Did you know that during the 2023 holiday season, U.S. consumers spent a staggering $211.7 billion online? That’s a 3.5% increase from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics. 

As this holiday shopping season approaches, self-publishers like you have a golden opportunity to showcase and sell your stunning books. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer with multiple publications or a first-time cookbook author, this guide will help elevate your Black Friday marketing game.

Why Black Friday matters for self-publishers

Black Friday isn’t just about slashing prices—it’s a chance to transform casual browsers into lifelong fans of your work. Here’s why it’s crucial for bookmakers.

• Increased spending: People are primed to buy during this period, making turning casual interest into real sales easier.
• Lots of gift buying: Your visually stunning books make perfect gifts, opening up a broader market beyond individual buyers.
• Brand expansion possibilities: Holiday deals attract new audiences, helping you reach an audience that might not discover your work otherwise.
• Loyal fan base creation: By offering value and engaging content, you can turn one-time holiday buyers into long-term supporters of your work.

Crafting your Black Friday strategy

1. Refine your target audience

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to appeal to everyone this Black Friday. Whether you’re a seasoned creator with a ton of past sales data or a newcomer just starting out, focusing your efforts on a well-defined target audience can allow your marketing to resonate more deeply with the people most likely to love your work.

• Study past buyers: Look at who purchased your books before. What demographics do they fit? This information can guide your targeting for new Black Friday book promotion campaigns.
• Create buyer personas: Develop a few profiles of your ideal customers. Include their interests, browsing habits, and what motivates them to buy books like yours. This can help you envision your sales strategy and Black Friday marketing tactics.
• Use analytics tools: Dive into your website and social media analytics to understand your audience better. Look for patterns in engagement and purchasing behavior. Tools like Google Analytics for your website, Facebook Insights for your Facebook page, and Instagram Insights for your Instagram business account can provide valuable information.

Promotion idea: If you’ve published a series of travel photography books, you might create a target audience for adventure-seeking millennials, leading to making a bundled set of your most exotic location books.

2. Build savvy campaigns

When it comes to Black Friday promotions, a scattered approach won’t cut it. Instead, aim for a well-planned strategy that works across all your marketing channels. Look at what’s worked (or hasn’t) in your previous campaigns, and use those insights to create a consistent, compelling story about your book. 

• Create cohesive campaigns: Develop a unified message and look and feel across your entire campaign. Use consistent colors, typography, copy, and imagery to tie all elements (and your book design) together. This cohesive approach helps reinforce your brand identity and makes your campaign more memorable. 
• Design channel-specific content: While maintaining a consistent message, tailor your content to each platform’s strengths. For example, use short, snappy content on X and longer, more detailed posts on Instagram.
• Set retargeting campaigns: Set up ads that follow users who’ve shown interest but have yet to purchase. Platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads offer powerful retargeting options to keep your book in potential buyers’ minds.

Promotion idea: Create a recipe of the week series to promote your cookbook, adapting the content for each platform—full recipe on your blog, eye-catching image on Instagram, and quick video on TikTok. Of course, link each to your full cookbook.

3. Create a budget

When planning your Black Friday marketing, it’s crucial to think about how you’ll spend your money. You want to put most of your money into the ads that have worked well for you before. But it’s also wise to try some new things. This way, you can make the most of what you know works while finding new ways to reach people who might want to buy your books.

• Increase ad spend on high-performing channels: If Google Ads worked well last year, consider adding even more budget there this Black Friday.
• Explore advanced targeting options: Use Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences to find people similar to your past buyers. This can help you reach new potential customers likely to be interested in your books.
• Test new platforms: Don’t be afraid to test new platforms! For example, if your books appeal to a younger audience, you might want to explore TikTok advertising.

Promotion idea: Spend 60% of your budget on your best-performing channel, 30% on your second-best, and 10% on testing a new platform. This balanced approach lets you rely on what works while exploring new opportunities.

4. Create a sophisticated timeline

A well-structured timeline is so important for maximizing your Black Friday success. By breaking your strategy into phases—before, during, and after the big day—you can build anticipation, capitalize on peak interest, and continue the impact of your sales. Think of your Black Friday marketing strategy as a three-act play, with each phase having a specific role in engaging your audience and driving sales. 

