Marketing…the dreaded word (most) writers hate to hear. But whether you’re planning to query agents, self-publish, or go another route, there’s no getting around the need to make your novel as marketable as possible. Marketing is when you take action to attract an audience to your product. In this case, you want to attract agents, publishers, and readers to your book. This means you need to take steps to make your novel more marketable during the writing process. And you’ll need to know how to draw readers to it once it’s published.
But does writing a marketable novel mean you need to sacrifice your personal creativity? And does focusing on marketing make you a complete artistic sellout? Not at all! Read on for five great tips to help you write a more marketable novel (and market it too!) while staying true to your creative process.
1. Read A LOT in your genre
A common question many new authors ask is whether or not it’s essential to read a lot. The answer is yes! To write well, you need to read published books, particularly in the genre you’re writing.
Reading other authors will teach you about language, grammar, and what works (or doesn’t) within a narrative. For example, a great opening is bound to make your novel more marketable as it’ll pull readers in right away. By studying how popular authors in your genre begin their books, you’ll learn the best ways to hook your audience.
Reading other writers will also show you what’s out there in your genre. You’ll also have an idea of what your competition is writing, and where your story will fit in. If you have an idea that’s too similar to another popular book, you can tweak it to make sure it stands out. Not only that, but reading can offer you inspiration while writing your own book. And when you start self-editing your book, you’ll have a better idea of what should be edited out because it might not appeal to readers.
2. Identify your reader
Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” While this is great advice, it’s important to find a balance between writing what you want to read and understanding how to write something others want to read too. Unless you only care about a readership of one, you must make your novel marketable so it finds as wide an audience as possible.
Do some research to find out what readers in your book’s genre enjoy. Which books are currently popular and why? Read reviews of similar books in your genre to pinpoint what readers did or didn’t like about them. Goodreads is great for this because it has a review system and will also automatically suggest similar books to you.
While you’re at it, pay a visit to your local library or bookstore to see which books are currently trending. You can also look at online bookstores and book fairs to discover which novels and themes are popular.
3. But be careful about trends
Writing and editing a book is a long process. By the time you’re ready to publish, the trend may already be on the decline or replaced by a new one altogether. This is why it’s more important to tailor an idea you’re passionate about. In short, don’t limit yourself to what’s popular now!
But how do you find the balance between writing a more marketable novel that people want to read and adding your own unique twist? The key is to take risks with your writing, but not to go overboard. Taking risks is great, but not if it makes your novel less, instead of more, marketable.
4. Build your author brand
These days, social media marketing is at the centre of every published book. Platforms like BookTok and Bookstagram are game changers for writers. They are also places where readers can engage with the books and authors that they love.
You should begin building your author brand before you publish your book. Having an audience in place before you reach the publishing stage will automatically make your novel more marketable just because people already know who you are and are interested in reading your work.
Here are a few tips for building an audience as a new author:
- Engage with your network of peers. Reply to posts, stories, and reels by other authors. Keep your comments light and positive. Having a network of peers to cheer you on, promote, and tag you and your work is an invaluable way to make your novel more marketable.
- Engage with readers. Find published authors in your genre or with a similar audience to what you’d like to build. Show up on their posts by commenting. When that author’s readers peruse the comments, they will see you there. This could lead them to click on your profile and (hopefully) follow you, too.
- Be consistent. In order to build an audience, you need to engage consistently. This doesn’t mean losing all your time to this task. Even just taking 5-10 minutes a day to put up a post or story or engage with an author or reader can be immensely helpful.
And don’t reinvent the wheel! As you build your brand, take note of how published authors market their books. How do they engage with readers? What sort of content do they post? What do they do to pique reader interest? You don’t need to spend money to use social media as a successful marketing tool—nor, at this stage, should you. Focus, instead, on how other authors are successfully marketing their work. See what you can learn and apply to build your own author brand!
And social media isn’t just a great place to interact with readers and other authors; you can also connect with agents and publishers. Everyone is online these days, so you should be, too!
5. Pick the right publishing platform
Not all types of publishing platforms are suitable for all types of books. And how your book is marketed (and its marketability) can largely be determined by whether you choose to self-publish, hybrid-publish, or traditionally publish.
- Self-publishing
- Often for books with a more niche readership. (i.e., Doesn’t have the sort of wide appeal traditional publishers might be looking for).
- Different self-publishing platforms have different reach and capabilities to get your book into different places.
- Take a look at how successful self-published authors make their books more marketable and learn from them.
- Hybrid-publishing
- Different hybrid-publishers will provide different levels of marketing. Like with self-publishing, different publishers have different reach.
- Check the publisher has experience publishing and selling books in your genre. This will give your book a better chance of getting into the hands of the right readers.
- Make sure they are a legitimate company and not a vanity publisher. There are many vanity publishers out there who will charge authors large sums of money but won’t properly edit, publish, or promote their books.
- Traditional publishing
- Traditional publishing generally plays it safe and will aim to publish books that have wide/commercial appeal (though there are exceptions). If your aim is to be traditionally published, keep this in mind while writing your book. Will it be easily marketable to a wide range of readers? Does it have the commercial appeal to make it an enticing option for publishers?
- However, getting a traditional publishing deal is reliant on you finding a literary agent first. This is another reason why making your novel more marketable is so important. You need to be able to sell it to agents first, then publishers, and finally readers. So, make sure you know the ins and outs of writing a great query letter, how to craft an elevator pitch, and what makes a captivating synopsis for your book. A strong query package will increase your chances of landing the right agent.
Balancing creativity and marketability
Obviously, the ideal would be to spend all your time writing what you want, without having to worry about pesky marketing. But knowing how to make your novel more marketable—both while you’re writing it and after it’s published—is a part of being a modern-day author. It’s best to accept that marketability is important. Knowing how to do it is a vital skill for every writer.
Still, it isn’t always easy to know how to strike the balance between staying true to your creativity and making your novel more marketable. This is where a pair of objective outside eyes can come in handy. Human book editors are better than AI because they can form a personal relationship with you, the writer. Also, editors have extensive industry knowledge that’s invaluable for helping writers to create more marketable novels. Our excellent editors at The Open Book Editor can help you find the right balance between exploring your creativity and marketing your book, so it has the best chance of success!
