Yes, I know the leaves are still green, and Halloween is six weeks away, but if you want to take advantage of the holiday buying season, you need to start planning now. The holiday buying season roughly runs from Black Friday through at least mid-January.
If you haven’t finished your book yet, don’t discount the strategies in this article. Use them to get pre-orders and to build your email list.
Likewise, if you haven’t been mailing to your list regularly, use them to attract new fans and followers, and establish a communications schedule you can continue into the new year.
Online shopping has steadily been increasing over the last few years, and 2020 is expected to break records as people stay home and shop rather than venturing out. Salesforce.com predicts 30% of retail sales will happen online.
A Statista survey shows that 49% of US consumers are more interested in shopping online this holiday. Many brick and mortar stores will be closed on Black Friday and will move their promotions online instead. Since all of the big retailers will be vying for buyers’ attention, you will need to be creative in your messaging.
Try to replicate the excitement of shopping for deals in the virtual environment. Hopefully, you are already building a list of people who are interested in your books and other services so you can cut through the noise and market directly to them.
Be sensitive to your current mailing frequency. If you usually email once a month, now is not the time to start emailing daily. You can certainly use the holidays as a reason to increase the frequency, but don’t run the risk of annoying your readers with a barrage of emails. You want them to stick around on your list after the holidays are over.
Avoid adding people to your email list if you haven’t received their permission. That’s the fastest way to get your messages labeled as spam and perhaps banned from your email provider.
Below you’ll find planning activities and book promotion ideas you can use throughout the 2020 holiday season.
September 15 to October 31: Get Ready to Promote Your Book
- Decide what promotions you will offer during the season
- Investigate joint promotions. One or more authors may have books that would lend themselves to creating a holiday bundle that you can all then promote.
- Investigate bulk sales to organizations or associations. Offer your book at a wholesale price that they can then use as gifts to their clients/customers
- Start building or adding to the email list you will use to send out holiday promotions. Offer teasers of what’s coming and invite people to join your list to be reminded.
- Plan the social media posts and email series you will use to promote and remind subscribers of your offers. Use automation tools as much as possible so you can schedule your posts and emails in advance. Tools such as Mailerlite, Aweber, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Promorepublic will make your life easier. Use holiday hashtags such as #giftgiving, #blackfriday, #cyberMonday, #stockingstuffer.
- Create the graphics you plan to use. There are lots of resources to help you easily create graphics. Use a freelance site such as Fiverr.com or Upwork.com. Use a free graphics program such as canva.com. Search the stock photo sites like Pixabay.com or depositphotos.com to find pre-made graphics. All of the professional email services have holiday templates you can use to spice up your messages.
- Get your website ready. You may need to create a landing page(s), coupon codes, gift certificates, or discount codes depending on what you plan to offer.
- Make sure your website is mobile friendly and can be viewed easily on tablets and phones. The same goes for your email service. Make sure you test before you send the actual communique.
- Stage images of your book in holiday settings. I use bookbrush.com
November 1 to Thanksgiving
- Add a description of your book promotion to your Amazon Author Central Account. Use it to let people know why your book would make a great holiday gift. Update your author photo with a holiday theme. Add a line to the book description on your sales page that references the type of person who would love to receive your book as a gift.
- At this point, people will already be holiday shopping. Update the look of your website and/or social media pages to put a holiday spin on them.
- Offer pre-holiday book bundles if you have more than one book
- Offer a BOGO (Buy One, Gift One). Ask each person who purchases your book to email you a copy of their receipt and the contact info of the person they want to receive the gift. You can make this offer a physical book, where the recipient only pays shipping, or you can offer a free pdf version of the book.
- Offer a variation of the BOGO and offer a discount for buying multiple copies
- Create a holiday gift guide that includes your book. You can easily do this on Amazon.
- Share your favorite Thanksgiving tradition. The winner is the post with the most “Likes”
- Post about why your book would make a wonderful gift and who it is best suited for
Black Friday to Giving Tuesday
- Amazon is the place to be during the weekend. Make it easy for customers to find your book by sending them a link to your Amazon sales page
- If you have the budget, you can run ads on Amazon, Facebook, or Instagram; however, be aware that because large retailers will be buying ads, prices will be high. Also, due to volume, it may take longer for your ad to be approved.
- If your book is enrolled in Amazon KDP, now is the time to use one of your promotion days or schedule a countdown promotion. Even if you offer the book for free, it can boost your sales rank, and Amazon will show your book to more people.
- Offer a gift certificate or coupon that is only good between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- On Small Biz Saturday, ask followers to post a picture of themselves reading your book to show their support for small businesses.
- Post a picture of your book in an unusual setting and ask people to caption the photo. Ex: Have a pet or baby appear to be reading it.
- On Giving Tuesday, pick a charity you want to support and pledge to give a percentage of all book sales made that day or to match the sales made. If there is more than one charity you typically support, let followers vote to pick the winner.
December 1 – December 15
- Does your book lend itself to a book club discussion? Offer a discount to book club moderators to buy your book(s) in bulk.
- Donate a box of your books to a charity or not for profit that would benefit, and create a PR/photo opportunity to promote both you and the charity.
- Encourage buyers to use your book as a classy way to package a gift card instead of dropping it into an envelope.
December 15 – December 24
- On social media talk about your book as a last-minute stocking stuffer. Free shipping days usually end around December 22. A Voxware survey found that 62% of shoppers intend to buy more stocking stuffer-type items and last-minute gifts online in 2020
- Remind people that eBooks don’t have shipping fees
- Host an Amazon Giveaway for a copy of your book or a related item
- Ask people to share their favorite holiday songs.
December 26 – January 30
- Appeal to people who got an eReader as a holiday gift and invite them to purchase the eBook version of your book
- Set up a ‘spend your gift card’ promotion. People will be looking for ways to spend their gift cards as well as making goals and plans for the new year. Books that teach or inspire are perfect reasons to spend.
Now it’s your turn. Take action and don’t let the 2020 holiday season go by without you promoting your book and services.
