1. How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn

Here’s a title that speaks for itself. Penn’s How to Market a Book includes dozens of tried-and-true tactics to spread the word about your book. Additionally, it explains principles on marketing that can grow your business in the long-term. The most updated edition includes info on Amazon KDP exclusivity, the use of box sets, and audio marketing through ACX. Penn knows what she’s doing and it really shows in this book.

Here’s a quote:

“Marketing is sharing what you love with people who will appreciate hearing about it. My personal marketing strategy is to be useful and interesting and passionate, sharing as much as possible to help others.”

2. 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron

Aaron’s book isn’t about marketing per say, but it will teach you a very necessary skill to be a successful author: the ability to write fast. When you write faster, you’re able to put out more books. While you may not reach a speed that allows you to write 10,000 words each day, you can still pen at least four books a year at a quarter of that speed.

Over 450 reviewers have sung their praises about 2k to 10k, and that’s because the book legitimately helps authors speed up their writing process. If you’ve ever struggled with writing speed or if you want to put out twice as many books per year, Aaron’s book is the first one you should read.

Here’s a quote:

“If you want to write faster, the first step is to know what you’re writing before you write it. Every writing session, I dedicate five minutes and write out a quick description of what I was going to write that day. Every day, while I was writing out my description of what I was going to write, I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I’d look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn’t find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely.”

3. Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl

When you’re trying to learn book marketing, you could do much worse than listening to a guy who did marketing for Hugh Howey. Grahl won’t give you hundreds of tips on social media or tweaks to make your campaign a winner. He actually doesn’t recommend putting much time into social media because he thinks people should focus on definite returns. Grahl is a mailing list guy, and judging by our many articles on the subject, it’s not hard to see why we’re big fans of this book.

Grahl knows what he’s talking about and he shares his real world experience in Your First 1,000 Copies. He’s the kind of guy you have to listen to if you need someone other than us to tell you to get off your butt and create that email list.

Here’s a quote:

“Your #1 goal as an author should be to grow your email list as much as possible. There are two overarching rules for getting lots of people to sign up for your email list: (1) make a specific, compelling offer and (2) expose them to the offer multiple times.”

4. Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant

Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant know how to write books at lightning-quick speed. It helps that they’ve formed an unholy trinity of authors to make it happen, but their pace isn’t the sole reason for their success. They’ve combined breakneck output with a solid business-minded approach, and you can read all about it in Write. Publish. Repeat.

Platt and Truant treat books like a marketing funnel. The concept of the funnel is familiar to internet marketers, but it’s part of a foreign language to most authors. This book will help you learn about funneling your free and cheaper work into higher-end titles. If you’re trying to make it as an author entrepreneur, then this is the best book to start with because following its teachings will lead to a much stronger business model.

Here’s a quote:

“When you release your first book, all you really need is to get a few people to love it. When you release your second book, you want to let the people who already loved your first book know it’s available, because they’ll want to buy it, and you want to get a few new people to like your work. Repeat, then repeat again after that.”

5. Book Marketing Is Dead by Derek Murphy

Even though people say not to judge a book by its cover, author and designer Derek Murphy makes a living with the knowledge that plenty of people judge covers. Murphy’s book contains all the usual tips and then some. There are links to extremely helpful marketing posts and quotes that provide multiple perspectives on important concepts. What sets his book apart is the no-punches-pulled approach to instruction.

Murphy’s book is tough love to a T, and it won’t let you get away with simply being a writer. It grabs you and forces you to pick the right genres and become more marketable as a writer. This is the kind of thing you need to hear as an author, which is what makes the book a must-read.

Here’s a quote:

“It’s like knocking on someone’s door and saying ‘Hey do you have a minute to talk about my new book?!’ Nobody is going to let you into their house. No matter how well you’re dressed or how much you smile or how loud you yell. They don’t know you, so they won’t trust you. Effective book marketing demands you spend some time building relationships—and not fraudulent ‘I’ll scratch your book if you scratch mine’ business trades, but real friendships. You need to get people to know about you, and like you—and you can’t do that trying to promote your book, or yourself.”