Affordable Book Advertising Tips

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Did you know that as a self-published author, you can retain anywhere from 50–85% of your book royalties? That opens up incredible potential for you to write your story, share your creative ideas, or weave a remarkable tale and turn it into a path for extra income. At the same time, since you won’t have the wide reach of a traditional publisher, book marketing becomes your responsibility.

The good news is you’re not left to figure it all out by yourself. Here at BookBaby, we’ve worked with thousands of successful self-published authors, including those on limited budgets. If you need to count and maximize every marketing dollar you spend, here’s how to do it.

Take advantage of BookBaby’s Bookshop promotion

You want eyes on your book, but how do you get people to pay attention when no one knows you exist? One way is to use BookBaby Bookshop — your own personal book page — to sell your printed book, eBook, or audiobook directly to readers. By directing website traffic to your Bookshop page, you’ll get 50% of the retail price of your printed book, 75% royalties on audiobooks, and 85% of the retail price of your eBook when someone buys from that page.

In order to make the most of the traffic that you do get, you’ll want to take advantage of online advertising. We recommend spending a minimum of at least $400 spread over several weeks. Many authors raise this amount to anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 to have a better chance at a positive ROI (return on investment). Why so much? Because as it turns out, a customer may need as many as nine impressions before they engage with an ad. That can mean seeing an ad for your book up to nine times before they decide: “Maybe I should check this out!”

We also offer an optional Bookshop promotion package for $399 which includes:

• An email blast to over 60,000 indie book buyers
• A week-long featured spot on the Bookshop homepage
• Social media posts about your book

Use BookBaby’s Ads for Authors service

Many authors come to us and say “I know how to write. I know how to tell stories. I don’t have any idea how to advertise.” It also doesn’t help that major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and display networks often have very specific and cumbersome advertising setups.

Fortunately, BookBaby can help you cut through all the clutter with our Ads for Authors service. This allows you to launch targeted ad campaigns across all of the aforementioned platforms for as little as $100/ week, although we recommend spending around $350/week for the best possible results across 6-8 weeks.

If you’re on a tighter budget, you can launch a shorter, more refined campaign at just $200/week across three weeks, or $100 per week for 4 weeks.

BookBaby offers 3 types of ads: display ads, Facebook/Meta ads, and LinkedIn ads.

Display ads: best for nonfiction

• Religious and political targets are available
• Age ranges are not available
• Ideal for self-help, religion politics, cooking, philosophy, medicine, body/mind/spirit, etc.

Facebook/Meta ads: best for fiction

• Age ranges are available
• Religious and political targets are not available
• Ideal for children’s literature, romance, fantasy, historical fiction, science fiction, young adult, etc.

LinkedIn ads: best for professionals

• Ideal for books targeting educators, business professionals, specific industries, etc.

Combine ads with metadata optimization

Your ads work even better when your book metadata, that is, its title, description, keywords, and categories, are designed to be easily discovered. We can optimize your metadata to make your book more discoverable across major retail and online platforms for just $199. Investing in both ad creation and metadata optimization makes every marketing dollar you spend work even harder for you.

DIY marketing options to further stretch your budget

Although BookBaby can help you with paid advertising and making sure your book gets found in major online and retail catalogs, you can also stretch your marketing spend even further by:

Creating an author website or blog

Think of it as a centralized hub for your marketing efforts. We strongly recommend creating a blog, or at the very least, a website for yourself once you’ve self-published your book!

Starting an email newsletter or guest blogging

Email newsletters, social media engagement with readers who love your genre, guest blogging on other author or reader blogs, or even taking part in local author events are all great ways to get the word out about your book and build awareness either before or after your paid campaigns.

Start out small and test what works

There is no “one size fits all” approach for every author. With limited budgets, it’s worth testing out what works best and then scaling the activities that generate the most response. This lets you dabble with several different types of ads to see not just where your readers tend to hang out, but how best to reach them.

How to track your results

One of the best reasons to work with BookBaby is that you can watch your ads as they work and measure the results. Within your BookBaby dashboard, you can track reach, impressions, clicks, and for those users who buy via your Bookshop link, actual sales (all in real time). This dashboard will show you whether or not your ad spend is generating enough of a return on investment for you to continue, pause, or change to a different tactic.

Keep in mind that if your ads point to Amazon or other stores, these platforms only report your sales quarterly, which can make it challenging if you want to measure your results fast. That’s why we recommend directing ads to your Bookshop page. Not only will you be able to see your data faster, but you’ll get paid sooner, too!

It’s also important to note that advertising doesn’t guarantee sales, but what it does guarantee is exposure. Your book ad being seen repeatedly helps build awareness, and that can pay off over time, especially if you’re generating word-of-mouth among book clubs and guest blogs or you’re planning future releases.

By combining metadata optimization, Bookshop promotion, and BookBaby’s Ads for Authors program, you’ll be able to launch a powerful book marketing strategy that doesn’t break the bank. Track your results, optimize as you go, and build awareness and momentum, one campaign at a time. Ready to get started? Reach out to the book advertising experts at BookBaby.com and let’s talk about your options!