Book Marketing
How to Market a Self-Published Book: A 90-Day Plan That Sells Copies
Most self-published books never sell 100 copies — not because they are bad, but because nobody planned the marketing. Here is the exact 90-day sequence we run for authors, with what to do each month and what it costs.
If you have self-published a book, you already did the hardest part. The frustrating part comes next: Amazon has millions of titles, and it shows readers the ones with momentum. Marketing is simply how you manufacture that momentum on purpose. This is the 90-day plan we use with our own clients, written so you can run it yourself.
Days 1-15: Get the positioning right before you spend a dollar
Marketing cannot fix a book that does not clearly signal who it is for. Write one sentence that names the reader and the promise: "For first-time managers who want to lead without burning out." Then check three things against the bestsellers in your category — does your cover look like it belongs beside them, does your title telegraph the genre, and does your description open with a hook rather than a biography? Fixing these three things typically lifts conversion more than any ad campaign.
Days 16-30: Claim your Amazon real estate
Amazon is a search engine before it is a bookstore. Fill all seven backend keyword slots with phrases readers actually type — long, specific ones like "clean small town romance series" outperform broad ones like "romance." Choose two or three categories where the current top title has modest sales rank, so a realistic launch push can put you on page one. Add A+ Content, and set your also-bought-friendly price ($2.99-$4.99 for ebooks, or $0.99 for a promo window).
Days 31-45: Build a review base
Reviews are social proof and algorithmic fuel. Aim for 25-50 honest reviews before you advertise, because paid traffic wasted on a page with four reviews converts badly. Recruit readers from your newsletter, genre Facebook groups, BookSirens, or NetGalley, and follow up politely. Never pay for reviews — Amazon removes them and can suspend accounts.
Days 46-60: Turn on paid traffic, small and measured
Start with Amazon Sponsored Products at $10-$20 a day using 150-300 manual keywords and comparable author names. Give each keyword two weeks before judging it. The metric that matters is not clicks — it is royalties earned per dollar spent. Once you find ten keywords that break even, increase only those. Meta and TikTok ads work better later, once you have a series or a reader magnet funnel to capture emails.
Days 61-75: Stack free attention
Newsletter promotions (BookBub Featured Deals, Written Word Media, The Fussy Librarian, Robin Reads) can move thousands of units in 48 hours for genre fiction. For non-fiction, pitch podcasts in your niche — twenty appearances in a quarter will out-earn most ad budgets. And send 20-40 review copies to BookTok and Bookstagram creators with 5k-50k followers; one honest video review can outperform a month of ads.
Days 76-90: Compound what worked
Look at your numbers and be ruthless. Double the two channels that produced sales, stop the rest, and put the freed budget into your next release. The authors who build careers are not the ones who market hardest for one book — they are the ones who keep a small, working machine running while they write the next one.
What this realistically costs
A disciplined DIY 90-day plan runs roughly $500-$1,500: cover refresh if needed, newsletter promo slots, ARC distribution, and a modest daily ad budget. Done-for-you campaigns cost more because they replace your time and bring existing creator, media and reviewer relationships.
Want us to run it for you?
PulseSphere Agency builds and executes this plan for authors every week — positioning, Amazon optimisation, reviews, ads, creator seeding and PR. Book a free strategy call and we will audit your book before you spend anything.