Finally seeing the nonfiction manuscript you spent months — or years — writing turn into a published book can feel like crossing the finish line of a long and exhausting marathon. But while you have just achieved an incredibly rewarding milestone, the race is not quite over yet. Because now you’ve got to let the big, wide world know that your book actually exists. In other words, it’s time to learn how to market your book.

We are now living in a golden age for indie content creators. Through YouTube, TikTok,  Instagram, and publishing portals like IngramSpark, artists can connect directly with their fans and bypass traditional gatekeepers like agents— they can even make more money this way.

When you visit any indie author’s website, it’s not unusual to see that they’re giving away a book (or part of one) for free. It’s classic marketing: give your customers a taste and they’ll come back if they like it. But in the digital age, there’s more to it than just that.

Here’s a big question: why do most successful self-publishing authors write series rather than standalone books? The answer is quite simple: once you manage to hook a reader into a series, they are likely to buy all the books in that series.

Facebook remains one of the best social media marketing tools that authors and publishers have at their disposal. Just to rattle off a few obvious uses: you can find communities of like-minded authors to provide critical support, you can use it to set up a fan page, and even organize live events through it. Perhaps most critically, you can make use of Facebook advertising to target prospective readers based on interests, location, and any other demographic category you can think of. In this post, however, we will quickly look at how Facebook can help you perfect your book cover design in a data-driven fashion.