master, and your first book is rarely your masterpiece.

Put money into editing before you spend a dime on ads. A professional editor who specializes in your genre will correct your manuscript and educate you: sharper dialogue, pacing, and characterization will improve every book you write after this one.

2. Build your mailing list before you launch

Your launch window is the single most important sales period in your book's life cycle, so you need people primed to read — and recommend — it immediately.

This is why marketing should start six to twelve months before launch: that’s when your mailing list, ARC relationships, and community presence need to start growing. The most expensive marketing mistake you can make is starting the week your book comes out.

Social media platforms can help, but they control your reach, and their algorithms change constantly. A mailing list is the one audience asset you own outright. Even a few hundred engaged subscribers can generate the launch-day sales and reviews that wake up Amazon's recommendation algorithms.

This applies even if you’re traditionally published: unless you're a lead title, your publisher's publicity push is brief and shared across a much less targeted list. Your mailing list and your direct reader relationships are yours regardless of publishing path, and they can carry a book after the launch-month window closes.

Pick an email marketing provider

There are dozens of options, but I tend to recommend MailerLite, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), and Author.Email. They’re straightforward, intuitive, and used by most of the authors I know.

Kit offers the strongest free plan, supporting up to 10,000 subscribers, although advanced automations require a paid subscription. Meanwhile, MailerLite is an affordable, user-friendly generalist, but its free tier is capped at 250 subscribers. Finally, Author.Email has no permanent free tier, but it is built specifically for authors and costs considerably less than many larger platforms.

Give away a reader magnet

Now, you may be wondering: “How do I get readers to sign up to my mailing list before I even have a book out?” The answer is simple: you need to offer them something (this is what we call a “reader magnet”).

For fiction, that something might be a free novella, a sample chapter, etc. For nonfiction, you could create a free short course, a checklist, a cheat sheet, or a webinar. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box in terms of what will entice readers in your genre.

Then get your magnet in front of those readers by:

• Placing targeted ads on Meta (Facebook and Instagram);

• Promoting it organically on TikTok or Instagram; and

• Running group promotions on platforms like BookFunnel or BookSweeps.

And once readers join your list, don't neglect them. Send regular newsletters with behind-the-scenes insights, thoughts on your writing process, sneak peeks of your work — anything to keep them excited for release day.

3. Optimize your retailer pages

Imagine your ideal reader browsing a bookstore, picking things up based on the cover art or jacket copy. Readers on Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, and Kobo go on that same journey — it just happens on your product page instead. This is why you need to nail every element of the page. In this order of importance:

Your cover design

Your cover has one job: to catch the eyes of the right readers and earn their clicks. The cover must look professional and fit your genre’s visual conventions (e.g., fonts, colors, styles).

Underestimating the cover is the single most common marketing mistake I see — we even ran this experiment showing how much difference a professional cover makes. We found that in six out of seven genres, the professionally redesigned cover earned more ad clicks than the original (up to 164% more, in the case of a fantasy novel!).

The book description

Your book description (or blurb) is your second most important customer conversion tool. For fiction: open with your main character, establish the conflict and stakes, and raise a question the reader has to answer. For nonfiction: be specific about what readers will get and why you’re the right person to deliver it.

Don’t forget, clarity and specificity beat overly detailed summaries and vague clichés every time. Read more here on how to write a perfect book description.

Categories and keywords

Categories and keywords don't sway readers directly, but they tell retailers what your book is and to whom it should be recommended. Look at your direct competitors’ categories and use them as inspiration. Remember, picking the wrong categories (or keywords) can have dramatic effects on your book’s visibility, so make sure to read our guides on choosing categories and choosing keywords.

Consistency

Keep covers, descriptions, and author info consistent across every retailer (e.g., Amazon, Barnes & Noble), community platform (e.g., Goodreads), and your author website. In 2026, this also helps AI assistants correctly identify and recommend your book.

Something to note — even if your book is already published, it’s not too late for any of this. Start right here at this step: overhaul your cover, blurb, and keywords, then build your review base (Step 4) and run a price promotion to relaunch (Step 5).

