8 Helpful Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Books (Without Social Media)

M.L. Bull
6 minutes ago
7 min read

Social media marketing can be a powerful tool to use for book marketing. However, it's not the only way, nor the most effective when it comes to the book industry for authors. There are several other different things authors can do, but I'll just be going over eight, helpful ways that can allow authors to drive more traffic to their books, and one of which that's recommended, regardless of whether they use social media or not. Let's go over the list of these below and check out how authors can use these less common, beneficial methods. 🔍

A traffic jam of cars and other vehilcles.

WATCH THE EPISODE

See episode 22 of season 2 of my Journey of a Christian Writer series, 8 Helpful Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Books (Without Social Media) or continue reading the blog post below.

8 WAYS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BOOKS

(WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA)

Writing is the easy part for most writers, but after they've published their book that's when the challenge oftentimes comes. Some writers are older or more introverted and may not like social media or know how to use it. Nonetheless, there are things they can still do to drive traffic to their books, get more book sales and reviews, and build their own community.

The following bullet list are eight ways to do this:

LOWER PRICE/PRICE CHANGES
CHAPTER READINGS
ALSO BY PAGE
FREE/SOLD PREQUEL
FREE/SOLD SEQUEL
AFFILIATE MARKETING
EMAIL MARKETING
UPDATING YOUR BOOK/METADATA

Okay, now, let's go over each of these.

LOWER PRICE/PRICE CHANGES

Prices vary and can contribute to how many book sales that authors actually get. Writers can experiment with lowering or raising the prices of their books, or by offering special sales or discount codes for limited-time offers. However, it may be harder to change the prices of their books depending on who they published their books with. For example, it's a lot easier to change the prices of books through KDP Publishing than it is through Ingramspark. This is because of the different restrictions Ingramspark has on books, which determine how much books cost, such as the printing cost, wholesale discount, page count, and other factors.

These factors also determine how much compensation authors will get for their books, so they may have to increase the price of their books to prevent their compensation from being negative. Hardback books published through Ingramspark can be highly expensive, even for just children's books. Therefore, it can be a good idea for authors to sell their books themselves. Authors can sell their books cheaper to customers and still make more per book for their compensation at the same time, compared to selling on online retailers, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. It's just a matter of strategy but can be a "win-win" for both customers and the author. This is why I have my Risen Halo pangobooks shop to sell my Christian fiction books, as well as used books at discounted prices.

💡Tip #1: NO OR LITTLE BOOK REVIEWS? If an author has a book that hasn't gotten too many reviews, it may be helpful to offer a special sale or to lower the cost of their book for a period of time. Then afterward raising the price of their book the more positive reviews they accumulate from readers.

CHAPTER READINGS

An old white man reading a blue book in a living room.

Chapter readings can be a fun and easy way for authors to introduce, promote, and request reviews for their book to the public by sharing free readings with them. If their book sounds interesting to some people, there's a chance viewers or listeners may decide to get a copy and afterward and leave a review. If authors have YouTube channels, they can get really creative with this, setting up cozy scenes, using visual images based on their story, or having subtitles on screen as they read chapter samples of their books.

ALSO BY PAGE

A very simple way for authors to drive traffic to their books is by adding an "Also By" page in their new book releases. This allows readers to know all the other books they've published. If readers enjoyed a later book, by seeing a list of their other publications, it could inspire them to check out authors' other books. Hence, giving them more books sales.

FREE/SOLD PREQUEL

The front cover of my prequel short story, "Andre's Choice."

A prequel is a previous story based on the same characters and story world of an original work or novel. Writing a prequel based on an original novel, (as I've done with my short story Andre's Choice) can drive more interest in authors' original books and can be a reader magnet used to increase more book sales and reviews to their novels, accumulate email subscribers through their email newsletter, or both of these. This can be done by embedding a hyperlink in the e-book format of their book or a written notice in their print book about their prequel story, which can be very beneficial as shown in the diagram below.

