What a year! 2022 saw more authors using crowdfunding platforms, adjusting to major changes in digital advertising, rekindling interest in backlist titles on TikTok, and finding success with many more exciting new developments in book marketing and publishing. Here on the BookBub Partners Blog, we love to help authors and publishers navigate the ever-changing publishing industry by distilling book marketing trends into actionable tips, inspiring ideas, and real-life case studies.
This year we published dozens of articles, including many by wonderful guest contributors, on a variety of topics. You can always find our best book marketing articles here, but we wanted to make sure you don’t miss any of the most popular content from this year! Here’s a list of our top 10 book marketing articles from 2022.
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1. 12 Clever Ideas for Promoting Sequels or Later-Series Books
Whether you’re publishing the second book in a duology or a later-in-series book, the launch of a sequel is a chance to capitalize on the success of the previous book(s). You’ll already have a built-in fan base eager for more, but you need to make sure they’re aware a sequel is coming — plus, you’ll want to hook new readers as well. So what are some ways authors are successfully promoting their sequels or later-series books? In this post, we compiled a list of promotion ideas to help you create an effective sequel marketing plan!
2. How I Went from Zero to 6,500 BookBub Followers
You don’t have to be a USA Today or New York Times bestselling author to build a following on BookBub! Whether you’re traditionally published or self-published, and no matter where you are in your writing career, there are steps you can take to grow your fan base. As of January 2019, four months before her first book came out, author Juno Rushdan had zero BookBub followers. Today, she has nearly 7,000 followers! In this guest post, she walked us through how she did it.
3. 24 Great Prize Ideas for Book Promotion Contests and Giveaways
Whether you’re trying to promote a book launch or create buzz for a backlist title, giveaways are a great way to grab readers’ attention. In exchange for taking an action like sharing social media content or submitting fan art, readers get something in return that makes them excited to participate. Individual books are a classic giveaway prize for authors and publishers, and can be enough to engage readers — but what else can you offer to make your contest or giveaway more enticing? In this post, we gathered ideas from both indie and traditionally published authors!
4. How to Use BookBub with a Limited Budget
Marketing can be expensive, and if you’re on a budget, navigating the costs of different promotional opportunities may feel daunting. The good news is, it’s not impossible! BookBub’s full suite of marketing tools is aimed to support authors with diverse needs and goals — including those with a limited budget. In this post, we shared our top tips for anyone looking to leverage our marketing tools and maximize visibility on our platform without breaking the bank!
5. 16 Creative Ways Authors Promote Nonfiction Books on Instagram
There are nearly 70 million Instagram posts with the hashtag #bookstagram, and in the first quarter of 2021, promotion of adult nonfiction on the platform was up 24% over its first-quarter performance in 2020. As interest in the genre continues to grow, Instagram can be a useful tool in getting your nonfiction books in front of a wider audience of readers. Though the examples in this post are all nonfiction, we hope this list sparks some book marketing ideas regardless of what genre you write or publish!
6. Top Digital Marketing Takeaways from U.S. Book Show 2022
The sessions at the second annual U.S. Book Show, hosted virtually on May 23–26 by Publishers Weekly, reflected on another tumultuous — yet hopeful! — year for the publishing industry. In the past year, we’ve seen consumer behavior return nearly to pre-pandemic levels, increasing demands for digital privacy, an industry grappling with burnout and turnover, and more. Yet through all this, book marketers have found creative ways to move forward. In this post, we shared some of the top takeaways we learned from the event!
7. 17 Brilliant BookBub Ad Designs Promoting Books in a Series
Advertising a series is a great strategy to find new readers — and it’s cost-effective. Readers who get hooked on the first book are likely to keep buying and reading the next books in the series, which means more money in your pocket from each click on your ad compared to ads for standalone books. We found there are three main strategies BookBub advertisers use to hook readers into a series, which we share in this post. And every one of the images in this list of examples had a high click-through rate, ranging from 1.5% all the way up to 27%!
8. 7 Clever Ways Authors Can Learn More About Readers Online
Just because something works for one author doesn’t mean it will work for another, which is why it’s so important to measure the impact of your book marketing. But this past year, as technology companies shook up digital marketing by granting users more options to opt out of online tracking, reader behavior became even harder to measure. In this post, we talked about alternative ways to gather information about your readers and how to use that data to make smart marketing decisions, whether you are starting with an established audience or haven’t yet built one.
9. 14 Indie Authors to Follow on TikTok for Ideas and Inspiration
It’s no secret that TikTok’s book scene, dubbed BookTok, has become a commanding force in the world of publishing. And this highly engaged reader community is a powerful one for indie authors to join, as the ability to engage with readers here doesn’t depend on the size of your following. If you’re interested in trying out TikTok but not quite sure where to start, get inspired by this list of 14 indie authors creating unique videos to engage with their readers!
10. How a BookBub Featured Deal Revived My Writing Career
One of the most common questions Ada Bell sees in writing groups is, “Should I apply for a BookBub Featured Deal? Is it worth the cost?” Her answer: unequivocally, yes. In this post, Ada shared how a Featured Deal turned her self-publishing career around — just when she thought the journey was over. Authors loved her inspiring success story!
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