Book Marketing Agency: Book Marketing Services That Keep a Title Selling After Launch Week

Updated September 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Book marketing services are the paid, earned and owned work that puts one particular book in front of the readers most likely to buy it: Amazon and Kindle ads, deal newsletters, publicity, social media, a reader newsletter and book SEO. Progression Agency plans and runs that work for self-published authors, for traditionally published authors who want more than a publisher’s launch push, and for independent presses with a list to sell; what it produces is sales, Kindle Unlimited reads, honest reviews from real readers and a mailing list the author owns. Progression Agency is based in New York City and works with clients across the United States and worldwide.

What does a book marketing agency do?

A book marketing agency works out which readers a book is for, where those readers already browse and talk about books, and which channels can reach them at a cost the book’s royalties can carry, then runs those channels and reports sales against spend. Done well, it is the difference between a launch week of noise and a title that is still finding readers a year later.

Search behavior shows how authors go looking for that help. “Kindle ads” and “best book marketing” each draw about 1,600 US searches a month, “books advertising” and “books marketing” about 1,300, and “book marketing services” about 880, according to Ubersuggest data for September 2026. Across the 176 commercial book marketing phrases in our research, Ubersuggest counts roughly 25,090 US searches a month.

Most books marketing goes wrong in a predictable way. Money and energy are spent in the two weeks around publication, nothing is scheduled after that, and the retailer pages the ads point to were never fixed. We work the other way round: the book’s pages are corrected first, a reader list is started before launch, and paid promotion is scaled only on the channels that earn back their cost.

Self-published authors

Self-published book marketing rests on the things the author controls directly: the Amazon Ads account, the metadata in KDP and other retailers, the price and the mailing list. The decisions that matter most are strategic ones, such as whether to enroll the ebook in KDP Select or sell it wide, which book in a series to advertise, and when to discount. We make those calls with the author and then run the campaigns.

Traditionally published authors

A publisher controls price, metadata and most retail relationships, and its marketing plan is usually concentrated on the launch. Author marketing fills the gaps around it: a platform, a newsletter, speaking and media, and paid campaigns agreed with the publisher so that the two sides are not bidding for the same readers. We work alongside the publisher’s team, not around it.

Independent and small presses

Publisher marketing has to sell a list rather than one book. That means catalog pages that rank for subjects and series, backlist promotions timed to each new release, trade and library outreach, and consistent metadata across every retailer and distributor. At that scale publishing marketing is as much about systems as about campaigns, and publishing advertising is planned around the catalog pages it points to.

Business and nonfiction authors

Business book marketing counts speaking invitations, clients and media requests as well as copies. The launch is built around the author’s idea and expertise, with articles, podcasts and LinkedIn carrying most of the weight, and bulk orders from companies and conferences handled through a page of their own.

The channels a book campaign can use

Our book marketing services cover every channel a title can be sold through, and most campaigns use four or five of them, chosen by genre, format, budget and whether the ebook is exclusive to Amazon. The table sets out what each one does and when it tends to be worth the money.

Nearly all of this is digital book marketing now, but the in-person work of events, bookstores and libraries still belongs in the plan for most books. Where a piece of work is big enough to deserve its own team we hand it to one: author website design for the site, email marketing for the newsletter, Meta advertising for paid social at scale, public relations for large publicity campaigns, content marketing for nonfiction authority, and podcast marketing for authors who host a show. All of it runs from one calendar, so ads, deals, press and email land on the same dates and point at the same retailer pages.

Amazon book advertising and Kindle ads

Amazon book advertising reaches readers while they are already shopping for books, which makes it the natural first paid channel for a self-published book: the author pays only when a shopper clicks, and sets the budget. According to KDP’s advertising help page, ads for KDP titles are available in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, India, Australia and Japan, while audiobook ads run in the US only.

