10 Tips to Launch Your Book on A Tight Budget – Budget Book Launch Ideas
Not everyone has the resources are the budget to organise a grand book launch and we understand that because not everyone is JK. Rowling.
However, that should not stop you from having a successful book launch on a tight budget in order to make sure your book reaches the right audience and the right markets.
There are a lot of things to do in order to ensure a successful book launch like this whether it is in the area of marketing or in the area of projection.
A lot of it has to do with marketing but there are other important factors to this important goal as well.
We are going to look at all of them and help you launch your book on a budget so that your story might inspire others to also publish their book no matter how many financial constraints they have.
The thing is, every author starts small but one successful launch is all it takes.
The book publishing market is one of the largest markets in the world with amazing stability and sits at the figure of about $145 billion. This is huge if you compare it to any other industry with an expected market CAGR of 4.2% rarely going down the magical 4% mark.
This simply means that this industry has a lot of room to grow and this also means that you are definitely capable of launching your book on a budget in such a huge industry with a lot of legroom.
So, let us look at the 10 important tips that will help you launch your book on a budget.
10 Important Tips to Launch a Book on A Budget
Plan and Organise Your Resources
The first and most important thing you should do if you want to have a successful book launch on a tight budget is to understand all the available resources at your disposal.
This means you should account for everything from skills to time as well as connections and simply write them down.
If you do this then this will allow you to plan ahead so that you can utilise all of your resources and make the most out of it.
When it comes to planning and organising your resources, you must also write down your monetary resources because money is definitely one of the most effective resources at your disposal even if you do not have a lot of it and a very constrained budget.
Create an Author Website or Blog
The second thing you can do as an author planning on launching a book on a budget is to create hype for the book and create some kind of traffic about the book.
If you want to generate interest in your book or you as the author then you simply cannot start promoting your book right from the day of your book launch because you have to start the author promotion activities well in advance.
In order to do that on a budget or completely free, you need to create an author website and simply make all your material available on that website, you can do it on a budget on WordPress.
After you have done that, you need to create a blog where you keep on posting about topics that are not only relevant to your book but also relevant in the market.
You need to then promote these blogs on your social media handles so that you always have a constant stream of content and this will be the foundation for interest generation.
Don’t Go into Debt
The third and probably the most important thing that you need to understand about launching your book on a budget is to stay within that budget.
A common mistake authors make is that if they see that their marketing plans and campaigns are going on successfully and generating a response, they start increasing their budget in order to get an even better response no matter if they have to get into debt for it.
However, marketing and interest generation do not work like that because if you are planning on spending money then you are going to get leads but these will not be organic and they will not convert to book sales easily.
That is why it is alright to spend some money during the initial book launch phase to generate some interest but you must never ignore your budget and you must never go over the budget because if you continue to do that you are going to go into debt.
Going into debt for a book is never a good idea.
Leverage Social Media
If you are planning on launching your book on a budget then the most effective tool you have at your disposal is social media.
People with zero budgets have managed to not only generate interest but gain thousands and millions of followers just with the help of a good and engaging social media presence.
If you want to leverage social media for book promotion then you need to focus on platforms like Instagram as well as YouTube and even Facebook and Twitter to some extent.
The important thing to understand here is video content. You need to focus on short-format video content because this type of content is being actively promoted by all social media platforms due to its high levels of engagement.
You need to keep on pushing out interesting and engaging short video content and make sure you do that regularly and also interact and communicate with the audience.
You should not start doing that two months before the book launch but at least twelve months before the book launch.
Utilise Email Marketing
Let us now look at every traditional form of marketing that is also one of the most affordable options you have in your hands and we are definitely talking about email marketing.
While email marketing is not as effective as the other forms of marketing but it is definitely a bang for the buck when it comes to generating leads and generating interest in potential readers.
In order to successfully execute an email marketing campaign, you need to create a list of people who are willing to get updates about your work and this can be done artificially or organically.
You need to then send them regular updates about your book and along with that you also need to keep on sending them content that they would actually enjoy reading and not just promotions about your book.
The best way to go through with this approach is to look at it from their shoes if you were in their position and leverage content that way.