4. Secure authentic reviews

Reviews are a chicken-and-egg problem. You can't get reviews until your book is out, but you can't effectively promote a book with no reviews. The solution is sending Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) out to enthusiastic fans and known reviewers of your genre.

Traditional publishers, for example, send physical advance copies to booksellers and reviewers months before launch. As an indie author, you can replicate this digitally: send ARCs (via BookFunnel) to a hand-picked team of advance readers.

Build your ARC team

Now, you might be wondering: “Where can I even find advance readers?” Good question! Let’s break it down:

• Start with your personal network. Friends, family, and connections who regularly read in your genre.

• Leverage online communities. Think Facebook groups, Goodreads, Reddit, etc. Try to interact with these communities regularly for a few weeks first before posting about your book and asking for ARC readers.

• Connect with authors in your genre. A review from a well-known author in your niche is by far the best kind you can get — and the one that takes the most effort, since it requires a genuine connection first. Writers conferences (even pre-launch) are a good place to start building that network.

Or use a review platform

No time or energy for the above? Use an online reviewer platform instead:

• Reedsy Discovery: Our own review site with a team of vetted, professional reviewers whose expertise spans a wide range of genres. You’ll find quality editorial reviews comparable to the likes of Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly.

• NetGalley: The ARC platform used by most traditional publishers. It can be cost-prohibitive to submit your book on your own, so look around for “NetGalley co-ops” instead. These are services that share one NetGalley membership across many indie authors, letting you list your book for a fraction of the full price.

• Book review blogs: Prefer the DIY route? We’ve got a free directory of active book review blogs, filterable by genre, that you can use to pitch reviewers directly.

Whichever route you take, make sure to send ARCs at least a month before launch (ideally 3 to 6 months in advance), send review reminders at launch, and include direct review links to sites such as Amazon and Goodreads. Keep in mind that reviewers are helping you, not working for you — so be friendly and professional, and you’ll build relationships that last well beyond this launch.

5. Kickstart sales with a price promotion

With your early reviews secured, your next goal is velocity: getting your book into as many of the right hands as possible, and fast. The best tool for that is a limited-time discount, also known as a “price promotion”.

This is exactly what it sounds like: drop your price (or make your book available for free) for up to two weeks. Price promotions tend to work best right after launch, but you can use them at any point in your book’s lifetime.

If you’re exclusive to Amazon through KDP Select, you can amplify the effect with:

• A Kindle Countdown Deal: a discount (like $0.99) for up to seven days, available only on the US and UK stores; or

• A Free Promotion: making your book free for up to five days.

You can only run one of the two per 90-day enrollment period, but both receive extra organic visibility on the store. Don’t worry about losing revenue — the visibility you'll gain (and the long-tail effect on your sales) will be worth it.

Price promotions are also an opportunity to reactivate your existing network. If you run one at launch, let your ARC team know. Reviews left after purchasing at a paid discount price (like $0.99 during a Kindle Countdown Deal) will usually appear as "verified" on Amazon and carry more weight.

🚨 Something to note: Amazon only accepts reviews from accounts that have spent at least $50 on the marketplace in the past 12 months (via credit or debit card; gift card balances don't count). Make sure your reviewers are aware of this before they try posting.

Not part of KDP Select? Then you have a different lever available.

Go “permafree” for maximum reach

If you value downloads and visibility over revenue, make your book permanently free. Amazon won’t let you price below $0.99, but there’s a workaround: publish wide, set your book to free on other retailers (Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play, or via Draft2Digital), and Amazon will usually price-match it to $0.00. However, do note that matching is at Amazon’s discretion, and the process has become less predictable lately.

Permafree works best for the first book in a series: readers download it at no risk, and a portion go on to buy every sequel at full price. The catch is that it requires going wide, so it’s off the table under KDP Select.

6. Invest in proven advertising channels

Everything we’ve done so far has been to set up your book for success. Once you have impeccable retailer pages, initial reviews, and a scheduled price promotion, it’s time to get the word out about your book as far and wide as possible.