Two ad types matter to most authors. Sponsored Products ads appear in shopping results and on book detail pages and can target keywords or specific products. Sponsored Brands ads showcase several books at once; Amazon Ads offers them to publishers in all marketplaces and to authors with three or more eligible titles in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Before a campaign runs, the books have to be added to Author Central, and every ad passes a moderation review that KDP says usually takes 24 hours and can take up to three business days.

Targeting: keywords, comparable titles and categories

We start with automatic campaigns to learn which searches convert, then move the proven terms into manual keyword campaigns with their own bids. Product targeting puts the book on the pages of comparable titles, the books its readers also buy, and category targeting reaches people browsing a genre shelf. Every search term that spends without selling becomes a negative keyword.

Is KDP advertising different from Amazon Ads?

No. Authors call it KDP advertising, Amazon KDP ads or Kindle advertising, but it is the same Amazon Ads system, and KDP’s help pages explain how to use it for KDP titles. What matters more is ownership: the advertising account should belong to the author or the publisher, so the campaign history, search-term data and audiences stay with the book if the agency changes.

Reading the numbers against royalties

A campaign is judged on royalties earned against spend, not on clicks or impressions. For a book in KDP Select that includes Kindle Unlimited reads, which are paid from the KDP Select Global Fund, so we report ad spend next to sales and pages read for the same period. When a series is advertised, the first book’s numbers are read together with how many readers go on to buy the second and third.

Those figures are what advertisers bid on Google for clicks from people looking for book marketing help (Ubersuggest, US, September 2026), not what an author pays on Amazon, where prices are set by auction on each keyword and product. They show how contested authors’ attention is: “publishing seo” and “publisher seo” carry the highest bid in our research, $74.87 a click.

Book marketing on Amazon does not stop at ads. The same campaign covers the product page, the keywords and categories set in KDP, and the price promotions described in the next section, which together are what most authors mean by Amazon KDP marketing.

KDP Select, Kindle Unlimited and price promotions

KDP Select trades exclusivity for promotional tools. Enrolling an ebook commits its digital edition to Amazon for a 90-day term, and in return it joins Kindle Unlimited and becomes eligible for Kindle Countdown Deals or Free Book Promotions.

The terms on Amazon’s KDP Select page are strict: while the book is enrolled, the digital edition cannot be distributed anywhere else, including the author’s own website or blog. The program covers Kindle eBooks only. Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read the book as part of their subscription, and the author earns a share of the KDP Select Global Fund when they do. Free Book Promotions allow up to five free days in each 90-day enrollment period and are available in all KDP marketplaces.

Is KDP Select worth it for a first book?

It depends on where the book’s readers already are. For genre fiction whose readers use Kindle Unlimited, one 90-day term is a sensible test, because page reads can make up for the retailers given up. For nonfiction, literary fiction and authors with library or international readers, selling wide keeps more doors open. We decide title by title and revisit the choice at the end of each term.

Time price promotions to the rest of the plan

A Countdown Deal or a run of free days does the most when it lands in the same week as a deal newsletter, Amazon Ads and an email to the author’s list. We book the newsletter dates first, because they are the part of the calendar the author controls least, and set everything else around them.

Deal newsletters and other books promotion sites

Deal newsletters are one of the most direct forms of books promotion online: readers subscribe to hear about discounted ebooks in their favorite genres, and an author or publisher pays for a slot on a chosen date. BookBub’s partner pricing page sets Featured Deal fees by category, deal price and region, and says the fees reflect recent click ranges and partner demand for the category.

BookBub does not guarantee that every eligible subscriber will open the email or see the deal, and it sends deals that are not available at every retailer to only a subset of eligible subscribers. Smaller deal newsletters and other book promotion services charge less and reach fewer readers. We usually stack several across one promotion week, log the date and link for each, and read the daily sales in KDP and the other retailers’ dashboards to see which lists actually moved copies.

