We know advanced planning is important when putting your book marketing strategies to work, but if we’re being honest, sometimes we need things to happen now, and having a game plan for boosting exposure and sales quickly, is key.

The book promotion ideas I’ve included below serve as a game plan, that you can repeat multiple times throughout the year. I recommend following this outline at least once per quarter.

If your book marketing plan includes multiple titles not in a series, you should rotate through them. If you have multiple titles in a series, follow the same roadmap for each title, in order, at relatively close, predictable intervals to build exposure and maximize on your minimal time and investment.

So we already agreed we’re short on time – so let’s get down to business!

Schedule a limited time discount Amazon book promotion.

Yes, we’re starting with an eBook promotion. Discounting your book for a few days at a time is a solid author marketing strategy when you’re prepared to support it properly.

That’s where most authors fail. They don’t support their own book marketing efforts enough, and instead end up wasting time and lackluster results.

Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so no single strategy is going to make you rich or ruin all your other hard work – but you must be willing to take your book promotion ideas to the next level – and since I’m spelling this out for you, I know you can handle it.

Be sure you read more about key book marketing strategies for successful discounts here.

Set up Bookbub ads to support your limited time discount.

Too few book marketing companies design their campaigns to cross promote their own efforts, and I definitely don’t see enough authors doing this.

Any author can run a Bookbub ad when marketing a book, so plan to run them on the days your book is discounted and be sure to note the discount price in the ad. This part is crucial.

Just be sure to check this post for important tips and step-by-step instructions for setting up Bookbub ads the correct way.

Run a Goodreads giveaway in prep for your limited time discount.

Goodreads giveaways are a small investment, but I strongly support working book promotion sites that are really used by readers (because many aren’t) into your overall book marketing plan, and Goodreads is the best.

But remember, run your Goodreads giveaway as a lead up to your discount days and make it clear to participants that a discount is coming up soon.

This requires some delicate language though, to ensure your author marketing efforts are respecting Goodreads’ terms of service, but I’ve laid out all the details in this post for you.

Submit your limited time discount dates to multiple book promotion sites.

As I already mentioned, there are a number of book promotion sites, but many cater to authors almost exclusively, and their reader engagement is minimal, so when you’re spreading the word about your discount, spend your time wisely.

Do some research on discount eBook sites and newsletters, and you’ll have a go-to resource for the future. Check their social media; see if they share stats on how many subscribers they have; what are their guarantees, if any? Some have free book promotion services and some charge a small fee, do smart research one time and you’ll be set for the future.

There are lots of resources that list all the different sites you can look into, but this one also lists parameters, which can save you some time. Just be sure to check that everything is still current since this list is so big.

Make multiple announcements to your networks.

You should have a newsletter list, I wrote a post on why this is still important in today’s publishing market, or at minimum a personal network you can email.

Most of you have professional social media accounts, or again, at minimum, personal ones. So bookmark this piece on how to be smarter about your social media marketing.

Successful book promotion takes regular, engaging communication with your network, because they’re the ones who are most likely to recommend you to others. Don’t waste this opportunity.

You should send an email and post on social to announce a discount is coming up in a couple days, then on day one of the promotion, then on the last day of the promotion. You can do more than this if you think your network is up to it, based on how often you contact them and post already, just use your best judgment – but err on the side of telling them more than you think you need to – most of us are timid with the people we know, but that’s counterproductive.

And don’t forget to ask your network to forward or share the discount opportunity with their networks and friends – remind them how much you count on their support, and take this as another opportunity to remind them to review the book on Amazon if they haven’t had time yet.

This is why these book marketing strategies work.

Each of these book promotion ideas are solid on their own, but at the end of the day just doing one or two won’t give you marked results.

This plan is a way to use multiple strategies with the same goal in mind, in the same, short time period.

A bonus is this game plan also requires minimal effort, minimal prep time, and a reasonably small budget.

For those of you on a strict budget with multiple books not in a series, I suggest executing this as outlined for your strongest contender, your title with the most positive reviews with your largest potential buyer market, then skipping the Goodreads giveaway for your lesser-known titles.

Same goes for series authors on a tight budget, run this plan as outlined for book one and maybe two, and skip the higher priced Goodreads giveaway for the other books.

The biggest takeaway from this is to support your efforts.

A good rule is to support everything you do by at least two other efforts, and more if you can work it in.

If after all this you’re inspired to see what other book marketing ideas I have up my sleeve for your book, please contact me to discuss what kind of campaign I’d recommend for your reader market and budget! And please, share your own experiences in the comments below!

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