Pre-Black Friday (2-3 weeks before)

• Tease your deals: This builds anticipation for your upcoming deals and keeps your audience engaged.
• Run a countdown campaign: Create visually appealing graphics highlighting the days left until your Black Friday sale to build that sense of urgency.
• Send emails with early access to the Black Friday book deals: Your loyal customers will feel valued—plus you’ll encourage early sales, potentially leading to word-of-mouth promotion.

Black Friday weekend

• Launch your main promotional campaign: Ensure your visuals and offers are clear. Consider creating a dedicated landing page for your Black Friday book deals.
• Create urgency with limited-time offers: We’ve seen creators succeed with deals like “First 50 buyers get a signed print” and “30% off all books for the next 24 hours only.”
• Use social proof: Share customer reviews and testimonials. User-generated content (UGC), like photos of happy customers with your books, can be particularly effective.

Post-Black Friday (1-2 weeks after)

• Follow up with new customers: Send an email welcome series introducing them to your work and encouraging them to connect with you on social media.
• Offer a last-chance deal: This can capture sales from procrastinators or those who missed out during the main event.
• Encourage UGC: Ask customers to share photos of themselves with your books and repost this content. It builds community and creates more of that social proof that’s so important for your future sales.

Elevating your marketing tactics

1. Advance your social media strategy

Up your social media game by crafting a cohesive aesthetic that reflects your book’s style and engages your audience across multiple platforms. (Notice a theme in all these suggestions? Consistency pays off!)

• Create engaging video content: Platform algorithms are leaning increasingly toward motion. Try developing an Instagram Reel or TikTok video showcasing the process of creating your illustrations or photography for your book.
• Launch a challenge: Start a hashtag challenge inspired by your book. For a cookbook, it could be a #5MinuteMealChallenge where followers recreate a quick recipe from your book.
• Use platform-specific features: Use Pinterest’s Story Pins to create a visual narrative around your graphic design book or Facebook’s carousel ads to showcase multiple images from your art book.
• Schedule your content in advance: Tools like Hootsuite or Buffer can help you manage and schedule social posts across multiple platforms simultaneously, keeping that consistency and saving you time in the busy time of year.

Promotion idea: Create a series of visual quotes from your book, sized for Instagram Stories. Tools like Canva or Adobe Spark offer templates specifically designed for social media content that make it a breeze, even if design isn’t your strength. Encourage followers to share them, expanding your reach. 

2. Take your email marketing to 2.0

Rather than sending the same email to everyone on your list, segment your emails and create tailored Black Friday book promotion campaigns for each group. Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, or Sendinblue offer powerful segmentation and automation features to help you create targeted campaigns.

• VIP segment: Offer early-access emails on Black Friday deals and exclusive discounts to your most loyal customers.
• Engaged but haven’t purchased: Send a series highlighting the value of your book, perhaps including testimonials or snippets of content.
• Cold subscribers: Try creating a “We miss you” campaign with a special offer to re-engage them.

Promotion idea: Craft a “Behind the Pages” email series, offering subscribers exclusive insights into your creative process, with each email focusing on a different chapter or section of your book.

3. Collaborate strategically

Partner with complementary creators or brands to expand your reach, leveraging each others’ audiences and expertise to create unique marketing that benefits both of you.

• Co-create a limited edition: Partner with a local maker to craft a unique book and handmade item bundle. For example, your photography book paired with their handcrafted photo frame and a signed print.
• Partner with influencers: Team up with micro-influencers in your niche for authentic promotions. If you’ve created a cookbook, partner with food bloggers who can feature your recipes (and book).
• Cross-promote deals: Work with complementary businesses or creators for mutually beneficial promotions. For a design book, you might partner with an interior design software company to offer a discount code for their app with each book purchase.

Promotion idea: For a fashion photography book, collaborate with the designers you’ve worked with on a pop-up exhibition, showcasing your images alongside their designs and offering signed copies of your book.

4. Uplevel your digital presence

Transform your online presence into a site that is as gorgeous as your book. Whether you’re a seasoned web developer or just starting to build your online presence, updating your digital storefront for Black Friday doesn’t have to be complicated.