A diagram of how email marketing can be used for book promotion to drive traffic and gather email subscribers and book sales at the same time.

FREE/SOLD SEQUEL

For sequels, the same can be applied as with prequels, which are secondary stories after an original work or novel. Authors can put a hyperlink in the back of their e-book that redirects readers to a free download of their sequel, or they can put a written sales notice with a preview book cover of their sequel in the back of the print version of their original novel.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

The website for the Amazon Associates Program.

Affiliate marketing is when writers or other people promote products by their visual or written content and share links in which they get paid commissions whenever customers use their links to make purchases. For this one, authors can write newsletters or blogs and embed hyperlinks to their Amazon book pages. This way they could collect commissions and book sales from their links. A way writers can easily take part in affiliate marketing is by signing up to Amazon's Associates program.

EMAIL MARKETING

This one is probably the most important tool for authors to use aside from having an author website, whether or not they use social media. Although some features such as increasing the capacity of subscribers for an email newsletter authors may have to pay for, it's typically free to have one. There are many benefits to email marketing for authors in particular. Firstly, an email list is something you own and more reliable, allowing authors to have direct contact with readers, whereas social media sometimes shuts down, which can cause loss of contact with readers. Secondly, email lists can also be better for sales and for authors to influence people to take action in buying their books.

Thirdly, email marketing is less competitive than social media marketing because of not having to go against an algorithm, which is constantly changing across new media. Lastly, email marketing allows authors to build a personalized community of more authentic connections and target their ideal readers, as it will likely only be those interested in their genre and books who signs up to their lists. There are many different kinds of email providers authors can choose from to create their email lists. Some of these include Get Response, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), MailChimp, and MailerLite.

UPDATING YOUR BOOK/METADATA

This last helpful way to drive traffic to authors books not all authors take advantage of, but can be extremely helpful, and especially with the developing book industry. There are always new authors and new books coming out like an endless cycle or operating machine. One minute a well-known author's book is at number one on the Amazon Bestsellers List, and the next there's a new author in that same place. The book industry is constantly changing. Now, while I don't suggest authors focus on reaching the bestselling list, updating their books can help increase their visibility and search results by improving their SEO or search engine optimization. Authors can hire professional SEO specialists to improve their SEO not only for their books, but also for their blogs, author websites, or YouTube channels.

Book metadata is authors' book information or identification for libraries and people to be able to search for and find their books. Authors updating their books can range from book covers, book titles, book descriptions, keywords, and categories. All of these things are included in authors' book metadata and can definitely be a helpful way to drive more traffic to increase authors' book sales and their reviews. The ISBN or (International Standard Book Number) is the only thing that may not be changed of authors' books, unless they publish another edition of one of their books, as every book published has its own ISBN. These work kind of like our social security numbers. Some books I recommend for authors to learn more about SEO, keywords, and categories are "SEO for Authors" by Estelle Van De Velde and Amazon Keywords for Books by Dale Roberts.

💡Tip #2: INCREASE YOUR VISIBILITY AND AUTHOR BRAND. Writing more books is another simple and helpful way that authors can drive more traffic to their books because the more books they release, the more book sales and reviews they can get and the more the public community will become familiar with their author name and author brand, or their unique identity of how readers identify them and how they stand out in the book industry. An author who writes one book probably won't be as recognized as one who writes ten or more.

CLOSING REMARKS:

A white female wearing a green sweater typing on a laptop.

There are several other things authors can do, such as editorial reviews, paid advertising, optimizing their online presence, or public book events, but I just went over some of the least commonly known or used here. Whether authors use social media or not, driving more traffic to their books doesn't have to be complicated. I hope other fellow writers found the list of eight things informative and inspirational for their author careers. For more writing videos or tutorials, subscribe to my writing channel Journey of a Christian Writer series. All right, that's it for this post. If you liked it, please, give it a (heart❤️), take part in the poll 🤔, and share your thoughts or comments 💬 below.)