Book Marketing Has Begun!

One of the most important roles you’ll play as an author is chief marketer of your book. Regardless of how you publish, marketing is primarily up to you. Even if you choose to work with a marketing professional or agency after your book is published, prepare to be your book’s No. 1 cheerleader.

To help you get started, Publish Her’s marketing experts are hard at work building a solid foundation for getting your book noticed and in the hands of the right audience.

A. Metadata

Metadata summarizes basic information about data, making it easier to find, use and reuse. Simply put, book metadata is a collection of numbers, keywords and phrases that identify your book. It includes basic info like your title, subtitle and ISBN (International Standard Book Number). It also includes your author bio and book description. Metadata is used on many different sites, including print-on-demand publishing websites like Amazon and Ingram.

Publish Her’s marketing team develops your book’s metadata. To do this, we start by identifying your book category and ideal reader. We research keywords and phrases your ideal reader might use for search criteria and how broadly those descriptors are used. We research similar authors and books, and we ensure your title and subtitle are a good fit. We make pricing recommendations and procure and register your book’s ISBN. We write or edit your keyword-rich book description and author bio. We also create and distribute a news release for your book.

(Note: Publish Her purchases and registers an ISBN for your book rather than utilizing an Amazon-generated ISBN, which is free but can be used only on Amazon.)

Find more information on keywords here.

B. Advance Praise

Book endorsements that are secured before a book is published are called advance praise. These endorsements are also sometimes called blurbs (not to be confused with your book description, which appears on the back cover and is also called a blurb). These reviews are typically used in marketing materials and/or featured as quotes on the front or back cover or inside the book. Including advance praise on/in your book is optional, and not required for publishing.

Securing advance praise is entirely up to the author. If you choose to do so, you’ll need to send your request for a review along with a copy of your unedited manuscript to potential reviewers. Authors who work with traditional publishers—which have a much longer publishing timeline—receive an advance reader/review copy (ARC) of their book before editing is complete, which they can then send to potential reviewers. Because Publish Her’s timeline is significantly abbreviated (months instead of years), you will not receive an ARC for seeking advance praise.

If you would like to include advance praise on or in your book, aim to secure one to five reviews and don’t worry about length—longer reviews will be shortened as needed. You’ll need to forward the blurb (or blurbs) to Publish Her before the proofreading stage of publishing.

Find more information on book reviews here.

*Some parts of the publishing process (design, editing and marketing) occur simultaneously