17 Fantastic Ways to Sell More Books for the Holidays

Believe it or not, ‘tis almost the holiday season! Consumers are starting to look for the perfect gifts for friends and family, so it’s a great time for authors and publishers to boost their promotional efforts and get more eyes on their books. And this holiday sweet spot isn’t limited to the week before Christmas. According to Google Trends, search terms related to “gifts” in the United States trend upward starting in early-mid November through Christmas Day.

So what kinds of promotions are authors and publishers running to boost exposure around the holidays? Here are some great holiday book marketing ideas we hope will inspire you when creating your campaigns this (and next!) holiday season.

1. Design a festive cover for a holiday-themed book

If you’re launching or promoting a holiday-themed book, a festive book cover can help attract your target audience. They also tend to perform very well when promoted to BookBub’s readers! Holiday-themed covers often include a lot of wreaths, decorated trees, festive lights, snow-covered landscapes, and roaring fires.

Here’s a sample of holiday-themed book covers we love (and you can check out 85 more great examples here):

2. Create a holiday bundle

If you’ve published a holiday series, why not repackage these books into a box set? Especially if you make the cost of the box set less than the combined cost of the individual books, a box set promotion can help attract new readers and funnel them to your full-priced books. Authors are increasingly selling bundles direct to have more control over their pricing.

Melinda Curtis teamed up with other authors to create a complete collection of 12 holiday-themed novels and a bonus prequel. She promoted the collection for 70% off at her store, explaining the value of buying directly from her instead of from retailers.

But your collection doesn’t have to be holiday-themed — the holidays are also a great time to revive sales of other backlist books! Jonathan Dunsky took the approaching holiday season as a chance to push his core series, framing this custom bundle as a great gift idea.

3. Create a holiday playlist

One of the cooler book trends to emerge in the last few years is authors including playlists in their books as a new way to connect with their readers. Similar to creating Pinterest boards for inspiration, these playlists could include songs that inspired your writing or that you think your fans would enjoy. At this time of year, you can use music to build your author brand and put your fans in the holiday spirit!

Kimi Freeman made a TikTok to tease her upcoming title, ‘Tis the Damn Season, with a preview of the playlist included in the book. She added twinkling lights and a festive song choice to set the mood.

A great alternative to adding playlists to your books is simply making one to share on your website or on social media. Debbie Macomber branded her Spotify playlist so that fans will be reminded of her when they listen to her favorite holiday tunes.

4. Send a BookBub Preorder Alert near the holidays

If you’re launching a new book before the holidays, sending BookBub Preorder Alerts can increase the book’s exposure at a time when readers are looking to get a head start on their holiday shopping. You can send two alerts per book — so, for example, one alert a few weeks before the launch, and a second one closer to release for more immediacy. At only $0.02 per subscribed follower, these alerts are a cost-effective way to let an author’s fans know that a book is available for pre-sale.

If you have 1K+ BookBub followers, you can schedule a preorder alert here! (If you don’t, read these ideas on how to get more BookBub followers.)

5. Publish a holiday-themed short story or novella

If launching an entire new book or series — co-written or not — doesn’t fit into your schedule, no worries. Instead, you could publish a short story that takes place over the holidays.

Cynthia Eden announced her latest holiday romance novella by teasing the cover and tropes, to much excitement from her fans.

Sharing a holiday-themed short story for free is also a great way to keep readers engaged between book launches. Melissa Collings offered her holiday novelette free to anyone who signs up for her newsletter.

6. Launch a holiday-themed anthology with other authors

If you like the short story approach, you can also join forces with other authors! Consider rallying friends in your genre to create an anthology where each of you contributes a holiday-themed short story.

The goal is usually exposure to each others’ audiences, and around the holidays, many multi-author projects are campaigns to raise funds for charities. One group of rom-com authors joined forces to create an anthology of never-before-seen short stories ranging from spicy to sweet. This collection of festive shorts was on sale for a limited time and all proceeds went to an animal shelter.

Another author team launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish large print editions of their books for visually impaired readers. Elizabeth SaFleur shared the news that readers can receive the books in a beautifully wrapped bundle in time for the holidays!

7. Send a holiday-themed email to subscribers

Of course, launching a holiday-themed book or box set isn’t necessary to drive book sales during the holiday season. By sending festive emails to your subscribers with clever promotions, you can boost sales and engagement amongst readers looking for gifts — both for loved ones, and for themselves!

Glynnis Campbell sent her subscribers an email positioning her books as gift ideas. She organized her email by her books’ price points, so it would be easy for recipients to find the perfect gift in their price range! View the full email here.

Cheyanne Young emailed subscribers offering her book The Breakup Support Group as a gift if they completed a Google form. In the email, Cheyanne encouraged readers to leave a review (but noted that it wasn’t required). So while this free giveaway might not have resulted in an immediate revenue gain, garnering more reviews can help lead to long-term gains. (Also note the use of cute emojis in the subject line!)

8. Send readers a joint book gift

Consider banding together with other authors to send each of your mailing lists one free book from each of you. (These don’t need to be holiday-themed books!) This way, you’ll give your readers a wonderful gift for the holidays, and you’ll be reaching new audiences at the same time.

Corinne Michaels emailed her subscribers three days before Christmas offering one of her books, one of Kendall Ryan’s books, and one of J.S. Scott’s books for free.

9. Run a holiday-themed BookBub Ads campaign

BookBub Ads provide a great way to gain book visibility to a targeted audience during a specific date range. Advertisers can target their own fans or fans of comparable authors, and use any creative they’d like — sometimes opting for holiday-themed creative.

