When it comes to marketing your book, there’s not just one strategy that works best. There are multiple strategies and tactics for both passive book marketing and active book marketing.
Below we’ll explain the difference between passive vs active book marketing and why they work best together. You’ll also learn what kind of effort goes into each and what to expect from these efforts.
What is Passive Book Marketing?
Passive book marketing is all the work you put to be noticed by your audience. It includes all your marketing efforts that are not direct promotion. It sometimes doesn’t even seem like marketing. But that doesn’t mean there’s no work or strategy involved. Passive marketing is a sustained effort over a long period of time, but it’s extremely important because it’s truly the foundation of any successful long-term book marketing strategy.
Here at Monkey C Media, we teach our clients many passive book marketing strategies and much of that is built into the work we do. For example, we build author websites and offer SEO services. We also seek to educate our clients and readers on passive marketing tactics such as building an online presence, creating mailing lists, and blogging, to build their audience.
Some Examples of What this Looks Like
Passive book marketing techniques begin with having an author website, and creating author profiles on social media and other platforms such as Amazon and GoodReads. The end goal of this style of marketing is to grow your online presence and build your audience organically. Because when your audience is interested, familiar with you, and a connection is established, they are more likely to trust you and therefore to keep engaging. This is all part of establishing an author brand as well.
Passive marketing includes things like:
- Optimizing your website and creating an SEO strategy
- Blogging consistently
- Writing newsletters and growing your mailing list
- Sharing book-related content on social platforms
- Engaging with your audience on social platforms
- Getting book reviews
- Your book cover
- Your marketing copy-back cover copy, book descriptions, keywords, and metadata
The Pros and Cons of Passive Book Marketing
The pros of passive book marketing are that it is cost effective because you’re putting in more of your time than you are money. You are able to learn (and spend) as you go and your efforts also have long-lasting effects. You are building your brand and your audience when you use these techniques effectively.
The cons of passive marketing are that it can take time to see results and it requires a sustained effort. So, with this type of marketing alone, don’t expect big results to come quickly. But, remember, you are setting yourself up for future success.
This type of marketing is meant to be a long-term plan and the foundation for your book marketing strategy. It works best when you’re committed and used in conjunction with more active marketing strategies. But it IS effective when done right!
What is Active Book Marketing?
Unlike with passive book marketing, active book marketing is not subtle. It’s all about directly promoting your book to a wider audience through ads, social media promos and media coverage, etc. Active book marketing is asking your audience, very clearly, to buy your book!
Some Examples of Active Book Marketing
Active book marketing is different from passive book marketing in that the entire goal of this strategy is to openly sell and promote. This kind of marketing usually requires spending part of your monetary budget or access to a wider audience.
Some examples of active book marketing include:
- Paid ads-in print publications, on social media, or elsewhere online
- Media outreach-podcast interviews, segments on local television, or professional reviews
- Book trailers-placing them on YouTube or your website, or using them in ads
- Industry events-Having a booth at a book faire, for example
- Mailers and other author print marketing materials
Pros and Cons of Active Book Marketing
One of the pros of active book marketing is that it can take far less time to see results compared to passive book marketing. It can also reach a wider audience immediately. Of course, you will need to know your audience and how and where to find them for this type of marketing to be most effective.
The cons of active book marketing are that it can take a big chunk of your budget and there is still a learning curve. You’ll likely also have to hire a professional unless you have the time to learn skills like copywriting and creating graphics, and to do the research on your target audience.
Why a Combo of Both Passive and Active Book Marketing is the Key
Both passive book marketing and active book marketing have their strengths but used alone, they are less effective. For instance, if you have no online presence and are not engaging with your audience, you’re simply an unknown author taking a risk by spending money on active marketing. If you’re not online, it’s harder to study your audience too.
On the contrary, if you’re putting in a sustained effort with your passive marketing and building an audience, growing your online presence and brand, and getting valuable information about your readers from these efforts, you may be missing out on the opportunity to boost your book sales in a big way if you don’t use any active book marketing tactics.
This is why a combo of both of these styles of book marketing is key. When you put in the effort to build a presence online, have a solid brand, and eventually a devoted audience, you are setting yourself up for success. When you boost those efforts with active marketing you can reach more readers on a much larger scale and increase book sales.
All your passive book marketing efforts supercharge your active book marketing because you will know your audience and what they want and expect from you. This means you’ll be targeting the right people, the right way, and therefore see bigger returns on your investment!
These Strategies Go Hand and Hand but You Don’t Have to Do Everything
To take full advantage of the benefits of both passive and active book marketing, first make sure you know your budget. Set it in advance. This means BOTH your time and money. You don’t have to do it all!
It’s also important to recognize what you are capable of doing on your own and when to reach out for help when it’s needed. For example, if you don’t have the skills to create professional-looking graphics, or know your way around slick marketing copy, learn these skills before spending money on ads. Or, devote part of your budget to hiring a pro.
Conversely, if you feel confident in your ability to run your own ad campaigns but passive marketing such as website SEO and regular blogging seem overwhelming, then get help where you need it and focus on doing what you can do on your own. It’s about what works best for you. Remember, you want your efforts to be sustainable. You’re playing the long game.
Don’t Get Overwhelmed
We realize how overwhelming it can be to do everything yourself, or to even know where to begin. That’s why we do what we do! We get inquiries all the time from clients and prospective clients about the services we offer and our mission is to meet authors where they need us. Recently, we realized there was a gap in our active marketing offerings. So, we are now working on building a marketing team and adding these services to better serve our clients.
If you need help with your book marketing, both passive and active, we’ve got you. Reach out and see what we can do for you!
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