As a self-published author, if you want your book to be noticed by someone outside of your immediate family and circle of friends, you’ll need to approach marketing effectively.

But there is very good news!

Just as self-publishing makes it possible for any writer to turn their ideas into a marketable book, content marketing makes it possible for anyone who can communicate well with words to create a marketing machine that works just as well as big-money-backed promotion.

The key to what makes content marketing work so well for promoting self-published books is that it allows you to pre-sell your audience on the idea of ​​buying your book.

When your audience warms up before seeing your book offer, they arrive at your sales page with the feeling that buying your book is the natural next step.

Your author website is your base

If you are a writer planning to self-publish your books, you must have an author website. There’s no way to avoid it.

Your author website is like your launch pad, your ground zero, or your business card. This is where all of your current and potential customers will go to learn more about who you are, what you stand for, and what you have to offer.

Done correctly, your author website is also where you’ll collect emails from people who want to know more about your current and upcoming projects.

It’s where you integrate your email marketing, blogging, social media, and other content marketing strategies that point your target audience to the target product: your books.

Consider your author website your content marketing “hub” and make it something special. Visit the websites of EL James authors Gillian Flynn and Mark Dawson for inspiration.

Blog your way to exponential success

Having a blog is one of the best ways to harness the power of content marketing to attract and sell customers to your brand and offers.

In fact, along with social media and email marketing, blogging is one of the types of content marketing that provides the highest ROI.

Because?

Because people want new content delivered on an ongoing basis.

Today, 81% of people looking for goods and services research online before making a purchase.

Knowing this fact means that one of your main goals should be to provide members of your target audience with as much information as possible. This makes it easier for them to find your information during their research, leading to your book deals, and ultimately to the point where they make a purchase.

Blogging offers the perfect vehicle for this process to happen and the benefits are tremendous:

• You create many opportunities to be found on search engines.

• You attract your ideal customer by writing blog posts that specifically interest them.

• You boost the SEO factor of your website and book offers.

• Build trust and likeability with your audience with engaging and regularly updated blog posts.

• You keep your audience up to date with the tidbits of your books, engaging them and preparing them to buy before each new book is released.

Stay top of mind with regular emails

I mentioned earlier that one of the most important aspects of your author website is having a way to collect the email address of anyone who visits your page looking for more information.

Email marketing is a powerful weapon to use in your arsenal of self-publishing success.

When done right, email marketing offers one of the most effective forms of content marketing that you can use to sell to an audience and get them excited and eager to buy your book the moment it comes out. .

Studies show that 80% of sales happen after five follow-ups (or a total of six contacts)! This is because today’s consumers buy primarily from people they know and like.

Through continuous email marketing, your potential customers learn more about you and your books as you provide them with targeted and useful content that is delivered regularly directly to their inbox.

This helps deepen the newly established relationship over time, with the goal of winning a sale and gaining a new customer for life.

Using a good email marketing system gives you the power to automate the entire process with just a few mouse clicks.

Done over a period of days, weeks, or months, effective email marketing puts your audience in the right frame of mind to hit the “buy” button when it’s time for your book release.

Give something away now to sell more later

In addition to establishing a stellar author website, blogging regularly, and having an email marketing system in place, one of the best ways to leverage content marketing to sell your next book is to give away a book now.

This tip probably sounds like the exact opposite of what you think you should be doing, but hear me out.

Many savvy self-published authors have realized that when it comes to selling books, brand recognition and exposure are two of the most important factors for success.

After all, if no one knows your book exists, how can they possibly buy it?

That’s where “giving away the farm” comes in, so to speak.

If you take a quick look at Amazon’s Kindle listings for one of the best-selling self-published authors, Hugh Howey, you’ll notice that along with his regular-priced offerings, he also offers a few book titles at no cost.

He’s more than willing to give up something without asking for anything in return because the result is usually a new enthusiastic fan who buys his books again and again.

What does this tell us? That as authors trying to make a living selling our books, we should never underestimate the power of “Free.”

Content marketing is a very powerful tool to gain attention and attract a large, targeted audience to your books without spending a lot of money to do so.

The keys to success in pre-selling your offers with content marketing are simple:

• Create an author website that showcases your work, answers readers’ questions, and gives them a way to keep in touch with you.

• Start a blog and keep it regularly updated.

• Send out constant email updates to stay top of mind with your audience.

• Be generous and give away some valuable content once in a while, even if someone has never bought from you before.

• Use your content marketing efforts to leave a “breadcrumb trail” that leads to your book deals.

Follow these steps, and you’ll never run out of leads primed, pre-sold, and ready to buy when you have your next book release.