FYI, this post includes an affiliate link.
Before you self-publish a book, consider the readership you’re trying to reach. The earlier you think about marketing, the better. Here are a few marketing tips for self-published authors that you can implement before the book is finished.
As part of the process of setting your book up on various digital publishing and distribution platforms, such as Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, and others (and there are others), you’ll want to identify keywords that will make it easier to find your books online.
These online tools will help you identify good keywords:
Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool: adwords.google.com/keywordplanner
Keyword Planner is free. Search on terms that pertain to your book and you’ll find keyword ideas, along with the level of competition and price. Look for keywords with low levels of competition (1K or less) and low to medium prices. Using these criteria, choose words and phrases that readers looking for your kind of book would use in a search engine. Amazon’s search function is just that—a search engine. Your keywords will be entered when you actually publish the book online. Choosing the right ones will make your book more discoverable.
Google Trends: www.google.com/trends
You can use Google Trends to search for trending topics and find out how often specific search terms are used relative to the total search volume in various regions and languages.
Keyword Tool: www.keywordtool.io
Keyword Tool comes in free and paid versions. The free version generates up to more than 750 long-tail keywords for every term you search.
Long-tail keywords are commonly-searched phrases intended to reach a specific reader niche.
The point of using keywords is to increase your book sales page’s SEO (search engine optimization) or make your web page more discoverable. Basically, all of these suggestions are intended to boost your book’s SEO.
Use the marketing tools to gather your keywords ahead of time and keep a spreadsheet of the ones you use when you publish your book. You can always tinker with them later.
If you’d like more tips for self-publishing, I’ll be offering a Udemy class on Stress-Free Self-Publishing starting next week. If you’d like to check out my class on writing mystery fiction, just click here!
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