How To Market A Book | EXPLAINED 

What other tips do you got for potential authors?! Go to galaxylamps.co/danielgreene and get 50% off, extra 20% only until 10th of April.

Me who has no plans to write a book watching this: 👁️👄👁️

1st book, 60K words in, LETS GO!

I work at a bookstore and every week we have a book on 50%-60% discount that we need to pitch to customers who are even slightly interested. That and recommending books while being as brief as possible, I just realised, is a really good practice.

I'm actually doing the serialized chapter-by-chapter thing. I haven't gained a HUGE audience, or anything, but the readership I have managed to get have actually been really understanding of the two or three times I've needed breaks for health or personal reasons. I just let them know up front and was super transparent about what was going on. Of course, I also release three or four chapters a week on my best weeks (doesn't happen often, but sometimes I manage to pull it off) so it evens out. It's been ongoing for just over a year now and is now in the final part of the final act.

Tbh all of this goes for trad publishing too. As a debut trad published author, you’re not likely to get a huge marketing budget behind your book and will be expected to do all this stuff for yourself anyway

This is for the KDP crowd, but absolutely positively add more categories to your book after it goes live. When setting up your book, Amazon lets you assign two categories. Amazon will also typically assign one or two others based on the content of your book. However, you can safely request up to eight additional categories be added to your book. It's a manual process that you do through the help feature of the KDP dashboard and you have to do it for each format separately (paperback,e-book, etc.). But this is how Amazon's algorithm can help those niche readers find your book.

As a game dev student, game pitches have been a huge focus of actually getting funding for a project. I second the passion pitches!

Step 1: Write book Step 2: Buy 500 pounds of bread Step 3: Use bread to befriend an army of birds Step 4: Train birds to carry books Step 5: Use bird army to distribute free copies of books and attack people who refuse your gift Step 6: Realize that controlling a bird army is easier and offers a higher return than self publishing. Use profits from first bird campaign to fund more bread, more training, and more birds in more locations. Use birds to take out rivals and gain a political foothold until you have an iron grip on the entire planet. You claimed the skies; now everything below is within your purview. All peoples live in terrified reverence of you and your army of feathered murder babies. Begin funneling money into advanced genetic experiments to fuse bird and human. Step 7: You are become Lord of the Birds, fulfilling your childhood desire to be the villain in a dystopian YA story, which was basically what you wanted as an author anyway.

"Plug your book, plug it wherever you can. Intrude on other people's channels to plug your book." So, uh, hi, I'm here to plug my book!

I don't think you're going to see thing Daniel, but as someone that is attempting to write something with the hopes of publishing it, having you lay out these kinds of things is a big help and I just want to thank you for doing it.

The more I’ve networked with other authors, especially in the horror community, the more I’ve discovered how much the struggle of marketing and self-promoting is a bonding experience. I’ve felt mostly lucky with my horror novel, but wow, this video is such a gift! You’re a voice I really want to listen to when it comes to this stuff. My book is available from most Barnes & Nobles now-and I’ve found paid ads are decent for some sales, but it’s not something I can afford consistently. Someone gave me the advice once that word-of-mouth is far more important, so I’ve taken that approach, along with focusing more on the “passion pitch” side of things. And I’ve been so grateful with the results so far. That, and networking has been wonderful not merely as a way of spreading the word, but also because of feeling welcomed into the horror community, a group of absolutely wonderful, supportive, awesome people.

I'm writing an essay for college about the increasing trend of self publishing atm! Loved the video :D

This is honestly great general advice for all indie creators. I personally enjoy most of your content, but I will be sharing this with my wife who is in an indie singing group with her sisters. I can see how this can translate into great ways for them to put themselves more into people's conversations.

I don't know if this has been brought up in the comments, and you say it's been done since websites have become a thing, but I think it's important to underline a thing or two about publishing a story chapter by chapter: both a huge success in that field from a while ago and then to compare it to a historical equivalent. The huge success is Metro 2023; it was published online in 2002 ( I believe chapter by chapter but not 100% ) before being traditionally published in '05, and it became a massive success before any English translation came out ( which was in 2010 to coincide with the release of the game, fact fans ). The historic equivalent is serialized storytelling in magazines and the like. You'd be surprised how many novels were originally published this way; from something like The Count of Monte Cristo and Tolstoy to stuff from C.S. Lewis. Those are examples I know for a fact, but it's my impression that a lot of fantasy and science fiction, for a while at least, was alive and thriving in this space. Serialized publishing of stories was a proven method before the internet; collecting the parts / chapters / what-have-you later into a novel. I can imagine that this still happens, but I don't know any examples off hand; specifically a novel that was originally published in pieces in a magazine. There is still serialized fiction out there, and that's sidestepping any discussion on specifically 'web-fiction', so it's really just a matter of finding it and seeing if there's been much success in converting readers of the serialized part into the novel part. I know webcomics offer the two different formats; the weekly updates and the bound print editions of so many chapters. I would imagine there's things similar for writers who post their writings on their own website. Food for thought; great video as always!