Try Out Influencer Marketing
While this is definitely not the most affordable method of marketing and definitely not the easiest form of marketing because it needs a lot of research and perseverance, influencer marketing is definitely one of the most effective forms of marketing if not the most effective form of marketing.
This is because we are talking about book influencers with already set audiences who are just ready for the influencers to recommend them books to buy.
The best thing about influencer marketing is that you do not have to create an audience because a created and well-seasoned audience is already present with the influencers, you are just tapping into the network with the help of book influencers.
There are two types of influencer marketing options when it comes to books and one of them is paid and the other is organic. We would suggest you to go with the organic option and it is easy to do and all you have to do is to send them free copies of your book and if they like it then they are going to review it.
The second option is rather expensive but it will ensure you a guaranteed book review.
Utilise Word of Mouth
If you are on a tight budget and you want the book lunch to be a success then this is the oldest and the most effective form of marketing you can ever try out.
Word-of-mouth promotion is by far the most effective form of marketing simply because while you are not reaching as many people as you would with other forms of marketing as you would with word-of-mouth marketing, the people you are reaching are definitely going to be there at the launch.
The conversion rate of word-of-mouth is undefeated in any industry and especially in an industry such as literature where networks, personal connections and personal recommendations are very important.
That is why you can utilise a technique of marketing where you can tell your closest friends to promote your book to their closest friends and that way you will have the chance of potentially reaching hundreds of people if done properly.
If you are simply running on a very low budget or rather a zero budget then nothing even comes close to this form of marketing.
Giveaways and Discounts
Since you are promoting your book and running things on your own, let us assume that you have a lot of control over the book publishing process.
That means this also gives you the freedom to launch your book at special discounted prices or organise giveaway contests.
If you have the option to do this then organising giveaway contests is one of the most effective and also one of the most underrated forms of marketing.
This is simply because people love free things and especially when they do not have to work very hard for it.
That is why you can run these kinds of marketing campaigns by simply asking people to leave a comment on your book promotion content so that they can stand a chance at winning every copy of the book.
They get a free book and you get engagement.
You can also go into much more elaborate options in the form of asking people to share your book launch information with 10 other people and if they do that and share the screenshot with you then you give them a free copy of the book.
However, the only thing you must keep in mind is that these contests and offers should only be book-related because you can’t be giving away packets of chips to promote your book.
Organise Launch
Now we arrive at the most important stage of the book launch event which is the book launch itself and in order to do this book launch you need to keep in mind that you do not have a lot of freedom in the budget.
This means that you simply cannot rent a large venue and invite the press and the most popular literary critics of the country and you can’t organise a buffet after the book launch event.
Now that we have moved unrealistic expectations out of the way, we can think of something that you can actually do. This is where your connections come in handy.
You need to utilise your connections in order to get a place for half the day and this can be a club or even a bookstore where you are friends with the owner.
You need to then invite your close friends and their families to the event along with other authors you are acquainted with.
You can even invite the local social media press because they are usually easier to invite as compared to traditional TV press.
And finally, you need to LIVE steam the entire event and make sure to take a lot of photos and videos which will act as future marketing material after the book launch event.
Free Book Promotion Sites
And last but not the least is submitting your book to free book promotion websites and yes, these kinds of websites do exist.
We are talking about book promotion websites where there are no upfront costs to submit your book.
The best thing about these websites is that they will allow you to promote your book to a very large audience.
However, you must do extensive research before any kind of submission in order to ensure the legitimacy of these websites.
Once you are completely sure that your choices are alright, you can then submit the book and expect a good level of interest.
We hope this blog has helped you understand how you can promote your book even on a very tight budget or even a zero budget.
If you are someone struggling to promote your book on a tight budget because you simply do not have the experience of book promotion then we are here for you.
We are Orange Publishers and we are one of the fastest-growing legacy book publishing companies in India and we can ensure you the most seamless book publishing experience.
We are among the very few legacy book publishers that do everything related to book publishing whether it is book editing and formatting as well as book cover design and even the copyright filing aspect of it. We even take care of book promotion and book launching.
All you need to do is to simply submit us your manuscript and we will take care of the entire process of publishing and launching your book.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.