Here are some great ads our advertisers created to promote their holiday-themed books between mid-October and late December:

You can find more examples of great holiday-themed BookBub Ads here!

But again, you don’t need to promote a holiday-themed book to run a holiday-themed ad. Any book can be a gift! Here are some great examples of BookBub Ads for non-holiday books that positioned themselves as gifts by using Christmas imagery, a festive color scheme, or a holiday special price.

10. Run giveaways with book bundle prizes

Authors and publishers alike often run generous giveaways during the holiday season, bundling a big stack of books as the prize. For example, Jan Moran joined a BookSweeps promo with a whopping 40 books up for grabs! This was a great way for each author to get cross-promotion exposure to the other authors’ audiences, since each author promoted the giveaway to their own followers.

Penguin Random House ran a gift-themed giveaway with the chance for participants to win five books in their favorite genre.

11. Create a holiday gift guide (or pitch a book for one)

Shopping for the holidays can be overwhelming, so consider providing your readers a holiday gift guide. This could be a blog post, a social media post, or even a video. You can include your own books as well as fellow authors’ books, or even create different guides by theme (e.g. “Holiday Gift Guide for Thriller Lovers”).

Simon & Schuster created a holiday gift guide in the form of a 30-second reel any procrastinating shopper will relate to!

Nisha Sharma recommended some of her favorite books as holiday gifts in a two-part TikTok series, using hashtags like #holidaygiftideas to boost discoverability.

You can also see if influencers or publications with a relevant reach already compile annual gift guides for their readerships, and pitch your book for inclusion. Last year, BookBub published a holiday gift guide on our Instagram.

12. Run a longer promotion based on the holiday length

Since some of the winter holidays span several days (e.g. eight days of Hanukkah, 12 days of Christmas), they provide a great opportunity to run a multi-day themed promotion around a book (whether the book is holiday-themed or not).

Jean Meltzer ran a great promotion in which she ran five different giveaways throughout Hanukkah. Participants could enter to win not just her books but also Hanukkah-themed swag!

Lori Foster and 11 other authors launched a “Twelve Days of Christmas Giveaways” social media campaign with prizes up for grabs each day starting December 1st. Lori hosted the giveaway on her Facebook page, but each participating author also shared their own promotions with their audiences for more exposure.

13. Host a virtual holiday party

Some of the most creative holiday-themed marketing campaigns don’t focus on book sales — rather, they help build awareness for an author and cater to loyal fans. And you can work with other authors to cross-promote your holiday books! Each year, Brenda Novak and Debbie Macomber run a holiday-themed Facebook group, where they host giveaways and takeover events to expose their readers to new festive content. They live stream the party in December, but the fun starts as early as October:

In the lead up to the party, Brenda and Debbie post polls, questions, and other content to encourage participation from group members and draw attention to the giveaways:

The giveaways create more engagement in the group as fans post photos of their gifts:

And the party itself gives readers the chance to win even more goodies!

14. Stage photos of a book in holiday settings

It’s the time of year when Bookstagram, or book Instagram, is full of stunning images showcasing books against a holiday backdrop. Publishing this type of content is a great strategy for engaging with readers who are in the holiday spirit (and thinking about what presents to buy!). Of course, the holiday season in the US really starts as early as Thanksgiving. Here’s an appetizing fall-themed photo Kiley Reid reposted from the popular Book to Bowl page:

Here’s a Christmas-themed photo reposted by Sylvia Day, who created the #SylviaFanFriDAY hashtag to highlight posts from her readers.

This photo reposted by Sandhya Menon, who also writes adult romance as Lily Menon, paints an inviting picture of cuddling up to read her holiday-themed novella. In the caption, she lets fans know that the book includes Christmasy plot elements.

15. Send readers season’s greetings

Showing appreciation and well-wishes is a great way to foster a relationship with readers and secure loyal fans. Melissa Stevens sends her holiday greetings by snail mail!

You could also consider posting a more casual photo of yourself (or your pet!) in the holiday spirit. Alyssa Cole sends fans season’s greetings for each holiday, like this fun photo of her dog.

And Meera Sriram shared this photo of her epic Christmas tree — we love the creativity here!

16. Create branded holiday swag or content

The holidays are a perfect time to get creative with swag and other shareable content. This is a great way to build buzz, or provide giftable content to fans other than the book you’re promoting itself. For example, you can create bookish Christmas tree ornaments designed for specific books — either DIY or hire someone on Etsy if you have the budget.

You can also create share-worthy holiday content for social media. Buzzfeed-style interactive content — like this “What’s Your Holiday Rom-Com Title?” post from author and BookBubber Hannah Reynolds — is something many of us can’t resist. It’s personalized, it’s quirky, and it entertains our friends!

17. Share your excitement for next year’s releases

Once Christmas is over, there’s still plenty you can do! For example, you can give readers a preview of what’s coming up. The members of KidLit in Color, a group of BIPOC authors, circulated this post about what they’ve been working on to drum up some excitement for the new year!

Want to share this post? Here are ready-made tweets!

Click to tweet: Are you planning any book marketing campaigns for this holiday season? It’s not too late! Here are some great ideas. #WritingCommunity http://bit.ly/2xVGGhn

Click to tweet: If you want to ramp up book sales this holiday season, here are some great promotion ideas! #pubtip http://bit.ly/2xVGGhn

This post was originally published on October 25, 2017 and has been updated with new examples.

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About AJ Yee

AJ is a content marketer on the BookBub Partners marketing team, where she manages the Partners Blog and enjoys researching and sharing how authors and publishers can level up their marketing.