• Leverage your Blurb Bookstore page: If you don’t have a personal website, your Blurb Bookstore page can serve as your primary online presence. Customize it with an engaging creator bio and links to your social media accounts—you can even use the book description area to temporarily highlight your Black Friday deals.
• Make your social media a mini storefront: Use Instagram’s Highlights feature to create a dedicated Black Friday deals section. On Facebook, try the Shop feature to list your books directly on the platform.
• Develop a Link in Bio page: Use tools like Linktree or Carrd to create a simple, visually appealing landing page that houses all your essential links—your Blurb Bookstore, other social media profiles, and any Black Friday promotions—that you can share in your social media bios.
• Create a Black Friday landing page: If you have a website, show off your deals with stunning visuals and clear calls to action. Just make sure your site is mobile-friendly for on-the-go shoppers.
• Try exit-intent popups: Offer a special discount when someone is about to leave your site. This can help capture sales from hesitant buyers. Tools like OptinMonster or Sumo can help you create effective exit-intent popups.

Promotion idea: Make sure people can see inside your book to give potential buyers a taste of your content and encourage sales. This can be a Blurb Bookstore preview, series of Instagram Stories, Facebook album, or gallery on your website that allows visitors to flip through selected pages of your book. 

5. Steal these ideas

Still need a spark for your Black Friday campaign? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a treasure trove of promotional ideas tailored to different book types. Go ahead, steal them, tweak them, and make them yours.

For photography books:

• Limited-edition prints: Offer signed, limited-edition prints with each purchase during the Black Friday sale.
• Daily photo reveal: Create a Photo of the Day countdown to Black Friday, revealing a stunning image from your book each day.
• Virtual gallery tour: Host an online event where you walk viewers through a selection of images from your book, sharing the stories behind them.

For art books:

• Virtual exhibition launch: Create an online exhibition at the same time as your Black Friday sale, featuring images from your book and even exclusive pieces not included. You can even try a free platform like Artsteps to create an immersive 3D gallery experience.
• Artist’s commentary series: Release short videos or audio clips where you discuss specific pieces from your book, sharing insights into your techniques, inspiration, or the stories behind the art. Share these on social media leading up to Black Friday.
• Augmented reality features: Develop an AR feature for your book where readers can scan certain images with their phones to see the artwork come to life, view your creative process, or access additional content.

For illustrated books:

• Custom elements: Offer custom bookplates with illustrations for the first 100 buyers, adding a personal touch to each purchase.
• Animated content: Create animated GIFs of your illustrations for social media. This brings your artwork to life in a shareable format.
• Interactive sessions: Host a draw-along session on Instagram Live, engaging your audience and showcasing your skills.

For cookbooks:

• Create recipe videos: Develop mouth-watering video snippets of recipes in action. Share these on social media and your website to entice potential buyers.
• Offer bonus content: Provide a free holiday recipe PDF with each purchase, adding extra value to your main book.
• Host a live event: Organize a live cooking demo featuring recipes from your book to engage your audience and showcase your expertise.

For poetry books:

• Poetry-inspired visuals: Create eye-catching graphics or short videos featuring snippets of your poems overlaid on beautiful imagery. Share these on Instagram and Pinterest to attract visually-oriented poetry lovers.
• Collaborative chapbook: Partner with other poets for a limited-edition Black Friday chapbook. Each buyer gets this exclusive collection with your main book (and the other poets do the same), encouraging cross-promotion among fanbases.
• Poetry podcast series: Launch a short podcast series leading up to Black Friday, where you discuss the themes in your poetry book, read selected poems, and share your writing process. This builds anticipation and gives potential buyers a deeper connection to your work.

For children’s books:

• Bedtime story series: Share short, exclusive bedtime stories featuring characters from your children’s book on IGTV or YouTube. This showcases your storytelling skills and gives parents a taste of your writing style.
• Character takeover: Let one of your book’s characters take over your social media for a day. Share posts from the character’s perspective, answer questions, and interact with followers in a fun, in-character way.
• Downloadable activity packs: Create a free, printable activity pack related to your book (like coloring pages, maze puzzles, word searches) available with each purchase. This adds value for parents and keeps children engaged with your book’s world.

For notebooks and journals:

• Productivity challenge: Launch a 30-day productivity challenge starting on Black Friday. Provide daily prompts or tasks in your social media stories, encouraging participants to use their new journals to track progress.
• Journaling workshops: Host online journaling workshops focused on topics like gratitude, goal-setting, or creative writing. Offer a discount code for your book for workshop attendees.
• Bundle with accessories: Create attractive bundles combining your notebooks or journals with complementary items like high-quality pens, bookmarks, or stickers.

For comic books and graphic novels:

• Character sketch series: Share daily character sketches or design evolution posts leading up to Black Friday, giving fans insight into your creative process.
• Fan art contest: Host a fan art contest where the winning entries get featured in a special Black Friday promotional bundle or as alternate covers for your next comic book or graphic novel release.
• Interactive webcomic: Release a free, interactive webcomic that ties into your main story, with the full version available as part of your Black Friday sale.

