25+ Hacks to Promote Your Book on Amazon (and Elsewhere)

A lot of the questions we get every day at Reedsy have to do with marketing. They’re often along the lines of How can I promote my book? and How do I get reviews? or Can someone just do the marketing for me?

The problem is, there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all answer to those questions. Each author and book will face different challenges with marketing. While there are a few basics that everyone should have well covered — do you know your target audience? Was your cover professionally designed? Do you know how to write a strong blurb? — everything after that is up to you.

So that’s what this post is all about: a bunch of small, game-changing hacks to make your life easier. Let’s get started!

Kindle Direct Publishing hacks

1. Send your readers to a (clean) book URL

So your book is out, and you want to share the good news with your mailing list (and maybe ask them for reviews). What Amazon URL do you use?

If you search for your book on Amazon, you’ll end up with a URL looking like:

Pretty ugly, right? Well, everything after the “?” in the URL is generally superfluous. In this case, it indicates that the book was found after a search for “fundraising field guide”.

Not only is that link unnecessarily long, but it also includes information that could be detrimental to you if you share it with your readers.

Instead, you should clean up this link before you send it. Just remove everything that’s after the  “/ref=”:

To make it even shorter, you can even remove the title:

That’s the clean URL: the one you can (and should) share with your readers.

2. Turn your Amazon URLs into universal URLs

I’m guessing your readers aren’t all in the US, are they? So if you send everyone to the Amazon.com store, those who are outside the US will first have to switch stores before they can buy your book…

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just remove this step for them?

Well, you can: by sharing a universal Amazon URL. There are several tools you can use for that, but the one that I generally recommend (because it’s free) is Books2Read’s Universal Links: https://books2read.com/

Just paste a clean link to your book in there, and Books2Read will generate a link that will automatically send readers to their preferred store and country.

3. Send your readers straight to the review page

Want some more Amazon URL magic? This hack is pretty awesome for getting reviews.

I’m guessing that at the end of your book, you have a message asking readers to leave an honest review on Amazon, right? (If you don’t, now is the time to add one)

Well, by using the following Amazon URL, you can actually send these readers straight to the “review” page for your book:

Just replace “ASIN” above by your book’s ASIN, which can be found in its Product Details.

Don’t believe me? Try this link:

4. Categories with keyword requirements

When you upload a book to KDP, you are asked to choose two categories for each format (ebook and paperback). But this doesn’t mean that your book will only show up in two categories!

You can get into a lot more categories through two simple hacks. The first has to do with keywords.

See, Amazon has certain categories that you can only reach by using the right keywords. They’re called “categories with keyword requirements”, and you can find all of them, along with the required keywords.

For example, to get your romance novel into the romantic comedy category, you’d just have to use “comedy” or “humor” as one of your seven keywords. And, because your book is already in the Romance category, Amazon will join the dots. Easy, right?

5. Getting your book into even more Amazon categories

The second hack to get into even more Amazon categories is simply to… reach out to KDP Support! It’s so simple that most authors don’t even think of it.

But first, you should obviously research which categories you’d like your book added to. For that, you have two options:

1. Head to the best-seller lists for the Kindle store or Books store, and drill down into categories in the right sidebar; or

2. Use a tool like Publisher Rocket ($97, but well worth it if you’re running Amazon ads) to bulk-analyze categories.

Then, just head to KDP Support and select “Updated Amazon Categories” in the sidebar. Send only one email per book, and include all the categories you want your book added in.

Important: This is not a numbers game, so don’t try to get your book in as many categories as possible! Only include the most relevant ones, or risk the consequences of also-bought pollution.

6. Getting Amazon reviews before your ebook launches

How great would it be to already have reviews on your product page before your ebook even launches? Sadly, Amazon doesn’t let customers post reviews until the book is published — even if it’s on pre-order.

So how can you get around that? By publishing another format (the paperback) earlier.

For example, If you release the paperback one week before your ebook, then readers will be able to post reviews on the paperback. And since paperback and ebook are on the same Amazon product page… ta-da! You’ll be able to accumulate reviews on your ebook page even while it’s on pre-order.

“Wide” book promotion hacks (for Amazon, Kobo, and more!)

There’s a bunch of advice out there on how to promote your book on Amazon, but a lot less advice focused on non-Amazon retailers. And yet, retailers like Apple or Kobo each have their own unique promotion opportunities for authors smart enough to take advantage of them.