5:15 it also generates hype and more of a sense of a "community". Constant interaction through comments on manga and manhwa/webtoons enhanced the experience so much. Some of the most fun I had was because of the reactions to the chapters I think it might also evolve into something like the Japanese style where they release it chapter by chapter on the internet ( monetisation through early access for every chapter each week of course ) and then publish "officially" with corrections and changes once a company notices their work getting traction. However, it was a catalyst to flooding the market with anybody who thought they could write and had access to the internet.

I have to say, you saying coming to an agent with sales built in is so important is REALLY discouraging. Are we really trending toward a day when authors have to have a built in audience AND sales to even get traditionally published?

Thank you! I've been watching videos all night and this is the first one that gave practical advice.

About the chapter by chapter: if I understood it correctly, its pretty common in japanese publishing. They have big sites that let you write your story until it is eventually published as a light novel. But the big question is, if western publishing and readership could go a similar route.

Always appreciate your videos man. Thanks for this. Editing through my first Fantasy novel right now. This is great.

Thank you so much for this info. Getting more serious about publishing! ❤️

As a relatively new indie author, I would have loved to have this advice a year ago. And as a fellow socially awkward person, marketing really is the hard part. I really only have one thing to add as a possible idea for others to try: a newsletter. It sounds a bit old-fashioned, but anyone who is willing to fork over their personal email just because they like your work is a true fan that you want to keep. It also gives you a direct line of communication with them without being at the mercy of someone else's platform. It shouldn't be the only thing you do, but I can at least say it's helped me greatly.

I just hit 35k on my first novel on Sunday. I just gotta finish this first draft and then do the hard work.

Started writing at 8 years old as a hobby. Loved stories and that passion only got stronger as time went on. At around 11 years old, I began working on a series that would later spawn its own history, mythology, world, deep lore, nations, animals, monsters, factions, and so on. It's my baby at this point but I never intended on sharing it until fairly recently. I self-published the first book in this multi-series project on quite a few platforms and am now making RU-vid videos for it. I don't have an audience right now but I'm in it for the long game. Working on an audiobook of a short story I wrote as well as multiple other video scripts. The most important thing I can say is that if you're passionate about your story (and I mean REALLY passionate), never lose that spark of zeal. Work on it at least once a day even if it's just a single character concept or weapon or just ten minutes of sitting down and thinking about it. Never be afraid to share your ideas with people you can trust either. I grew up being told that my little hobby was a waste of time and that it would never go anywhere. That may be true, but if you're really passionate, you'll keep on anyway. I appreciate this video though! Very useful especially in this fairly new venture. Thank you very much and God bless!

This is a really useful video! Thanks Daniel. I'm starting to work as a literary agent for an author friend and I loved a lot of the tips from this.

Great video. Thanks so much for the help!

The chapter by chapter thing reminds me of Victorian authors like Conan Doyle releasing Sherlock stories in serial magazines.

This is the best video you've ever made. Thank you for the amazing advice!

This was really insightful. Thank you my brother!

Pure gold advice thank you Daniel. Will be putting this straight to work.

Daniel, this is one of the best self publishing videos I've ever seen. Great advice all around. I've just published a vampire horror trilogy and I am desperate to find readers. Lucky enough to have gotten a few very positive reviews so far. I am wary of just giving away my books for free because I have been told that they will just be snapped up by free book hoarders and will never get read.

Bless you for this. The grind is hard.

This is so, so helpful. I have a graphic novel I want to get published, and I know that will make a few differences in how to pitch it, BUT STILL. Thank you so much for making this.

The passion for this video was so inspirational that I'm pumped with adrenalin.

Good stuff! I'll put this to use today!

Thanks for the nuanced advice!

Loved your video. It was very helpful. I am a twice-published freelance author of murder mystery novels. Your information was very helpful in marketing my Novel series, "For the love of murder." I will begin to put this into practice TODAY. Thanks, buddy.