Before booking any promotion site, paid or free, we check six things:

• Who the list is for: the genres it covers and whether this book genuinely fits one of them.
• The eligibility rules: price ceilings, formats, retailer availability and any minimum review or rating requirement.
• Whether the site states its audience size, and whether past promoters in the genre can say what it did for them.
• The dates on offer, so the slot can sit alongside Amazon Ads and the author’s own email.
• What exactly is sent: a solo feature, a group email or a website listing.
• That nothing in the offer asks for reviews, ratings or rankings in return for the placement.

Goodreads Giveaways

A Goodreads Giveaway puts the book on its Goodreads page and in the site’s Giveaways section, and Goodreads emails the author’s followers and readers who have shelved the book as Want to Read; entrants’ friends and followers can see the giveaway in their newsfeeds. The Premium package adds a premium listing and a personalized email to everyone who does not win. We use giveaways before publication, when the goal is Want to Read shelving rather than sales.

Group promotions and newsletter swaps

Authors in the same genre often feature each other’s books to their lists, one to one or as a group promotion. A swap is a recommendation, not a review, and should read as one. If authors agree to review each other’s books, the FTC’s Endorsement Guides FAQ says the arrangement has to be disclosed, because it could affect how much weight readers give those reviews.

When to hire a publicist for books

Hire a publicist for books when the title offers journalists, producers and reviewers something beyond its own existence: an expert author, a timely subject, a strong debut in a reviewed genre, or a traditional release with trade review potential. Hire early, because the review outlets that matter work months ahead of publication.

Book publicity is earned rather than bought. A book publicist pitches reviewers, editors, producers and podcast hosts, prepares the author for interviews, and builds relationships with booksellers and librarians. The timelines are unforgiving: Publishers Weekly asks for galleys three months, and preferably four, before the first day of the publication month, wants children’s titles at least four months ahead, and considers self-published books through its BookLife program.

Galleys, trade reviews and the press kit

A publicity campaign starts with finished materials: a bound galley or digital review copy, a press release, an author biography and photo, a short question-and-answer with the author, and a one-page sell sheet for booksellers. Each goes out on the outlets’ own schedules, so the calendar is built backward from the publication date.

Interviews, podcasts and events

Novel publicity leans on reviews, author events, bookstores and reader communities. Nonfiction leans on the author’s expertise: commentary pegged to the news, op-eds, radio and podcast interviews. A podcast appearance keeps working after the episode airs, because the episode page and its show notes stay online and searchable.

What does a book publicist cost?

Our published planning range for a public relations retainer is $5,000 to $20,000 a month for a mid-market program, and a book campaign is normally scoped around the launch window and the months either side of it rather than left open-ended. Publicity vs public relations explains the difference between the two jobs, and what a PR firm does walks through the work week by week.

Book marketing social media: where readers talk about books

Social media sells books when the author shows up where a genre’s readers already gather, with posts those readers would share unprompted. Each platform rewards a different format, so book social media marketing starts by choosing the one or two platforms where the book’s readers are, not by posting everywhere.

Social media marketing for authors who would rather be writing

Author social media marketing does not require becoming a full-time creator. We plan a month of posts in one session, build them from material the author already has (the manuscript, the research, the covers, notes from readers), and handle scheduling and replies, so the author’s time goes on the parts only the author can do: a few short videos, answers to readers, and approval.

A month of author posts draws on material most books already have:

• Excerpts and quote cards taken from the manuscript.
• The research, settings and real stories behind the book.
• Cover reveals, formats and special editions.
• Reader questions answered on camera or in a caption.
• Events, signings and podcast appearances, before and after.
• Recommendations of other books in the same genre.

Creators, early copies and disclosure

Sending early copies to reader-creators is legitimate and works best when it is done openly. The FTC’s guidance expects reviewers who receive free products to disclose it, says a clear label such as “#ad” is likely to work, and warns that a platform’s built-in disclosure tool is no guarantee of an effective disclosure. On Amazon, KDP’s customer review policy allows free or discounted copies only when no review is required and there is no attempt to influence it; offering anything else, including a gift card, invalidates the review. Larger creator programs run through our creator partnerships team.