7. Exclusive pre-orders on Apple & Kobo

Apple and Kobo treat pre-orders differently from Amazon. On Amazon, every sale while your book is on pre-order gives you a boost in rankings at the time of the sale. On Apple and Kobo, pre-order sales are counted twice towards rankings: once at the time of the sale, and a second time on launch day.

This means that if you generate enough sales while on pre-order, your book will soar in the rankings on launch day on those stores. Because of this difference, some clever authors run their pre-orders exclusively on Kobo and Apple — also a smart way to incentivize your readership to go “wide”.

8. Mega ebook box sets on Apple & Kobo

Another thing that sets both Apple and Kobo apart is that they offer a 70% royalty rate on ebooks priced at $10 and above — as opposed to the reduced 35% royalty on Amazon for ebooks priced outside the $2.99 – $9.99 range.

This creates a great opportunity for “mega box sets”, i.e. box sets of six, or more books, which are generally priced above $9.99. Selling them on Amazon wouldn’t really be worth it, because of the lower royalty rate. Instead, you can sell them exclusively on Apple and/or Kobo.

The added benefit? Apple and Kobo’s merchandising teams both love exclusive deals, so it’ll be easier to get these box sets into their promos.

Box set hacks

While we’re on the topic of box sets, here are a few more promotion hacks specific to those multi-book bundles.

9. First-in-series box sets

What’s that? It’s basically a box set with several series starters. This is only relevant to you if you already have 3-4 series out there, but it can be a good way to introduce new readers to your whole universe, all while offering them a solid discount through the box set.

You might not see a lot of sales for it, but think about it this way: every sale might lead the reader to make their way through all your series, and that’s going to be quite profitable for you. Plus, it costs nothing to put such a box set together…

10. Paperback box sets

Many authors have digital box sets available. But few have the “print” version of those box sets available as well.

“Why a print version, though? Nobody’s going to buy a 600-page door-stopper!”

Well, first, you’d be surprised… and more importantly, having the other format available helps with the price contrast on the product page:

When the potential reader sees the huge discount that the Kindle version offers, they’ll be more likely to buy it.

If you’re wondering how to format such a huge print book, you’ll be glad to know you can easily do that for free in the Reedsy Book Editor, or through a paid software like Vellum. Just make sure you select a small font size so that your book doesn’t exceed KDP’s maximum page count (around 800 pages).

Warning: If you do publish a paperback box set, make sure not to name it a “box set”, as Amazon will only allow actual boxed sets — i.e. individual books packaged in a cardboard box — to be named as such on the print books store. Call it an omnibus, or a compendium instead.

Reader magnets and giveaways

If you’re not familiar with reader magnets, they’re basically a free something (usually a book) you give readers in exchange for their signing up to your mailing list. If you don’t have one already, you know what to work on next. If you do, you’ll enjoy the following hacks.

11. Include the reader magnet both in the front and back matter

If you have a reader magnet, then I’m pretty sure you’re linking to it at the end of every book you have, right?

Well, one little hack to boost your subscribers is to add it in the front matter as well. This way, when Amazon browsers use the “Look Inside” feature, they’ll see your reader magnet offer as well. Even if they end up not buying the book, they might subscribe to your newsletter for the free book!

12. Insert your reader magnet inside the body of your book

Another cool thing you can do with reader magnets is to build them into your book. Let’s face it, most readers skip the front and back matter of a book. So having it inside the body of the book guarantees readers will see it.

“But won’t that just unnecessarily distract the reader from the actual book?”

That’s a risk, yes. But if you play your cards right, you can work it in quite elegantly. For non-fiction, it’s pretty easy to include a mention and link to a “cheat sheet”, a “checklist”, or a free video course (exclusive to newsletter subscribers) at the end of a relevant chapter, for example.

With fiction, you’ve got to be more creative. For example, you could blend fiction and reality: post-apocalyptic author ML Banner created a real website for a fictional research institute in his book, a website where you can sign up for his particular reader magnet.

13. Placing the Facebook pixel on your reader magnet page

If your reader magnet is a free book (or several free books), then I’m guessing you use BookFunnel to distribute it — if you don’t, check out their service, it’ll save you a lot of headaches.