Below, I’ve set out the advertising channels that I think work well for authors, how much spend and effort they require, and how they’re best used:

Channel 📣	Typical cost 💰	Effort level 💪	Best for ❓	My verdict ⚖️
Price promotion sites	$20 to $200 per promotion	Low	Discounted/free ebooks	Best ROI for most first-timers. Stack a few (Freebooksy, Fussy Librarian, ENT, etc.) around a single discount window for maximum impact.
Amazon Ads	$5 to $10/day to test	Medium	Almost all genres	My favorite channel. Precise targeting, but expect a learning curve and a testing budget of a few hundred dollars.
Meta Ads	$10+/day to test	Medium to high	Building lists; broad-appeal fiction genres	Powerful once you crack the creative (visuals + hooky copy), but also easy to burn money before you do.
BookBub Ads	$5 to $10 per test campaign; $50+ total across variants	Medium	Wide/non-Amazon retailers, audiobooks	Harder to make work than a few years ago (due to saturation), but cheap to test. Still worth trying.
TikTok (BookTok)	Free	High	Romance, fantasy, YA (visual genres)	One of the last places organic reach can sell books, but only if you use the platform authentically.
Podcasts and influencers	Free to $$$	High	Nonfiction; niche authority	Slow to land, but one strong endorsement can change a book's trajectory. Influencer collabs are more affordable if it’s with a micro-influencer.

A few pro tips before you dive in:

• Price promotion sites are essentially newsletters that promote deals to reader audiences they’ve built over years. BookBub's Featured Deals are the most famous (and competitive), but there are dozens of alternatives — we keep an up-to-date tiered list of book promotion sites here.

• Don’t confuse BookBub’s Featured Deals with BookBub Ads — the latter is their self-serve ad platform, which anyone can test without being selected.

• For the two big ad platforms, I’ve gone deep elsewhere: I’ve written an entire book on Amazon Ads, and we offer a free course on Meta ads here.

• Only invest in social channels you already enjoy using. Forcing yourself to post consistently on a platform you don’t like never works. This goes for TikTok, Instagram, and everything else.

Finally, keep in mind that this is Step 6 for a reason. Don’t spend a cent on Amazon, Meta, or BookBub ads until you have nailed every element of your product page — especially your cover and book description.

7. Publish your next book

“Just write the next book” used to be the main marketing advice given in indie publishing. On its own, it's not enough — you can’t build a career by spamming out books indiscriminately — but deliberately growing a quality catalog remains one of the most reliable ways to compound your income and platform.

Almost every successful indie author I know has built their career on a series. In romance, mystery, fantasy, and thrillers, series dominate the bestseller lists. Even nonfiction has embraced the model, with series like Ryan Holiday’s Stoic Virtues series or Dr. Michael Mosley’s “fast results” health books.

The magic of publishing a series lies in turning one reader into a multi-sale customer. You may be familiar with the marketing axiom that “it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.” Series allow you to both retain and monetize your existing readers. In other words, it’s easier to sell 10 books to 10,000 enthusiastic readers than to sell one book to 100,000 readers.

A few final tips on series:

Watch your read-through

Read-through is the percentage of readers who continue from one book in your series to the next. High read-through means every dollar you spend on advertising book one earns you sales across the whole series. It’s the metric that makes ads on a series profitable when ads on a standalone aren’t.

Rotate your promotions

Multiple titles also multiply your promo options. You can’t discount the same book every month without diminishing returns — but with a series, book one goes on sale this month, book two next month, and every promotion increases visibility across the entire catalog.

When you’re torn between marketing the current book and writing the next one, default to writing. Some call this the 90/10 rule: spend roughly 90% of your working time writing and 10% marketing. It’s a useful notion in the long run (your catalog is your greatest marketing asset, after all) — though it obviously inverts around launch, when marketing dominates for a few weeks.

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As you’ll have probably gathered by now, there’s no shortcut or magic trick to marketing a book. Researching the market, writing a great book, building your list, optimizing your product page, and giving readers every reason to enthusiastically spread the word — these are the core components of any book marketing strategy.

If you want to learn more about any of the steps I outlined in this post, you can download my free book, How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market, from our Reedsy Store here.