So in the previous post, we saw 14 quirky marketing ideas for fiction books. Now in this article, I want to take you through sticky marketing ideas for a non fiction book. Yet again, I bet you have not heard these before! Let’s begin, shall we?
For marketing a non fiction book, I think we could look at two sets of audiences- 1. People who love reading and 2. People in your book’s niche (example: people from the business world would be in the niche of a productivity book).
As seen in the previous article, here are some basics of book marketing i.e. steps that any author/ publisher (irrespective of book’s genre) must take to lay the foundation for other subsequent promotional efforts, irrespective of the genre.
I also discussed some of these non fiction book promotion ideas in this Mentza talk. You can hear that session here or continue reading ahead.
Non Fiction Book Marketing Ideas
Sales Enhancing/ Unusual Sales Channels Ideas
1. B2B deals- Hotels
Try bulk deals with hotels that regularly host conferences. For the conferences that match your book’s topic/ industry, the host hotel can be persuaded to offer your book as a value add or a special gift. It would help the hotel stand out in the minds of the organizers and attendees alike.
Every conference attendee can be gifted a copy of your book with a handwritten thank you message from the hotel at the back. A win-win-win, don’t you think?
2. B2B deals- Event organizers
On similar lines, another B2B partnership worth exploring is with event organizers. In these pandemic times, most events are conducted virtually. Actually, whether the event is taking place in-person or virtually, the event agency or organizer may find value in giving your book as part of the swag bag or goodie bag to every attendee. It would be more meaningful if they too give it with a handwritten note.
3. Pay it forward
Knowledge is power and who doesn’t want to show themselves as being knowledgeable? So if your reader knows 3 people who would find your book useful, they can submit the email ids of those 3 people on your website. Key learnings from the book will then be emailed to those email ids, along with some offer for purchase.
This gives the reader a chance to portray himself to his network as a well read, knowledgeable person with good taste. It gives you hot new leads and a chance to open conversation with the leads. The 3 recipients are benefited from receiving important highlights of a book relevant to them. Yet again, win-win-win!
4. Reward point portals
Brands that offer loyalty programs (hotels, credit cards, banks, fashion labels, etc) offer a wide range of items for redeeming those loyalty points. Your book could be offered as one of the items that points can be redeemed against. This idea would work better if you have multiple books to offer or if you are a publisher and again, have a wide repertoire to choose from.
5. Gift voucher
Similar to the earlier idea, you could offer gift vouchers for your book and list the gift voucher on websites like Amazon, Snapdeal, etc. Again, this would work better if you have authored multiple books or are a publisher with a broad collection to cater to varied interests.
6. Book in a gift box
Another way to package the book as the perfect gift (from consultants to their clients or prospects or from colleagues to each other, etc) is to give it in a nice gift box, similar to those that good planners come in. Inside the gift box, you can give highlighter pens, a nice relevant 3D bookmark, stickers etc. Make the book not just worth reading but even worth cherishing. Of course, you can charge more for this special gift set.
Engagement Enhancing Ideas
7. Social Treasure Hunt
I came across an idea for a social Easter Egg Hunt on Reedsy. Thought it could work as a treasure hunt too. The idea needs you to collaborate or co-promote with other authors.
Run a treasure hunt across social profiles of the participating authors i.e. Clue 1 on Author 1’s profile to Clue 2 on Author 2’s profile; back to Author 1’s profile for Clue 3; so on and so forth. This way, besides engaging with your own audience, each of you is engaging with the other’s audience. Plus each one’s book is getting promoted to a wider base.
This idea can also be adapted by an author for her multiple books on Amazon or Goodreads too. Plant clues on book pages for all her books and entice her social media followers to find them. (Similar to my idea for Amazon’s fashion foray in India. )
This would work especially well for authors working with the same publishing house.
8. Access to Research
As a non fiction book author, you would have done a lot of research while writing the book. Chances are that some of the research might have been through purchased reports. For instance, to write a book like Sapiens, the author might have purchased expensive anthropology reports. You could give limited time access to such select research reports that you have already paid for and used in the book.
9. Companion App
Create a companion app for the non fiction book. For example, if you have written a business book and it contains some frameworks, your book’s companion app would contain framework templates that the reader can then fill in and use. This way you are encouraging people to put into practice what they have learnt in your book.
Alternatively, If you have written a cookbook, the app can contain an ingredient calculator. It could contain the entire list of recipes from your book and on typing in the number of people to be served, ingredient quantities will get recalculated accordingly.
10. Interactive elements within book
Insert relevant interactive elements within your non fiction book such as tearable empty pages to make notes while reading or crossword at the end of a chapter. These elements increase engagement, encourage the reader to make the contents her own and increase the chance of it being shared on social media, because it is different.
Book Awareness Ideas
11. Memes/ Cartoons Promoting the Book
Instead of standard promotional ads, why not get memes or cartoons created instead? Mind you, I am not asking you to create memes or cartoons as graphical illustrations of your book’s concepts, but I want you to try them as replacements for standard advertisements.
We all know the power of a good meme, right? This way, with minimal paid push, your non fiction book stands a chance at getting famous via a viral meme or cartoon.
12. Twitter thread of chapters
Why don’t you share the first 3 chapters of your book as Twitter threads? It would help generate curiosity, spread the word and stoke the interest.
Book Spin-off Ideas
13. Unusual book merchandise
Over and above the standard merchandise of a t-shirt/ mug/ notepad etc, you can try something unusual but eye catching and something that has a higher chance of being noticed by a larger set of people.
- Consider a floating bookshelf designed like your book’s cover and spine.
- Or desktop organizer that looks like your book except that the centre is hollowed out.
- Or router cover that again looks like your book with a hollowed out centre.
14. Mock sessions/ enactments
If the concept of your book allows, do mock sessions with groups and share the videos.
I am currently reading Chriss Voss’s brilliant book on negotiation, Never Split the Difference (please read!!). He shares so many tips worth incorporating in our lives but I would get greater clarity and confidence in using them if I could see them in action.
So if Chris were to do mock negotiation sessions with groups to bring alive the tips shared in the book, I would find that very useful and make the book that much more precious to me.
He could also offer to conduct paid mock sessions. I know groups (corporates especially) would be interested in inviting relevant authors to do mock sessions with their senior leadership basis the concepts in the book.
15. Online courses/ Consulting
You know the concept of value laddering, right? It is somewhat like upselling. So you have written a wonderful, expertise based non fiction book. Build on that written expression of expertise by offering paid courses on the same expertise or paid one-on-one consulting work.
16. Certificate of Completion
Offer every reader a Certificate of Completion when they mark the book as ‘Read’ on Goodreads or leave a review.
That can then be shared on their social profile or embedded on their personal websites. Not every prospect reads. Some reluctant readers from our book’s niche may need an extra nudge.
So this certification becomes that nudge. It also becomes social proof and word of mouth for your book. If anyone is interested, they can even order a framed hard copy of their Certificate of Completion to display in their home office.
So that’s it, my dear author and publisher friends!
This wraps up my book marketing series of 30 memorable ideas to promote your book- fiction + non-fiction. Did you like them? Let me know in comments!