Now, a little-known fact about BookFunnel is that they make it extremely easy to add the Facebook Pixel to your giveaway pages. (Don’t know what a Facebook Pixel is? Check out our post on classic book marketing mistakes)

Having the Pixel on your reader magnet page allows you to:

1. Track the conversion of your page;

2. Optimize the ads you run for signups rather than just traffic;

3. Create custom and lookalike audiences on Facebook based on all the people who viewed your magnet.

As we’ve said many times before, any author advertising on Facebook and not leveraging the Facebook Pixel is just wasting money. Don’t be one of those authors.

Cross-promoting with other indie authors

One of the very best ways to build a sustainable writing career is to make friends in the community. You should be out there building relationships with other indie authors, especially in your genre. Conferences are a great way to do that, but if you can’t afford those yet, here are some cross-promotion hacks.

14. Run a paperback bundle giveaway

So how do you make friends with authors who don’t know you from a hole in the ground? It’s simple, you read their books first, and try to do something for them before you hit them up for anything.

An easy option is to put together a paperback giveaway for your readers, with print books from some of your favorite indie authors in your genre.

Not only will this giveaway grow your mailing list, it’s a great opportunity to reach out to other authors and start building your relationship.

You can use a service like KingSumo or RaffleCopter to host the giveaway and add a virality component to it.

15. Freebie group giveaway

Another form of giveaway — also useful for building connections and growing your mailing list — is the “online freebie group giveaway.”

Essentially, you team up with other authors to each offer a book for free for a limited time, as part of a group giveaway.

You can set up and host the giveaway pretty easily through BookFunnel, which will automatically take care of the opt-in and GDPR stuff. And you can even use their promo tab to recruit other authors into your promo.

16. Newsletter swaps with other authors

The two previous hacks help you achieve two very different, but equally important goals:

1. Build meaningful connections with other authors in your genre;

2. Grow your mailing list.

And these are the two main requirements for one of the most powerful promotional tools any author can use: newsletter swaps.

The idea is simple: you promote one author’s book in your newsletter, and they promote one of your books in return. This is generally done around special events (like new releases or discount promos) and can be amplified through other channels: social media pages, groups, etc.

You should only approach authors with a similar size mailing list as yours — and only once you’ve built a relationship with them.

17. Create a multi-author anthology

Once you’ve built a solid network of like-minded authors in your genre, you can go even further and release a book together. For example, a themed collection of short stories.

It’s a nice and non-intrusive way for each author to introduce their readership to the other authors in the collection.

18. Create a multi-author Facebook group

We haven’t included “create a Facebook group for your readers” as a hack here, because, well, it’s not really a hack. First, it’s something already quite common. And secondly, running a Facebook group is a lot of work and can easily distract you from, you know, writing.

But what if you teamed up with other authors to run a multi-author Facebook group? You could take turns to moderate and populate the group with relevant content, as well as cross-promote.

There are a few of those out there, if you want to see how they work:

• Bloom With Tall Poppy Writers

• Kiss and Tell Book Club

• Fiction from the Heart

Boosting your price promotions

We’ve touched on price promotions on a bunch of other posts. The basic idea is: you discount the price of your book(s) for a few days, and promote that discount.

19. Use a calendar to schedule your BookBub Featured Deal submissions

The best way to promote such a discount deal is to advertise it on dedicated price promotion sites and newsletters. And the most important one, by far, is BookBub.

Now, the issue with BookBub is that it’s almost impossible nowadays for an indie author to get a Bookbub Featured Deal (somewhat of a “holy grail” in the indie publishing community). Even if you meet all their “minimum requirements,” you still need a lot of reviews, and plenty of luck.

20. Stack price promotions on promo sites

Now, even if you don’t manage to get a Featured Deal on BookBub, you can (sort of) replicate the effects of it by booking several promos on other smaller — yet reputable — sites. That’s what we call “promo stacking”, and you can use our tiered list of recommended book promotion sites to figure out the most relevant ones for your book.

The idea here is to secure a few promos for each day of your price drop — a big-ish one, and a few smaller ones.

So, a stacked price promo might look like:

• Day 1: BargainBooksy + ENT + Book Barbarian

• Day 2: Robin Reads + Book Rebel + My Book Cave

• Day 3: The Fussy Librarian + Early Bird Books + Book Sends

Of course, booking such sites/newsletters shouldn’t prevent you from running ads of your own. Which is what we’ll explore next.

Amazon ads are becoming increasingly important for both indie authors and traditional publishers. As Amazon grants more and more space to ads in search results and product pages, more authors will jump in and take advantage of this opportunity.