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As an indie author who is primarily trying to sell your books online, when you are thinking of your ideal company to help you sell your work, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a company to help you make sales or are you looking to promote a certain image for you and your work?
If you are unsure what you are looking for, keep reading because I will explain in depth what each type of company can do for you.
Hi! I am Amie, and I have been working in both author and streamer marketing and PR since 2021.
Marketing is more sales driven by promoting products, or in this case your books, on multiple channels. This can include:
Social Media marketing which will also go hand in hand with content marketing. Posting simple posts on social platforms or paid ads depending on your budget.
Email Marketing or Newsletters. The wonderful emailed letters that you send to readers inboxes that you hope is a correct email address, that the reader will open it, and that they will read what you have to say instead of tossing it in the trash box.
Websites for search engine marketing. A great place to hold all of your books information and where to find your books, having links to your many social medias, a place to sign up for your newsletter with a possible reader magnet as a thank you attached, and any merchandise you may have for sale.
Influencer marketing. Finding book(ish) influencers to promote your books on their platforms.
It can be daunting, but if you need to do it yourself due to budget constraints it is possible with an outlined plan. Do not get discouraged either when it takes time and a lot of backspaces and delete all actions. It is a lot of work for either you or your marketing company!
A Public Relations (PR) company will be able to help influence your public image. They can help by doing the following:
Social Media Management. You may have a certain image that you want to provide for the world to see whether it be a little witty banter type image or a dark broody image. Your PR will be able to help you with this by designing content specific to that image. They will also engage with your audience or help you engage with your audience and future audiences.
Media Relations: While this will look different for a lot of indie authors because y'all are mostly online sales based, it still is the same idea. Your PR company can reach out to influencers on your behalf to introduce your book(s) to their viewership.
This will also include the ever so popular street teams! They can take care of everything street team related to get your work out to different social media influencers.
There are of course many other avenues of public relations, but those are the two specific needs I have seen most over my years of doing this.
Are you asking yourself right now, "But what if I need both? I can't afford that!" Luckily, there are a lot of companies in our world of literature that can provide both sides for you. Public relations actually can fall into it's own category of marketing as well.
So where do you start? Make yourself a list of what you need, make your budget for what you can afford to use for a company to help you, research companies, and when you find the prices of what you need - decide what you can do yourself and what you need help with. Know your priorities, know your budget, but also know that you can do this all yourself too by watching for my future blog posts. I will help you go from lost to pretty darn good at this marketing thing.
xoxo
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