Book Facebook ads and other paid social

Paid social sells books when it sends a specific reader to a specific next step: a series starter on sale, a free reader magnet in exchange for an email address, or a preorder with a date. It is hard to justify as general awareness for one full-price title, because the royalty on a single sale leaves little room for the cost of reaching a cold audience.

Audiences for Facebook ads for authors

The starting audiences are readers interested in comparable authors and genres, lookalikes built from the author’s newsletter list, and people who have visited the author’s site or engaged with the page. Author Facebook ads built on lookalike audiences need a seed list, which is one more reason the newsletter comes before the ads.

Creative that stops the scroll

Book ads are built from the cover, a one-line hook drawn from the premise or the tropes, a short review quote used with permission, and short vertical video for Reels and TikTok. We test several hooks against the same audience first, then widen the audience around the hook that earns the cheapest clicks to the retailer page.

Measuring clicks that leave for Amazon

A click sent to Amazon cannot be followed by a Meta pixel, so we read paid social against the daily sales and page reads in KDP for the campaign window, and against newsletter sign-ups when the click goes to the author’s own site. Campaigns are small and time-boxed at first so the effect is visible in those numbers. Bigger budgets move to our Instagram ads and TikTok ads specialists.

Book SEO: getting found on Amazon, Google and in AI answers

Book SEO matches a book’s metadata and web pages to the words readers actually search. On Amazon it starts with the title, subtitle, description, the seven keyword slots and the three categories KDP allows; on Google it starts with author, series and book pages that answer a reader’s question better than a retailer listing can.

KDP’s keyword guidance allows up to seven keywords or short phrases and rules out several shortcuts: the names of authors not associated with the book, subjective claims such as “best novel ever”, time-sensitive words such as “new” or “on sale”, and program names such as Kindle Unlimited or KDP Select. KDP’s category help lets an author choose three categories, and the categories differ from one Amazon marketplace to the next, so we choose them for the book’s primary marketplace.

Author, series and book pages

SEO for authors comes down to three page types. An author page that says who the author is, what they write and where a new reader should start; a series page with the reading order, because “which one do I read first?” is the question every series reader has; and a page for each book with the description, an excerpt, formats and links to every retailer. The site itself is built by our author website team; this service writes and optimizes the pages that sit on it.

Structured data for books

Marking up each book with schema.org’s Book type describes it to machines in the terms a catalog would use: isbn, bookFormat, numberOfPages, bookEdition and illustrator, plus the author and publisher it inherits from CreativeWork. Google says no special markup is needed to appear in its AI features, so we add structured data for accuracy and consistency, not as a trick.

Publisher SEO for a whole list

For a press, publisher SEO means catalog pages organized the way readers and buyers search: by subject, series, audience and imprint, with every author and title linked into them. Backlist titles gain the most, because a catalog page that ranks keeps selling a book long after its launch budget has been spent.

Descriptions and ebook SEO

The opening lines of a retailer description are what a shopper sees before expanding it, so they carry the hook and the words a reader would use for the book: its genre, tropes or subject. Ebook SEO also covers the series name in the metadata, the subtitle, and consistent author naming on every retailer, so all of an author’s books connect to one another.

How AI assistants recommend books and the people who market them

Readers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews for book recommendations much as they once asked a bookseller, and authors ask the same assistants which book marketers to trust. Both answers are assembled from pages the assistant can find and read, so a book, an author or an agency that is not described plainly on crawlable pages is hard for it to recommend.

What readers ask

Reader prompts are specific: books like a named title, a subgenre with a trope (“cozy fantasy with found family”), a subject for a certain age (“picture books about moving house”), or the reading order of a series. The assistant replies with a handful of titles and a line on why each one fits, which is why the words a book is described with on the web matter so much.