Leveraging Blurb’s features

Blurb’s print-on-demand model opens up lots of creative possibilities for your Black Friday sales. With our flexible platform, you can sell your books without the risks associated with traditional inventory management. 

• Pass along deals: Take advantage of Blurb’s bookstore sales and offer your audience discounts while maintaining your profit margin. This win-win scenario allows you to attract price-conscious buyers without sacrificing your earnings.
• Create exclusive editions: Develop a Black Friday exclusive edition of your book with bonus content or a special cover design.
• Offer limited-time formats: Offer your book in a special format (like a premium layflat photo book), available only during Black Friday.

Promotion idea: Craft an exclusive mini-book to glimpse your creative world. Showcase your process, early sketches, and inspirations in this limited-edition companion piece—a must-have for devoted fans to bundle with your main work.

Using Black Friday as a catalyst for long-term success

1. Build your email list

Black Friday brings a flood of new fans to your digital doorstep. Why not use this opportunity to grow your email list? Turn these holiday shoppers into subscribers, and you have a direct line to people genuinely interested in your work. Plus, you’ll have an audience ready for your next book!

• Share freebies: Provide a free digital wallpaper featuring artwork from your latest book in exchange for email sign-ups.
• Create exclusivity: Develop a Black Friday segmented email campaign that gives subscribers early access to deals or exclusive discounts.
• Run a giveaway: Organize a contest where an email subscription is part of the entry process. Ensure the prize is relevant to your book’s theme to attract the right audience.

Promotion idea: Create a pop-up on your website offering a free chapter or high-res image in exchange for email sign-ups. This can significantly boost your subscriber numbers during the high-traffic Black Friday period.

2. Turn new customers into loyal fans

Congratulations on making those Black Friday sales! But the real magic happens after the purchase. Think of each new customer as a potential superfan waiting to be wowed. With a little extra effort, you can turn that one-time buyer into someone who’ll rave about your books to anyone who’ll listen. Here’s how.

• Send personalized thank-yous: Create a series of personalized thank-you emails with exclusive content related to their purchase.
• Create a welcome series: Develop an email series that introduces them to your work and creative process—and perhaps offers a small discount on their next purchase.
• Build a community: Invite new buyers to join a private Facebook group or Discord server for your book fans. This creates a space for engagement and can drive word-of-mouth promotion.

Promotion idea: For cookbook buyers, surprise them with a bonus holiday recipe video post-Black Friday. For art book buyers, share a time-lapse video of your creative process. These unexpected bonuses can delight customers and encourage them to share their positive experiences.

3. Analyze and learn

Use the data from your Black Friday campaign to inform your future strategies. Analytics tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or Crazy Egg can provide valuable insights into how people interact with your marketing materials.

• Track visual elements: Pay close attention to which visual elements resonated most. Did people respond better to full-page spreads or detail shots? Which color schemes drove the most engagement? Tools like Sprout Social or Iconosquare can help you analyze engagement on social media posts.
• Analyze offer performance: Look at which offers led to the most sales. Was it the bundle deals, the limited-time discounts, or the exclusive editions?
• Gather feedback: Survey new customers about their buying experience. What motivated them to make a purchase? What almost stopped them?

Promotion idea: Create a spreadsheet to track key metrics (sales, email sign-ups, social media engagement) and use it to set benchmarks for your next holiday book promotion campaign. This data-driven approach can significantly improve the effectiveness of your future marketing efforts.

Conclusion

By implementing these next-level Black Friday marketing tips, leveraging Blurb’s flexible platform, and infusing your unique creative flair, you can turn this Black Friday into a launchpad for long-term success. Remember, the key is to start planning early, be consistent in your messaging, and always prioritize the visual appeal that makes your books unique. Your Black Friday campaign should be as visually stunning and creatively crafted as the books you promote.

Armed with these actionable strategies and Black Friday promotion ideas, you’re ready to make this Black Friday your most successful yet. We’re rooting for you!

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Blurb empowers self-publishers to turn their Black Friday marketing ideas into reality. With tools to create limited editions and deals throughout the season—plus distribution through Blurb’s free bookstore, Amazon, and Ingram’s network—we simplify the entire publishing process. 

Ready to boost your holiday sales? Start your project with Blurb today.