Having worked in marketing for a major international publishing house I learned early on in my career that book marketing can be tough. Every author wants their book to be the breakthrough title, so naturally there is a lot of competition in the book space. It’s no wonder that indie authors find marketing to be a completely draining and overwhelming experience!

Each publisher has a huge catalogue of books being published or distributed each month, and now with the ability for anyone to publish a book online there are more books out there than ever before. Marketing your book well has never been more important, and it’s never been done in a market as soaked as what exists now.

But it’s not all doom and gloom – there are also so many incredible platforms and windows of opportunity to market your book, particularly online, and becoming strategic about where and how you promote your books is the key to making your marketing work.

Too often, though, I see authors falling into the trap of trying to market their book to everyone, in the hope that someone will be converted and buy it. This is genuinely setting yourself up for exhaustion first of all, but second, you risk watering down your marketing and making very few sales at all.

If you want to sell your book well you need to define your perfect reader and market specifically to them.

The good news is that as an author you are already brilliant at building characters. Now you need to build a character that is your ‘perfect reader’. Build their backstory, understand their motivations, be where they want to be and speak to them!

Knowing this reader intimately helps you establish your tone of voice across all your marketing, the key words and hashtags you’ll be targeting online, the platforms you’ll focus on, the live events you’ll attend or organise, the media outlets you’ll focus on, and the design approach you’ll take to your book cover, social media posts and physical prints. Thankfully if you’ve written, say, a fantasy novel, you’re likely a fantasy reader yourself. You know your perfect audience because you are your perfect audience.

I wanted to open up this topic and share my own perspective with my marketing experience to give authors step 1 of their marketing plan: define your perfect reader. Before you do any kind of marketing activity I want you to take some time to identify and profile your ideal reader, so when you do start marketing you’ll have a greater chance at success!

Here’s how you do it:

Determine the genre/s of your book.

Now, this is where authors can begin to feel trapped. Genre isn’t a way to cage you and your work in – it’s a way for potential readers to know what to expect from your work. I personally believe any author should be able to write in any genre. The key is understanding who reads that genre and presenting your work in that space and in the spaces those readers inhabit. There will be hashtags and key words associated with that genre which you’ll want included in your blurb, social media posts, blog posts, design work, website, and so on. So dig into the genre and get to know why people love it and what draws them to it.

A great example on this front is the fantasy genre. Within this genre you’ll find big epic stories like The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein, anything by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman, and more recently romantasy series like A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas. What do all these works and authors have in common in their work? Escapism, entertainment, depth of story. Let’s unpack these further to really understand what’s going on in this genre:

Escapism

You could argue that any reader of any genre seeks this, but fantasy readers take this to the penthouse floor. They delve into new worlds, mystical characters, long-fought battles between magical forces, and love stories between elves and kings. If this isn’t trying to run away from reality, then I don’t know what is! Readers want a deep world to disappear into, so you’d be looking to show how your book provides this for them.

Entertainment

Again, another one all readers seek, but entertainment is taken to the next level with fantasy. With strong story arcs that span multiple books, there is promise in fantasy of being entertained (sometimes for 900 pages a book!). Fantasy readers strap in for a wild ride of entertainment because that’s exactly what they want – entertainment beyond the norm. You want all of your marketing activities to show that your book will have them on the edge of their seat!

Depth of story

Fantasy readers look for layers – they want a multi-layered story that explores love, pain, courage, grief, power, control, joy, every emotion under the sun. They want characters they can relate to, and characters they can despise. They want to feel! Show them characters fighting for their fate, or falling in love. Show them that your story gives them the depth and emotional connection they’re looking for.

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Now we’ve determined your genre let’s consider how your perfect reader uses and engages with books.

Assess your perfect reader’s book behaviour.