What authors ask

Authors ask practical questions: whether BookBub is worth the fee, what Amazon ads cost, whether to enroll in KDP Select, how to find a publicist, and which book marketing company to hire. In Google, the results for “book marketing services” include an AI Overview, a Reddit thread from r/selfpublish asking whether any book marketers are legitimate, service pages from BookBaby and Smith Publicity, Reedsy’s marketplace and several lists of book marketing companies (Ubersuggest SERP data, September 2026).

What the assistants draw on

For books, assistants tend to draw on retailer and Goodreads pages, publisher and author websites, reviews in trade and consumer press, reader discussions and reference pages about established authors. For services, they lean on comparison articles, directories, reviews and providers’ own pages when those pages answer the question directly. Neither kind of answer can cite a page a crawler was blocked from reading.

What to publish so an assistant can name the book

Publish the facts in sentences: genre and audience, the series and its order, formats and retailers, the author’s credentials where they are real, and review quotes with their sources. Keep the same description and author name on every retailer and profile. Check that OAI-SearchBot is allowed, since OpenAI says sites that block it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers; Google says there are no extra requirements for AI Overviews beyond being indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

The same work, done for a business rather than a book, is our answer engine optimization service, and the free AI crawler access checker shows whether an author’s site currently lets these assistants in.

Children’s book marketing

Children’s book marketing sells to adults on a child’s behalf: parents, grandparents, teachers and librarians choose the book, so the campaign speaks to them while the book speaks to the child. It also carries rules adult fiction does not, because anything that collects personal information from children under 13 falls under COPPA.

The FTC’s COPPA guidance covers websites and online services directed to children under 13, and operators who know they are collecting information from them. Before collecting personal information, which includes a child’s name, online contact details, a persistent identifier, or a photo, video or audio file with the child’s image or voice, the operator must post a privacy policy, notify parents directly and obtain verifiable parental consent. So a children’s author’s contests, fan-art galleries and newsletters are addressed to parents and educators, not to children, and we build them that way. That is how we plan campaigns inside the rule; it is not legal advice.

Schools, libraries and educators

Teachers and librarians buy and recommend books year after year, long after launch. Educator guides, discussion questions, curriculum links, school visit details and library-friendly editions all belong on the book’s page, and trade reviews count for more here than almost anywhere: Publishers Weekly asks for children’s titles at least four months before publication.

Picture books, middle grade and young adult

Picture books are chosen by adults, so the campaign reaches parents and educators. Middle grade sits in between. Young adult readers often find books for themselves through BookTok and Bookstagram creators, so a YA campaign looks much more like adult fiction, with the platforms’ age rules and the disclosure rules that come with them.

Children’s book marketing ideas that stay inside the rules

Read-aloud videos by the author, printable activity sheets, story-time kits for bookstores and libraries, educator webinars and parent-focused ads all reach the buyer without collecting data from children. Deal newsletters are comparatively cheap in this category: BookBub’s US Featured Deal fee for a children’s book runs from $122 for a free book to $572 at $3 and up, the lowest of the categories in the table above.

Business book marketing

Marketing a business book is about the author’s expertise as much as the object: the aim is speaking invitations, clients and media requests as well as copies sold. That moves the weight toward LinkedIn, podcasts, trade media, bulk orders and search for the author’s subject, and away from deal newsletters.

Launch the idea, not only the book

The launch is organized around the book’s central idea: an article series that previews it, a framework or tool readers can use, op-eds in the author’s industry press, and a talk version for conferences. Each piece links back to one page where the book can be bought in every format.

Bulk and corporate orders

Companies buy business books for teams, clients and events. A dedicated bulk-order page with quantity pricing, a short form and a quick reply turns that interest into orders; we build and test those pages with our landing page design team.

LinkedIn, podcasts and speaking

LinkedIn is where business readers already follow ideas in their field, so the author posts there and we amplify the strongest posts with LinkedIn advertising aimed at the job titles the book is written for. Podcast interviews reach the same people at length, and every appearance goes on a media page that event organizers can check before booking a speaker.

