A short YouTube video by Julie Broad (Book Broad), founder of Book Launchers, offering three practical, low-cost marketing ideas authors can use to sell books as holiday gifts: (1) create and pitch themed gift lists to blogs/search engines, (2) share/sell at local Christmas markets with fellow authors, and (3) pitch bulk-discount packages to organizations giving client/employee gifts. The video also includes examples, encouragement to engage in comments, and typical YouTube channel calls-to-action.
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Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, as an author, the Christmas season is a great opportunity to sell your book as a gift for someone special. I don't know about you, but books make awesome stocking stuffers or great gifts for someone that you appreciate in your life. But you might have to get a little creative to stand out in all of the holiday and festive noise that is out there. So if you're looking for three different ideas for marketing your book during the holidays, and frankly, these ideas can work for a lot of occasions actually, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad. I'm an Amazon Overall Number 1 Best Selling Author and the founder of a fabulous company called Book Launchers. Our superpower is caring more about you and your book than anybody else as we help you write, publish and sell a nonfiction book that will boost your brand and make you money. The holidays are a great time to give your books a little boost and and as I talked about in this video on the Best Time to Launch a Book, there are some books that will do really well at this time of year because they fit with typical gift giving. But realistically, every book could do this well if you position it as a gift for the ex fan in your life. You know your book Lead Guitar wizard is perfect for the aspiring guitarist on your list. Seriously, grab these books by Duane Jenkins if you know someone learning to play the guitar. And check out his videos on YouTube too. He's or the person planning to retire in your family would love a copy of Todd Tressiter's newly re released How Much Money Do I Need to Retire? Or the mom and dad of a teenage girl could really use a copy of Read me by Linnae St John, a parental primer for the talk. I mean, unless they're totally comfortable talking about sex with their kids, then they don't need the book. Although it's still a pretty funny read because she shares real life situations and how she handles them with with her girls and how she would handle other situations too. You'll giggle. You get the idea, right? Every book has potential gift lists this time of year, which is idea number one for marketing your book during the holidays. Write a few different lists that are like the top 10 best books for the ex on your list. The mother of a teenager, for example. Or the top 10 gifts for the Person planning Their Retirement. Or the top 10 gifts under $20 for people who Love Mountain Biking and insert the target audience as I noted above. And then you can post that list yourself if you want but I personally would shop that list around to some major blogs that will be looking for content this time of year that search engines will love. And you've already done the hard work of curating that list and you can put that list in front of a much bigger audience. Oh, and by the way, I figure this is obvious, but I've been married for more than a decade so I've learned that nothing is as obvious as I think your book is one of those gifts or books listed on those lists. Got it. Number two Grab a couple of author friends and set up a table at the local Christmas market or Christmas fair. The tables usually are fairly cheap and you can sell your books there. Ideally, you and your author friends are all in the same genre, but it's fine if you're not. A table of books will absolutely grab people's attention and you will sell books. Don't know any authors in your area? Well, post on Facebook or some other social media site and ask around. Guaranteed there are other people who know authors around you and will connect with you. If you have a tie in for your book, contact organizations or companies that will be giving gifts to clients or employees and offer a bulk discount on your book. For example, Robert Workman's Hired Gun 2 could be a great fit for someone running a real estate company to give all the brokers for the holidays. Or SA Bradley's screaming for pleasure could be a great gift to the team of people behind one of the major horror film festivals like Screen Fest la. This step takes a bit of work and some money because you're going to want to mail out a nice little package with a copy of your book. But you know if you mail out 10 or 15 of these and you end up getting an order for 100 or more copies of your book, then you're going to be darn glad you spent some time doing this. There are plenty of ways to stand out during the holidays, like turning your video studio green and wearing a hat. What will you do? Or what have you done? That works. Let's chat about it in the comments below. And and when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher swag like this Hashtag no boring books mug. Your favorite holiday beverage will taste better in it, guaranteed. Or your money back. It's free. If you enjoyed this tip, please smash that thumbs up button. Go ahead. I'll wait now didn't it feel so good? And make sure you've subscribed to the channel and turn those notifications on on so we can hang out in the comments after a video is released. And we just might become YouTube besties like I am with Robert Bell, Derek Silksky, Dremadrudge, and Andy W. Big virtual hugs to each of you for all of your comments, likes, shares and support. Now, if you haven't seen this video about when is the best time to launch a book? I highly recommend it. I haven't seen a video like this on book publishing anywhere else. I'm kind of proud. But if you've seen it, YouTube thinks you'll like this lovely video right here. Either way, let's keep hanging out, okay? Holidays and everydays are better with friends.
