7 Book Marketing Strategies That Go Beyond Amazon to Sell More Books in 2025

Amazon is the king of book sales, right? Well, what if I told you relying on Amazon is actually hurting book sales? Amazon is not going to sell your book for you. And thinking it will is what puts your book in the no sales zone with hundreds of thousands of other authors. So if you're an author who wants to actually sell books and not just let them sit like little sad digital paperweights on Amazon, well, these seven strategies are for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host here at Book Launchers tv. Book Launchers is your first choice for all things related to writing, publishing and promoting nonfiction books. First, let's be real. There are no magic bullets in book publishing and marketing. If your book is sitting on Amazon or you're about to launch and you're searching for that one thing that you need to uncover that will magically rocket your book to the top of the charts. Sorry, it's not here. I am sure your book is really great, but it is not enough. In eight years of running book launchers working directly with 800 plus authors, there have only been two books that seemed to sell themselves. One happened to launch at the same time as a major trial was happening specific to the content in the book, and the other was a hot topic and an early arrival on the scene talking about it. In other words, the books were good, but the authors got a bit lucky. So you can rely on luck or you can roll up your sleeves and get to work. Number one, Build an author website. You need a home base. Amazon can change its rules overnight, but you own your website and your site should have your expertise showcased front and center. Who are you and why would I care about you as an author? Your website, by the way, is about you, but it's not for you. What do you offer the visitor? They need to figure it out in seconds and be clearly directed to what they should do next. Which by the way is either sign up for your newsletter or buy your book. Could also be hire you to speak. Depends on your goals. Create some exclusive content. This could be articles, videos, behind the scenes of you doing interviews, or pictures that showcase some of your content. And then absolutely have an email sign up to build your reader base. Author Michael Hyatt reportedly gets 1,000 visitors or more per day to his website and because of that he's able to turn browsers into loyal book buy. We have other videos here on this channel on building an author website, so check those out. You can also just hire us to build an author website for you visit book launchers.com for those packages. Number two develop an email marketing strategy because this is your direct line to readers. An email list equals direct access to people who love your books. Unlike social media, you control it. So how do you do this? Well, offer a freebie. Now, you might be tempted to offer a free chapter or some sort of PDF workbook, but if you do a free chapter, please, please, please don't call it a free chapter. Call it by the transformation that chapter offers. So if you're Jack Cohen, author of Freedom Frameworks, maybe you want to give away your chapter on time management tools. Well, you could say get my free chapter on time management tools. Or you could say get the Freedom Framework for Time Mastery 7 Tools to Take back your day. Or get the Time Management Playbook. You know, smart systems for doing more in less time. Create a name for it that's going to sell it. Then once you get people on your list, send valuable emails, include content from your book or highlights from the interviews. Don't just tell them to buy your book and use an email automation system to stay in touch. You can build an autoresponder series so when someone signs up, they're getting some sort of immediate communication. My favorite tool is kit. Go to book launchers.comkitkit to get help with this and create your email list. Number three Leverage Social Media Social media is noisy, but when it's used strategically, it sells books. Now I have a video which I will put in the description below and also at the end of the video on the 10 Ways to Sell Books Without Social Media you do not have to have social media. The reality is that it's a way to build your audience and connect with people who may not have found you otherwise. So so it has value. And if you're into it, there are ways to use it to engage and draw people in. Here's three big wins because we're not going to do a masterclass on social media right now, but BookTok TikTok drives insane book sales for some authors, so you, if you're into it, can use it for short, engaging clips. Me personally, I AM not on TikTok, but when you get the formula down and get the algorithm to work for you, there are some quick payoffs and I know quite a few authors who are doing really well with it. LinkedIn is a great platform for developing credibility and content, which is great for a lot of nonfiction authors. The newsletters are, in my opinion, getting a little overdone, but some of our clients have had tremendous success building a strong and engaged following and platform on LinkedIn and using their newsletters. One of our clients, Odile Remmer, has been steadily building her authority and platform on LinkedIn, and she recently shared this particular post celebrating her success on LinkedIn and sharing some great tips if you're interested in doing more on LinkedIn. What grabs my attention isn't so much the number that she comments. She's got 8,000 followers now, but it's the number of comments she has at the bottom of the post. 150 and counting comments. That's amazing