How much do book marketing services cost?

Our book marketing is priced from published planning ranges: $850 to $3,400 a month for a social media program, $2,000 to $10,000 a month for paid media management, and $5,000 to $20,000 a month for a mid-market publicity retainer. Ad spend and third-party promotion fees are paid separately, and every quote follows a written scope.

The ranges come from our social media pricing, SEO pricing and marketing agency pricing guides. Ebook marketing services on their own, meaning ads and deal promotions without publicity, fall inside the paid media range. A percentage-of-spend fee, 10 to 20 percent of media, is published only for established budgets above roughly $20,000 a month, which few single titles reach. Third-party costs sit on top: the ad spend itself, deal newsletter fees such as BookBub’s, Goodreads Giveaway packages, and printing and postage for physical review copies.

What pushes the number up or down

The number of titles and formats, whether the book is part of a series, how crowded the genre is on Amazon, how many marketplaces are targeted, whether publicity is included and how much video has to be produced. A single ebook with one ad channel sits at the bottom of the ranges; a press with a seasonal list and a publicity campaign sits near the top.

What is the best book marketing on a small budget?

Fix the free things first: the description, keywords, categories, a cover that matches the rest of the series, and a reader magnet that starts the list. Then pick one paid channel, usually Amazon Ads for a book sold on Amazon, and one deal promotion a quarter, and stop anything that does not earn back its cost within the campaign window. Spreading a small budget across every channel leaves too little in each one to read the result.

How long does a book launch campaign take?

Plan on about four months of work before publication and at least three months of promotion after it. The front end is set by review lead times, since Publishers Weekly asks for galleys three to four months ahead, and the back end by how long ads and deal promotions take to find the readers who convert.

Books that are already out are not stuck. A relaunch follows the same sequence without the trade reviews: fix the pages, rebuild the list, test ads on the strongest title, then promote.

How to choose a book marketing company

Choose a book marketing company that shows you the plan, the ad accounts and a sample report before you pay, and walk away from any that promise bestseller lists, reviews or follower counts. The table lists what to ask for and how to check the answer.

Our marketing agency red flags guide covers warning signs that apply to any agency, and what belongs in a marketing agency contract covers ownership and exit terms. A promise of a place on a bestseller list should end the conversation: each list is compiled by its publisher from sales data under its own rules, and no outside company controls it.

How a book campaign runs with us

Every book campaign follows the same six steps, from an audit of the book’s current pages to monthly reporting, and the first two are finished before any money is spent on ads.

To start, we ask for the following. None of it is unusual, and most authors already have it:

• Access to KDP, or a contact at your publisher, and the Amazon Ads account if one exists (or permission to open one in your name).
• The manuscript or finished book, the cover files and any series artwork.
• Sales and page-read history for earlier titles.
• Your newsletter platform and list, however small.
• Reviews, endorsements and press you have already earned, with their sources.
• The publication date, preorder date and any events already booked.

Related services for authors and publishers

Book marketing draws on several of our other services, and each of them can also be hired on its own.

• Author website design: the site that holds the books, the list and the press kit.
• Public relations: larger publicity programs, media training and crisis support.
• Meta ads management: Facebook and Instagram campaigns at larger budgets.
• Email marketing: newsletter platforms, automations and list growth.
• Content marketing: articles and resources that build a nonfiction author’s authority.
• Podcast marketing: for authors who host a show or plan one.
• Amazon marketing: Amazon advertising and retail programs beyond books.
• Amazon SEO: listing optimization for products sold on Amazon.
• TikTok advertising and Instagram advertising: paid reach where BookTok and Bookstagram live.
• Creator partnerships: larger programs with reader-creators, disclosure built in.
• Answer engine optimization: getting authors and books named in AI answers.
• YouTube advertising: video ads for book trailers and author interviews.
• Video production: book trailers, readings and interview content.

Frequently asked questions