Serialized publishing worked for Mark Twain and a bunch of other authors back in the day, so doing it in an online format sounds like it could be a successful choice. Not sure it's a route I'd personally pick but I'll be interested to see how things work out for those who try it!

Very insightful, thank you! Your 3 pitches are also the standard for pitching films - I can't quite think of a better exercise than coming up with a one sentence hook and a 1-2 minute "elevator" pitch. Thinking like this also helps when it comes to editing your MS becuse you *actually know what your story is about* after doing it. A must do!

Love this video, especially from someone who wants to publish a book this year!!! So glad I've found this channel. Best channel of the year. Btw what is the background music for this video? If anyone knows...

A very informing video, thank you for sharing Daniel. Marketing is a hard thing to understand. But I will figure it out. Zero budget so I have to do it all myself at the moment.

Thanks for this info Daniel! I’ve been working on a fantasy book for a couple of years (I think? 😅). I’ll take this into account. Basic breakdown is two societies pitched against each other over misunderstandings, characters caught in the midst of it on both sides who are good people, but still trying to kill each other not understanding the other side. Love, honor, duty, and death. Thanks for roasting my shelf a while back! One day I’ll get my built-ins all done and resubmit. Thinking of a rolling ladder Beauty and the Beast style!

Yeah, I'm going to have to watch this a few times and get a strategy together. My editor is going to be done around May 5th, so I still have some time to try and put a plan together. It all seems very complicated up front, but some ascpects of this journey make more sense as you do them and I'm hoping that's the case with book promotion/marketing. I'm also hoping that I'll be more confident with this revision to put more force and effort behind marketing it as I know that was something that has been holding me back. (The book is Small Town Problems that was reviewed on this channel last year in case anyone is curious). Does a dedication to a Booktuber help :)

This is a great one, with a lot of new points I hadn’t considered before. Thank you for making this, it’s given me a few new ideas! I started my own channel not that long ago as a way of finding/cultivating that target audience. I’m still getting my feet under me with it, but I want to talk about random Fantasy and Sci-Fi books, shows, characters, or anything else that I really love, and those with similar interests might enjoy the channel, and the book when it comes out!

Yep, I know some people still swear by Amazon or Facebook ads, but I'm decidedly in the camp of having it be a zero ROI. And yeah, I'm awful at pitching/talking/writing about my writing in general. Been working on it for years and am slooowly improving. Thanks for the continued motivation!

This is one of the best videos on this topic. You should do a deep dive, maybe series, on the topic. If you haven't already, maybe I should check...

Tell you what, marketing on TikTok has been brutal so far 😂 I appreciate the video, man! I I’ll be watching and rewatching 👀

Great vid Daniel, watched this on my break from hermit mode. Going to go back into my dark cave and actually finish my book now.. goodbye..

I definitely need to work on networking for sure as I have no traction and I'm four books deep and need to get more involved in the local scene. I love your advice, as its more clear and transparent than others that I've watched. Gonna try and start doing tiktok, maybe RU-vid, and/or instagram. I do find it harder to try and talk about my books to people on platforms. Between Amazon and facebook etc with ads, it hasn't been worth it, especially not having any kind of following over the last few years.

Thanks so much for making this, Daniel. Definitely going to apply these tips to my approach marketing a book I just published through Amazon, Adorkables: Battle of Behemoths. Regarding passion, about 12 years ago I started to draw the Adorkables (a group similar to Mickey, Donald, and Goofy) and had some people approach me about doing several things with the characters. They wanted to make shirts, get a RU-vid cartoon going, etc. Unfortunately, after we printed shirts those investors had a falling out and while I kept drawing the characters and expanding their universe, that's all I ever did with them. I've been drawing them in between other projects ever since and have loved the supporting characters and world I've thought up for them and my kids couldn't get enough of the old shirts and the one little cartoon that was made for them received such positive feedback that last year I decided to do something with them on my own, so I made B.O.B.. I'm really proud of how it came out and am already about 2/3 of the way done with the sequel, Fish Freaks from down the Street. Either way, you've been a huge inspiration and I hope one day I'll be able to share the Adorkables with a wider audience. If there's ever a chance to send you a copy for a quick review please do let me know, I'd be thrilled to get one to you. I'll leave the pitch I added to the Amazon listing below. And if anyone reads this and is interested in Adorkables Battle of Behemoths, it is only $7, but keep in mind, is not professionally edited. I did the writing, illustrations, and editing myself. Thank you! The Adorkables (Ezio, Rex, and Ottie Otter) find themselves SMACK dab in the middle of a battle between behemoths made of their favorite and not-so-favorite chip dips. Only by working with their rival, the Nacho King, can they stop the evil Guacamoleking and save the people of Snacksville.

