August 6, 2025
Worried about making book marketing mistakes? Deciding when, where, and how to market your book is one of the most important decisions you have to make as a self-publishing author since it determines how quickly you can get a book into the hands of a potential reader. But knowing what book marketing mistakes to avoid is just as important as knowing what your marketing plan should look like.
For those new to the self-publishing world or those who want to make sure their next book’s marketing strategy is top-notch, our 19 book marketing mistakes you don’t want to make can help you craft a winning plan to sell your books and build an authentic, excited audience for your work.
Kicking off your book sales begins with crafting a plan to launch your book into the literary world. A huge mistake that new authors often make is thinking that no concrete strategy is necessary when a book comes back from the printer, but nothing is further from the truth.
Instead, self-publishing authors should develop a solid plan to capitalize on the natural anticipation of a new book (and potentially even a new author) and turn it into a flurry of book sales. Developing a presale plan that includes social media marketing, in-person promotions, and regular communications with potential readers through email marketing is critical to help build excitement so you can launch your book with maximum exposure.
Your book promotional strategies should start way before your book’s launch date. Creating a buzz about your upcoming publication includes letting those you know, as well as anyone who already enjoys reading your genre, know about your book is an important step in your pre-launch plan. Connecting with genre groups and potential readers through digital and in-person channels is critical to build anticipation about you as an author, your book, and your brand as an author.
And working with an on-demand printer like Publishing Xpress means you can have the printed copies of your book in your hands in a very short time, unlike traditional publishers that take weeks or months to print. Ramping up your book promotion during this relatively short time is key to having a successful book launch.
Giving readers plenty of time to pre-order your book is a normal, expected way to promote a book. Usually, authors take 3-6 months to offer a presale of their title to readers. By taking a few months to presell your books ahead of printing and your book launch date, you will not only potentially sell more books, but you will also have enough time to promote your book everywhere you might find a potential reader.
Looking for ways to promote your book in person is a great way to meet readers and make more sales. Attending book fairs or genre events, setting up book signings or participating in author panels are all ways to directly or indirectly promote your book. Readers love to meet authors, and the thrill of buying a book directly from the writer is hard to beat for many, so don’t make book marketing mistakes of skipping this fun and valuable step in your book’s promotion.
Major book marketing mistakes include being shy about getting the word out about your book. Speak up when the opportunity arises to let friends, family, and acquaintances know about your upcoming publication. While they may not have known about your hours of research, late-night writing sessions, or hours of editing and revising to make your manuscript look amazing, telling them about the book’s imminent publication is important to help spread the word so you can reach the right potential readers.
Even if scrolling on social media is not your usual pastime, the influence of social media in promotional campaigns is undeniable. TikTok and Instagram are bursting with genre enthusiasts seeking their next read from authors and BookTok and Bookstagram influencers.
These fun platforms, along with others like Goodreads, offer self-publishing authors the perfect platform to connect with readers to introduce themselves and their writing. Posts and platform bios are great places to direct users to your author website and other locations where they can pre-order or buy your book, too.
The appeal of social media is the opportunity it gives users to authentically interact with each other, so be careful not to spam fellow users with constant posts. Posting once a day or 3-5 times a week on each platform you use will give you plenty of time to respond to other users, their messages, or to posts you are tagged in.
Posting too much can become a full-time job, too, so be careful not to over-post so you can interact with potential readers and you can make your posts and comments a real reflection of you and your author’s brand to build up your book in the eyes of potential readers.
Just like the friend who only wants to talk about one subject every time you are together, social media users don’t want to only hear about your book every time you are online. Mix up your posts to include some behind-the-scenes content about writing or being an author as well as some posts about things you like, your interests, or other content that shows your personality without being overly personal. Striking a balance will present you as an authentic person, and chiming in on genre-specific content or threads about your book’s theme can build your credibility as an author as well.
The only thing worse than overusing social media is using it too little. A sporadic post here and there won’t help you build your audience, so create a posting schedule to help you keep track of when and where you are posting. Most successful influencers create and plan their social media posts ahead of time, so take a page from their success notes and strategize your posts for maximum results.
Having a schedule can help you strike the right balance between personal and professional posts so you can build your online author profile in a way that reflects you and authentically represents your book and writing. Creating and pre-scheduling posts can make the work easier, but be sure to leave some post opportunities open so you can create posts in the moment, in response to something or an event in real time.
Your online followers should see your personality in your posts, so make sure that who you are comes through. Don’t make all of your posts flat, business-like or full of links that send users elsewhere; let your humor or dry wit shine through so followers feel like they are connecting with the authentic you.
Don’t use social media to gripe, complain, or be rude. Every interaction you have online creates a follower’s impression of who you are and how they feel about your book. Blaming other users, name-calling, or bad-mouthing a business or another user can create a lasting bad connotation with your name and your book’s name forever.
Not strategically building an email list of interested followers who want to hear from you is one of the big book marketing mistakes. Sending out regular newsletters gives authors a way to stay in touch with fans, create anticipation about upcoming books, and communicate about author events, as well as give readers some insight into you. Email marketing software options like Hubspot make sending out newsletters simple.
Newsletters offer authors a longer form of communication than social media platforms, so make sure your newsletters are a good mix of content. Use the 5-3-2 rule: for every five book-related content items, include three non-book and two personal ones to keep readers interested.
Be sure to follow the protocols that email software programs put in place to avoid having all of your hard work on a newsletter end up in spam folders.
From selling ad space to offering monetized affiliate links to products or services you believe in, your newsletter can also bring in funds that can help self-publishing authors with costs associated with printing and marketing.
Reach out to other writers and offer to share each other’s books in your newsletters. This free marketing can help you build your audience by connecting with a whole new set of potential readers and give your followers new books to check out.
Your newsletter email’s subject line should make the recipient want to open the email right away. Test out A/B subject lines on your first few newsletters to see what works with yours so you can increase the open rate to maximize the readers who see your content.
Don’t miss the chance to show your recipients a little bit of your personality with every newsletter. Let your voice come through to avoid sounding flat, business-like or sales-y.
Email marketing companies offer newsletter senders a whole slew of tracking opportunities to follow to understand the effectiveness of their newsletter. Use this data to inform your future newsletters so you can create content your readers like and will respond to so you can build a group of fans that will translate into book sales.
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