So you’ve finally taken the leap and did what perhaps many authors consider unconscionable and published a low or zero content book.
That’s a great first step! But the journey isn’t complete until you have your book selling well and putting money in the bank.
If finding ways to market fiction and non-fiction books effectively wasn’t already hard enough, figuring out how to market books that have no content can really be a challenge.
But don’t fear. The truth is, you don’t need excerpts, blurbs or plot summaries to get your books flying off of shelves. In fact, in many ways marketing no or low content books is much easier than a more content-heavy offer.
Why?
Because it’s easier to create a product that appeals to a specific type of person.
Once you do that, finding out what would make them want to buy along with connecting with them becomes that much easier.
Test this theory yourself with these effective marketing methods for promoting your low content book offers.
Target Your Audience Correctly
Making sure you target the right niche with your low content offer doesn’t seem like an actual marketing method, but this step is in fact the biggest predictor of success for your entire promotional effort.
Age old wisdom tells us: “If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one”.
The take away?
Instead of creating a generic low content book that just about anyone could be interested in, you can dramatically improve your odds of connecting with an interested prospect who eventually buys your book by really tapping into their needs and wants.
Keyword Optimization
A simple but highly effective way to get your book in front of a hungry audience is doing your due diligence when it comes to keyword selection and optimization.
This is true whether or not you’re selling your books on your own website or on a platform like Amazon.com.
Before you list your book for sale, think about all the keywords that someone could type into a search engine that would relate to the type of book you’ve created.
So for example, if you made a “coloring book for adults” that contains “pictures of nature” and is meant to help with “relaxation and meditation”, it would be a good idea to include these words and other closely related search terms in your book’s title as well as throughout your sales page in order to attract qualified traffic.
Blogging
Whether you choose to focus on your own blog or want to experiment with guest blogging, releasing content geared towards the audience you are targeting with your low content book is an excellent way to make them aware that your product exists.
Blogging also works to build your credibility as a reputable and quality source of no and low content books (hint: you can also use this as a springboard for promoting your content-heavy books).
Cross Promotion
Speaking of springboards, cross promotion is another great way to market your low and no content books.
For example, if you’ve already written a popular fiction book based on the life of an adventurer who travels through the jungles of South America, you could create a coloring book based on the locations explored in the novel and use the popularity of your existing content-rich book to boost the visibility of your new low content offer.
Over time, you can continue this trend by building on the successes of previously released low content books.
Think in terms of creating a volume series of popular book titles as well as creating several related themed books to encourage your audience to purchase multiple items with each transaction.
Email List Building
Building relationships with an audience is a time-tested way to boost sales. That’s why list building and email marketing are staples in the on and offline marketing communities.
The wonderful news is that email marketing is equally effective for self-published authors looking to promote a low content book.
Simply set up a sales funnel and lead capture page to collect the names and email addresses of interested prospects and entice them to sign up by providing well-positioned valuable content.
Drip feed them interesting and entertaining emails that relate to the topic of your low-content offer and every so often, drop in some non-salesy promotion of your book. The sales will roll in.
And the best part? Once you’ve developed an audience that likes what you have to offer, chances are very good that they’ll like your future offers as well.
Facebook is one of the most trafficked peer-to-peer websites online, so utilizing it as a platform for book promotion is a no-brainer.
Along with creating a fan page related to your low-content book offer, you can use the power of Facebook to encourage viral sharing of pictures of your book cover or quotes and images from the inner pages.
You can also target specific audiences that would enjoy your book with Facebook pay-per-click ads, adding links back to your sales page and email opt-in (for future promotion opportunities).
Partnering With Influencers
One of the fastest ways to go from completely unknown to an overnight success is through the power of influence.
If you’re familiar with Oprah and any one of her many protégés, you already know how effective this strategy is for marketing purposes.
Use this fact to your advantage by partnering up with the top influencers in your niche and giving each one of them a sample of your book to review.
If the influencers in question have large and receptive followings, chances are you will immediately get a big boost from their promotional efforts in terms of opt-ins (you really should have an email list) and sales.
Once they’ve reviewed your low content book, featuring their feedback on your sales page is an excellent way to enhance the credibility of your offer in the eyes of future prospects.
This is a true win-win-win situation because the influencer gets to share something new with their audience, your prospects get to discover a new product of interest and you, of course, get to make sales.
Giveaways
Another effective marketing method that can herald the start of a successful promotional campaign is giving some of your low content books away at no cost in exchange for valuable feedback.
Just about everyone loves a freebie. And if you give them to the right people (active members of your niche) it can really boost the word of mouth and viral sharing activity surrounding your book offer.
Explore forums, meetup groups, Youtube and other places where members of your target audience gather and offer limited free copies in exchange for reviews.
Image Sharing Sites
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It was never a truer statement than when it comes to opportunities for book promotion.
The nature of no and low content books typically makes it necessary for their covers, and in some cases inner pages, to be more visually appealing than your average book.
If you find yourself creating low content books that are high on visual aesthetics, share images of the cover and strategic inner pages on image sharing sites like Pinterest and Instagram with links back to your sales page.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all of the different methods you can use to promote your low and no content books.
Just tap into the same kind of creativity you use to create each of your low content books and you’ll be finding more inspiration for simple yet ingenious ways to promote your books successfully.
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