I think it's good to add a caveat to "Giving away your book for free." This doesn't mean putting it for free amazon but sending copies to groups, people that are part of the genre

Great video for the writing community - glad you spent time on this when you didn't have to.

Thank you so much for the tips, as I'm currently writing my first novel I'm learning marketing strategies as I write my book, I'm very shy when it comes to cámaras, but I know to be successful I have to get out of my comfort zone

Been writing on and off for over a decade now. Got a couple books under my belt, but I've pulled almost all of them from sale in order to make them better. It's a struggle to even write most days, but hopefully I'll get into a rhythm and be able to put some of these tips to use. I've also considered releasing books chapter by chapter. It worked for Charles Dickens before even the internet, so it seems to be a good strategy.

thank you for this!!

"The one Direction band surviving during the Purge." ... ... I would read that.

great video will learn more thanks

Thank you Daniel. You give me the insight to published indie book. And i realized the hard part is a marketing l.

I have an idea for a video I would love to see but can seem to find yet. The best fantasy world expositional intros. I hear a lot of people thinking a story did it totally wrong but I wanna know who did it right. Thanks for the great content!

Thanks Daniel!🎉

This is Amazing!!

This literally couldn't have come at a better time for me, marketing my new release has been really hard, even with my own YT channel. These tips help, thanks Greene Goblin 🙏

I would love to publish a book one day if I ever get past my draft phase xD

I am new author and admittedly like you said I struggle with the social side. That BEING said, I also play D&D as the DM and have and in my own totally not biased opinion, created stuff to revolutionize TTRPGs. I have been wanting to create a RU-vid channel, this one, to talk about the world of fantasy I have written for myself and my players and try and push stuff for my books as well. My mind is exploding with all these ideas I have floating around, and I am paralyzed by the simple prospect of being unable to reach people efficiently. After watching your video, I do believe I am going to go further with starting my own channel, not just because of my published book, "Last of the Usurpers," but because there are too many ideas in my mind, and I need to free them. This video has been highly motivational, if nothing else. Thank you.

Love the video. As a writer, pitches scare the crap out of me. Ask me to pump out a novel in 80k words--no problem. Describe that novel in 140 words... Yeah, my heart is bursting from its cage and my mind is going dark. The three separate pitches concept is kinda my worst nightmare. Wouldn't have thought of it so I appreciate the advice.

Publishing chapter by chapter has been a thing for longer that the internet has existed, one of my favorite books of all time the Count of Monte Cristo was originally published chapter by chapter in the newspaper. which reminds me I really need to get the second part of my Count of Monte Cristo video out

Currently trying to write a small novella with my Dad about the Battle of Marathon and most importantly the run the soldiers had to make back to Athens after the battle to protect the city from a Persian force which fled that battle. Hence why long distance runs or anything to do with endurance is known as a Marathon. Ontop of that, my Dad has ALOT of connections in the local long-distance run community which initially got us to write the book in the first place. Currently on chapter 04/~12

Thanks for the tips, Daniel! I definitely need to work harder on finding my niche audience - I’ve had some success marketing my latest book, The Dead Dragon Job, to UF fans, but it’s a quasi-historical gaslamp fantasy police procedural/heist with Norse elves, and I’m not sure there’s a niche that’s quite that specific 😂 That said, I think it would appeal to Carnival Row fandom, so maybe that’s where I’ll start…

I initially published my book chapter by chapter, and I completely stunk it up. I didn't market it anywhere, and I think only two of my family members actually finished it. It wasn't written well either, and I was almost relieved when I finished the final chapter. Now, a year later, I'm almost entirely rewriting the same book. I'm deleting all the horrible and unnecessary chapters, replacing them with a new subplot. I'm also editing the chapters that I am keeping and even rewriting some of them to make them better. I know nothing about marketing, and this helped a ton. I hope the end result is a good sci-fi read, and I hope I get a few more readers than last time. Thank you so much! (Side note, my local library does a small convention where authors around the area talk about their books, and I think it would be super fun to be a part of that, and it would help with marketing.)

I'm writing songs in my book, and part of my current plan is to record them, and release them as free downloads either prior to or with the release of my book.

Daniel I love your jar jar binks voice 😂

Something that can help with the chapter release tactic is to at least have an idea where the story is going if not having most if not all of them drafted before you start posting. I'm working with an online publisher as an in-house author at the moment and this is how they do it.

