Building a Successful Marketing Campaign

With thousands of authors using our platform to distribute ebook giveaways, we've compiled data on what works and what doesn't work when designing and executing a marketing plan. We feel that overall marketing support for authors in the industry has been lacking. We want to do our best to help each of you reach more readers by laying out what we have learned from distributing ebook giveaways. We know authors want more readers to enjoy their books! And we know how difficult it is to be found by readers. Here are some tactics you can apply to your marketing plans so you can continue to focus on writing.

Maximizing the Reach of a Giveaway Campaign

Design a Giveaway Campaign to be Viral

Before you even start distributing your giveaways through different channels, it's important to make sure you've created a giveaway campaign that can achieve high reach.

  • Use an attractive book cover image. Book covers are the first thing a potential reader sees and despite the old saying, most people judge books by their covers.
  • Make your campaign Unlimited. Unlimited campaigns reach far more readers and generate far more sales than limited campaigns.
  • Make your campaign a preview or full content: we recommend previews if you are concerned about protecting the value of your work, and want to sell it later.
  • Make sure your giveaway is Public. If your giveaway is not Public, your book will not be able to be shared by us on our homepage, blog, social media, recommendation engine, or in emails, or by your fans.

Interact With Your Current Readers

  • Share with your current readers and encourage them to share your book.
  • Use your MailerLite (or another email tool) to send your giveaway campaign with your subscription list. Readers on your email list will have extremely high engagement.
  • Encourage your readers on your list to share your campaign on their social media accounts and through email with friends. Simply asking for them to do this has been shown to show an increase in exposure. Authors have also found success by giving out rewards for sharing. Readers like when other readers recommend books.

Utilize Social Media

  • Post your giveaway campaign on each of your social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and any other social media you have.
  • Facebook: Post your giveaway link on your author page and ask fans to like and share. Post 1-3 times a week while the campaign is active. 
  • Twitter: Post your giveaway campaign multiple times a day (3-5 times). Tweets in the mid-morning and early evening have the highest visibility and engagement. Use #hashtags for your primary genre, the #ProlificWorks tag (readers often search that hashtag for free ebooks), and sometimes for your secondary genres. Note: You can use a service such as Buffer to schedule and publish your tweets.
  • Instagram: Post 3-5 times a week on your Instagram account with a picture of your book cover and the link to your giveaway in the picture. Use up to 20 different #hashtags related to genre, books, readers, or authors to improve visibility.

Send Your Giveaway to Book Bloggers

  • Many book blogs are always looking for submissions of free ebooks or previews to share with their readers. Sending them your link is an excellent way to reach new readers while also providing them value.
  • Send to blogs that are focused on genres that your book fits, and make sure to follow any and all submission rules on the blog.
  • Consider paying for a Blog Tour for your book. Book tours can be an excellent way to be reviewed, reach new readers, and gain exposure.

Participate in a Group Giveaway

  • One of the most effective tactics to increase the number of readers who access your giveaway is to team up with other authors and create a Group Giveaway.
  • With a Group Giveaway, authors combine giveaway campaigns and email each author's reading list with all of the giveaway campaigns included. Most giveaway campaigns are 5-10 authors (sometimes more). 
    • For example: If 7 authors banded together to do a group giveaway and each had 2,000 readers on their reading list, they would have their giveaway campaign emailed to 14,000 readers instead of the 2,000 readers on their own list. 
  • Generally, it's most effective to create a group giveaway with authors that have books in the same or similar genres.