engagement. Now think about all the people who sees this post when she has that many commenting you will sell books if you build this kind of audience. Number four Collaborate with book bloggers and influencers your book in front of thousands of the right readers. Yes, please find bloggers who review books in your niche and connect with them. If it's a good fit, offer them a free copy or multiple copies so they can gift some as well as read one themselves. Now you can also pitch influencers with audiences that match your target readers. Now heads up. A lot of influencers are going to expect to be paid to promote what you do, but if you can get in front of the right audience, it can work really, really well. And some influencers, if you build a relationship with them, will be happy to promote your book. My personal favorite is to engage with the influencer and build up that organic relationship and then collaborate with them. And attending live events to meet fellow authors is a great way to meet and create relationships with influencers and collaborate. One thing to do is join us at Author Nation in November. Our link is book launchers.com authornation so Author Nation knows that we sent you. Plus we're going to have a Book Launchers meetup at the event for our authors and community members, so be sure to grab your ticket and let us know that you have these kind of events are great for connection and collaboration. Which leads me into point number five, which is get out there and attend events and speak. Now I know getting out there, leaving the comfort of your home and the safety of hiding behind your keyboard. I know it sounds scary and speaking I threw that one in there. You might be terrified of that, but it is one of the fastest ways to gain credibility and sell a lot of books, especially if you're an introvert. And how well go ahead. Apply to be a speaker at conferences that are in your niche. Join local author events and book fairs. Do little readings and speak at those. Host your own webinar or live Q&A session Sarah Westbrook, one of our clients, shared in a live stream we did that she was selling up to 200 copies of her book per live event that she was doing. And guess what? Did you know that we're also doing pitching for you to speak? If you're working with us in our thought leadership path, yep, we can help you get on stages, Small, medium and sometimes large Book marketing is so much more than getting reviews and doing list swaps and running Amazon ads. It's getting on stages and that is a big lever for larger impact and income. 6. Leverage niche opportunities Sometimes the best book marketing happens in unexpected ways. For example, we landed a very simple live stream interview for one of our clients. It was the right audience, but it was niche and honestly, she could have easily turned it down. But she didn't. She showed up for the small group that was there live and she crushed it. And that one interview led to a recurring paid article feature which then turned into a full on partnership where she's now providing training for that organization. The key takeaway is don't overlook opportunities just because they seem small. If they are the right audience, well, the saying there's riches in the niches is real. Speaking at a small event, writing a guest blog post for the exact right audience, doing an interview for a really niche or small group can lead to book sales and massive career opportunities for impact and income. How do you find these? Well, look for niche industry events where your expertise is valuable and specifically helps that audience with a problem they have. Pitch yourself as a speaker or a trainer to professional associations or hire book launchers to help you with all of this. And ultimately the answer is just say yes to visibility. Even a small feature can open big doors. And remember, you're not speaking for free, you're speaking for value. Be sure to check out my video on that topic for more. Again, I'll link to it in the description below. Authors who embrace these opportunities don't just sell books, they build entire businesses around their expertise. So tell me, what are you building? Let's talk about it in the comments below. All right, the final thing. 7. Run promotions and giveaways. A well timed discount or giveaway can explode your book's reach. Personally, 99 cent e book sales and even free book giveaways don't work as well as they used to. For many of our nonfiction clients. We used to run them like clockwork every 90 days. But we're finding the time and the money invested into running them and promoting them isn't returning results like it used to. A good one now is selling 30 books at 99 cents. That's not that exciting. But there's still massive value in timing a discount with a big promotional push. So you're talking about it everywhere at the same time as you're paying to promote it using BookBub, free booksy, bargain Booksy. And maybe you're even hosting a giveaway with a fun twist like Post a picture with my book and tag me to enter this. Or bundle your book with another product or give it away with your workshop or exclusive content. There's lots of ways to do promos and giveaways. Now what are you trying? First, let's chat about it down below in the comments. And of course, when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some of our hashtag no boringbooks, Swag and books. Oh, and by the way, be sure to download my entire book on book marketing called Self Promote and succeed@self promoteandsucceed.com audio. That is my gift to you for free. You wrote a book. Now let's make sure the world knows about it. Let's get out there and promote it.