I'm thinking about releasing chapter by chapter when my book is already close to done. No need to worry about falling behind.

Thank you for confirming for me that I pretty much already knew everything I needed to know-but it was reassuring to know that I was already thinking on the correct track, and that there is now one more way out there for others who haven't already been thinking along these lines to also get this information rolling for them too! 😊👏👏💖

But DANIEL! What if I tried to plug my book, but it wouldn't fit inside the electrical outlet and now me fingers is tingling?

Serial writing is old - Dicken's "A Tale of Two Cities" was written in serial format, along with plenty of books from the Victorian era. Also, I love your work :)

“The first part has 3 sub parts” Attack on Titan theme song starts*

Might need this someday.

Strange that I had a joking thought of releasing a book in an unfinished state and then "patching" it as time goes on just as a shot at video games lol. But apparently this might almost be a thing that happens soon, with people wanting to change books after release more regularly. I was thinking of doing chapter releases for my first book because it is fully drafted, I just need to add in world building details then send it to an editor from there...or a few.

It’s somewhat encouraging when you realize the longest piece of written fiction is a sonic fan fiction

Do Goblins get gold for publishing their works of art?

I am once again asking about the watch you are wearing because it looks cool.

"That's a bad Tim!" 😂

I slowly write tome-sized space opera. Book 1 is done and been to an editor, but I'm not releasing until Book 2 is back from an editor, and Book 3 is ready to send off. Want to release with some momentum, not three years between.

On strategy #2, I had push back from friends about releasing my published book for free chapter by chapter on a website. They gave that very objection about how it might hurt sales to have it available for free. I liken it to a library loan. If they like it, readers can buy it or recommend it. If they don't, no real harm done. I'm only about 1/3 through uploading so far, and I've only had 1 sale since I started posting it, but I have over 100 views on each post, which is 100+ people who wouldn't know the book exists otherwise.

I've sold more of my fantasy series through Grindr this year than anywhere else, lol

I have the book published and am having it distributed I just couldn’t afford to have them market it. So now I’m deciding where to go from here.

This is for sure something I’ve been thinking about. I’m doing something…sort of different, as I’m writing a comic book. My plan is to take 5 pages and a cover of that comic to Kickstarter, to fund the rest of the pages. To spark interest in that, I’ve started a RU-vid channel (this one - check it out!) where I talk about storytelling in manga and comics. I chose manga specifically because of the uptick in interest in that medium with titles like Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man becoming the massive hits that they are. I paid that specific niche with my interest in comics (including a video where I compare titles in each medium), to build up some interest. The plan is to have people that already trust my views on storytelling so that I can then tell them, “hey! Speaking of…I have a comic coming out! Go support if you can”

I was thinking about writing my ebooks as novella series, but I am not sure if a lot of people enjoyed novellas.

What platform are people using for this method of releasing a chapter at a time?

Hello. What program would you recommend to start a RU-vid channel. I'm an indi author, my book is done but need to get my name out somehow. i was thinking of becoming a Booktuber to start things off....no background in film animation at all. any recommendation is welcomed.

AI can create a website, can market on various platforms, can write you draft pitches, can create advertising videos, can create advertisement art, can create audio files, etc., etc., etc.

uhhhh I LOVE that mark of sacrifice tattoo

Love the channel Daniel! Do wanna say "penultimate" means the one before last, not "most ultimate". No shade! You rule and thanks for the guidance!

I can’t wait to read Daniel’s new One Direction book

Question: how do I go about ‘giving away my book?’ Is there a resource for being smart about doing so? If I have a book I want to give away online to help it pick up traction, where do I give it away? How do I know how many copies to send out?

I've been listening to so many podcasts about marketing self published books that this feels like when your phone has been listening to you and updating ads to be scarily relevant 😂

I just sent my book for editing and I'm releasing it later this year so this video could have not come in a better time. Thanks Daniel for the great insight. So, listen, have you heard about that fantasy author named JPS Marinho and his book called "Black Dot White"? 😏

Where does one go to release chapters for people to read? Like websites and such.

This was a very helpful and inspiring video. I wrote a book (you’ve heard this 100x’s over) and I’d like to figure out promoting it. I have one big questions- I have many hobbies, writing being one of them. Should I create a social media account for each interest/product I’d like to promote? Or should I have 1 single account that promotes all of it? I’m really stuck on this question. Thanks in advance for your help!