In order to slip your book onto your perfect readers TBR list you need to understand their book behaviour, and drop your book into their hands in a way that suits that behaviour. Answer these questions and take the following action:

Question	Action
Do they prefer physical books, e-books or audiobooks?	Provide the book in their preferred formats and highlight in descriptions and design work that their preferred format is available to them. In your promotional design work ensure you display your book as a physical 3D book, ebook on an ereader or audiobook on a mobile so readers can clearly see the formats.
Have they reviewed or rated books similar to yours?	Read their reviews and look for the keywords they use or the features they loved or wanted to see more of – highlight these in your blurb and marketing. Did they want more character depth? Outline the depth of your characters in your blurb. Did they love the tension between characters? Highlight the tensions of your story in your strapline.
Do they follow authors or book-related accounts on social media?	Follow these accounts and engage with them. Share posts and content from these accounts to your Instagram stories or Facebook page. Create content that fits into the landscape of those accounts, but do it with your own flair and style. Essentially you want to piggyback off the these accounts, with your own unique tone and content.
What hashtags do they follow on platforms like Instagram?	Use these! Follow these topics, keywords and hashtags yourself, share the content, comment on the content, and take notes of the kinds of content these readers love to see, and deliver it from your own account. Put your own spin on it, of course! Be creative, not a copycat.
Do they participate in book clubs, forums, or online discussions?	If book clubs are their jam, create a list of book club questions they can use! Engage in online forums they enjoy, and contribute meaningfully to the conversations they are deeply involved in.
Are they active on platforms like Goodreads, YouTube, Bookstagram or Booktok?	Be in these spaces! Sign up to the platforms where they spend their time, but be measured in how many you set up – you’re only one person and you could have a full-time job managing some of these accounts!
What book events do they attend?	Sign up, register and attend these, even organising book stalls where you can to be present with your book.
Do they buy books online or prefer browsing in physical bookstores?	Present your book in these spaces. If your readers prefer online, then focus more of your marketing energy on online activity. If they prefer physical books then work on connecting with bookshops and in-person events to get your books to them.
Do they pre-order books from favourite authors or wait for reviews?	If they love to get in early with a pre-order then you’ll focus more of your marketing timeline on the pre-publication period, which might begin weeks even months ahead. If they wait for reviews to find books they can trust, then you might organise a review campaign to build up reviews on websites like Goodreads or Amazon. If reviews is what they’re after be selective about who you approach for reviews – whether it be focusing on professional reviewers or everyday fantasy readers.
How do they discover new books?	Do they rely on recommendations from friends? Do reviews convince them to buy a book? Is a book catalogue their preferred method of TBR adding? Place your book in these spaces.

What stories does your perfect reader already love, and how are they marketed?

What stories are already on your perfect readers favourites shelf? Write a list of their favourite stories. Then spend some time assessing the marketing of these books, films, television series, podcasts etc and make notes. Then research how those stories were marketed to their readers – a Google search goes a long way!

Answer these questions for each of their favourite stories:

• what does the messaging of their campaigns or marketing say? How do they pitch the story to potential viewers?
• what is the vibe of the design pieces they use to promote, and what features are consistent? What parts of the story do they promote or focus on?
• what does their promotional design work and videography look like?
• what kind of content do they use to promote their story?
• what platforms and physical spaces do they use to promote the story?
• what kind of feedback do readers give on these marketing activities? What can you learn from this feedback? Look at comments, replies, shares, online community posts and get a sense for what ideas have landed well, and what hasn’t.

Connect with readers where these stories are, be in their zone and connect closely with them.

Harking back to the example of a fantasy reader who loves The Lord of the Rings, the marketing campaign for the films spanned over several years. The first film was released in 2001, but the studio had already set up a fan site in 1999. The studio worked in partnership with Tolkein fan sites, sharing news of film production, trailers and film release directly with audiences who were already keen fans of the story. This was only one part of the overall marketing campaign, but gives you an idea and model for how you can tap into audiences who you know will love the story. This also shows the ongoing nature of marketing – having a solid baseline of marketing activity makes campaigns to promote specific releases a whole lot easier. If you don’t have a website promoting your work yet, set one up now! Build up some SEO and start getting traffic to your website now. If you haven’t started posting content on social media on a regular basis, start now! This ensures that when the time comes to push your book into the hands of the perfect readers, you’ll be much, much closer.

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I hope this has been helpful! I’m super excited for you authors out there to narrow down who your perfect reader is! Soon I’ll share step 2 of marketing your book, but for now, get busy studying your perfect readers!