Ten 5-minute marketing hacks for authors

  1. Read one of your books!
  2. Update your Facebook header image
  3. Apply for a BookBub featured deal on a free first in series.
  4. Make a new media kit.
  5. Write a vignette about favourite characters and send it to your newsletter.
  6. Cross promo that vignette!
  7. Make a backlist book free.
  8. Go live (see below for the script!)
  9. Research what others do.
  10. Brainstorm evergreen content.

I shared this video on YouTube yesterday, and thought it would make a great blog post, too. When “book marketing” feels overwhelming and a behemoth task, chunking it up into five-minute “do this one thing” items is a stealth way to sideways engineer a marketing plan without overthinking it.

And you don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Here’s a script you are welcome to borrow if you want to go live, either on Facebook or Instagram, and don’t know what to say:

“I’m trying to step out of my comfort zone, and I’ve heard Facebook really likes live videos, so let’s give this a try. This week, I’m trying to write [Book title], which is connected to [Book that’s already out]. If you haven’t read that one, let me know in the comments and I’ll share a copy with you!”

This is my top ten list, but I bet you can make your own (and that’s sort of what I’m nudging you to do with #10 – brainstorm a list of five evergreen bits of content). Here are the five things I suggest in the video: meet a character, series lists, trope match game, this or that, perennial reader questions. Making that list — even before you create any of those things! — is marketing. We don’t value the idea generation part of work nearly enough!