Supplementing Your Marketing: How To Use Marketing Materials To Promote Your Book

There are so many different ways to market your book and yourself as an author, each ranging in creativity and cost. Different strategies, such as approaching bookshops, PR activity, or engagement via social media, may have different suitability depending on each project and its target audience. Whichever marketing routes you are using to promote your book, one thing that can really help gain some extra visibility and compliment this is producing a range of marketing materials, whether these are printed or digital. 

In this blog, we’ll run through the most popular advertising items we see our authors ordering, and some helpful tips on how to use these.

Marketing materials are promotional items to help sell your products, so they need to be on brand and look professional. Use the available space creatively and with purpose; don’t fill it with a lengthy biography or synopsis, think about how you can grab someone’s attention. Knowing where you will be handing out, or displaying promotional material – and who you want to pick it up – will help when you are thinking about a design. 

If you are arranging an event, bookshops or other venues might ask if you have any Point-of-Sale materials available to help promote it. It’s rare that a bookshop will produce these on your behalf, and they are far more likely to support an event if you can provide them with posters or show cards. Marketing materials can be a cost-effective and useful extra tool for this.

Bookmarks, Postcards and Business Cards

Smaller, handout items have so many uses. Whether you are networking, doing a book signing, or offering these to your local businesses, having a pocket-sized item that people can physically take away with them is a real asset.

Print bookmarks are perhaps the most popular of the marketing materials we offer. A custom-branded gift and an advertising opportunity all in one, they are the perfect promotional item for book lovers. Bookmarks look the best visually when there is a nice balance of text and imagery – perhaps one side of imagery and some brief but engaging details on the other. Get creative with how you incorporate details without making it overwhelming.

The bookmarks for Tinsel Street by Heather Walker and One Egg at a Time by Annie Stanier

Postcards, like bookmarks, could be used as promotional gift items if you were to run a giveaway of your book or something similar. We’ve also seen authors use them to advertise upcoming events, so this could be a nice way to do this, with the image of the cover on the front, and the event details on the back.

The postcard for WOOD by Tanya Turner

Business cards are a compact, practical way to advertise you, the author. Traditionally, business cards would include your professional contact details, but they could also incorporate some ordering information, or perhaps your social media handles, if this is somewhere you actively promote your book. Do keep in mind that as with any smaller item, there is limited space, so remember to focus on your message and keep information engaging, but brief – the more cramped with text, the less appealing it will look.

The postcards for Mr Harris Makes It Up by F X Prendiville and Odds & Sods by Andy Catling

Posters and Leaflets

A great size to impart information, A4 posters are a useful way to promote events, or to advertise your book to a targeted audience. Posters are versatile, but make sure you know where you are going to use them. If you’re advertising a signing or an event, you’ll either need to print individual posters with the specific location, date and time listed already, or a poster with a blank space where event details can be added afterwards, giving you more flexibility. Some venues will not want to put a large A1-sized poster in their front window but may be happy to display something A3 or A4, so check before ordering – bigger is not always better!

The poster for Veronica Grove And Other Short Stories, by Ivor Rawlinson

Leaflets could also be used to advertise events on a smaller scale, although this is just one of their many uses. They could be a great item to give to bookshops if you are approaching them to pitch stocking your book. If they include all the relevant information about how your book can be ordered, a leaflet can be a nice alternative to an Advanced Information Sheet (a document the book trade uses to get all the relevant details about new titles). We find that single or double-sided A5 leaflets are most effective – having enough space to promote your book and brand, but not too much space to fill.

Showcards and Pull Up Banners

If you’re taking part in an event, whether that’s a signing, book festival or a book launch, these materials are a great option to go alongside. Showcards are full-colour display boards which can stand up on their own, perfect for point-of-sale publicity. Alternatively, pull up banners, at two metres high, are an eye-catching way to promote your book on a larger scale that can be seen from across a room.

Jonathan Frost with his pull up banner for Dreams of Eden, which he used at his book signing event.

If you do order promotional products, remember to think carefully about your budget and where you will make most use of these. Showcards and Banners are best suited to authors with an upcoming event or signing, so if this isn’t something you have coming up, it may be worth investing in something smaller and more versatile instead.

Digital Marketing Materials

There are many ways of promoting your book on social media, but having some professionally produced, engaging graphics, could be a great place to start. If you do choose to create or order images for social media, make sure these clearly tie into the brand and feature the cover. Do also mention or link some information that people can use to order a copy. At Troubador, we offer static graphics in groups of 3 to 5 in png format, so that they can be posted to whichever platform you choose.

One of the social media graphics created for Fractured Healer, by Chris Norris.

If you were interested in some ways our authors have used social media to promote their books, you can read a great article written by one of our author ambassadors, J.D. Pullan, here.

Top Tips

Finally, here are some of our top tips!

• You are selling yourself as an author, so make sure your marketing materials are error-free. Spell check, proofread and have someone else check them through before having anything printed, or posted to social media.
• Remember to always include the details of where your book can be purchased from, or your professional contact details. This includes key information such as the ISBN, price, author name and title – all the information a bookshop will need to source your book.
• Your promotional materials need to look professional. Never change or correct outdated information on something that’s been printed by crossing it out and updating it by hand. Something that’s been physically written on does not look particularly professional. Marketing materials don’t have to be expensive to produce, they can be updated and reprinted if this is needed.
• Always check you have permission before putting up posters or handing out leaflets in public places. Previously we’ve had complaints about authors who have left their own leaflets at businesses without prior permission. Some venues charge to display leaflets, so don't assume it’s free!
• Finally, be clear about what you’ll use your marketing materials for, then make sure the design is suited to that purpose. There are hundreds of different promotional items available that you could use to promote your book, but before you order any kind of custom marketing materials, think about what will give you the best return on investment. Additionally, if you choose a variety of formats (e.g a poster, postcards), don't assume one design will fit all. A large poster can carry more text, but a business card needs to be much more concise – each has a different purpose. 

Troubador's Services

Below is the full list of the items we offer, and the various quantities they can be ordered in. Remember, if you are a Troubador author, examples and costs can be found in your account on the author hub under ‘marketing materials’. If you place an order, this usually takes 1-3 weeks to be completed.

• Audiogram (requires some audio content)
• Book Cover Announcement
• A5 Leaflets – 100, 250 or 500
• Bookmarks – 100, 250 or 500
• Business Cards – 100, 250 or 500
• A4 Display Posters – 10, 15 or 20
• A6 Postcards – 100, 250, 500
• Pull-up Banner
• Showcards – 2 or 5
• Square Stickers – 100, 250 or 500
• Facebook Advertising - Runs for 7 days or 14 days
• Social Media Graphics – 3 or 5.

Hopefully, you’ll already be using marketing materials alongside your current marketing efforts, but if not, at Troubador we offer a wide range of marketing materials - the perfect way to help you market directly to your readers.