How to Market Your Book on a Budget and Still Get Noticed - BM542

Are you spending more money marketing your book than you’re making from it?

This week’s guest, Kevin M. Hall, author of Book Marketing on a Budget: Simple Steps for New Authors, shares practical ways to increase visibility, connect with readers, and create opportunities without spending a fortune.

Kevin proves some of the most effective book marketing strategies are often the simplest ones.

Key Takeaways

• Could one tiny change help you sell more books? Discover overlooked marketing opportunities you may already have at your fingertips.
• What happens when you stop marketing and start connecting? Learn why genuine conversations can open doors no marketing plan could predict.
• How many opportunities are you missing because you never asked? See how a simple question can turn an assumed “no” into a surprising “yes.”
• Who in your own community could help spread the word? Explore how libraries, organizations, fellow authors, and local connections can expand your reach.
• Why do some authors gain traction while others disappear? Find out why consistent visibility matters more than constantly chasing the next marketing tactic.

Tune in and discover how to make your book marketing dollars stretch further while building visibility in ways that feel natural, practical, and sustainable.

Here's how to connect with Kevin:

Website

FaceBook

LinkedIn

Instagram

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Transcript

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Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. 

Today, my special guest is Kevin M. Hall. Kevin is an author, memoirist, and storyteller who believes real experience has more to teach us than theory or hype. He's the author of Book Marketing on a Budget: Simple Steps for New Authors, along with several other titles. Rather than focusing on hype, shortcuts, or big promises, Kevin draws on lived experience and the value of making steady, meaningful progress. His books are thoughtful, reflective, and rooted in real life, helping readers find meaning in their experiences and move forward in a way that feels practical, authentic, and achievable.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:03]:
Kevin, wow, what an absolute pleasure it is to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.

Kevin M. Hall [00:01:12]:
Thank you, Susan. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:15]:
Well, I am too, because I was digging deep into your approach, you know, having written a book on book marketing. Wow. And we are talking about book marketing. Let's dig deep and give our listeners some really juicy stuff that I know they'll get from you. Let's start at the very beginning and talk about what made you feel you had something worth putting into words.

Kevin M. Hall [00:01:42]:
It really started, Susan, when I kept hearing other new authors state, I'm not getting book sales. And when you ask them what they did, Well, I put it out on Amazon.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:55]:
Okay.

Kevin M. Hall [00:01:56]:
What else have you done? That had me thinking because at the time I had several months of book sales. And as of today, I've marked 53 straight months of book sales and I've spent less than $200 in my total marketing budget.

Susan Friedmann [00:02:16]:
Oh, we have to dig deeper into that one. Because I know that probably had our listeners' ears pricking up saying, okay, how did he do it? What did he do? Let's look at what were some of the things that you started doing?

Kevin M. Hall [00:02:33]:
Well, I started very simple and the COVID of the book has a little caricature climbing steps. And that's kind of the approach I took one little step at a time. The very first thing I did, well, I know I have to let people know the book exists. How could I do that? Oh, I send out 20+ emails a day. What if I just updated my signature line and put in the signature line that I'm an author and here's the title of my book. And then later on, once I got a website, I even put the website down there. Well, that little blurb in my signature line, I started getting inquiries. I didn't know you were an author.

Kevin M. Hall [00:03:23]:
What'd you write? And where can I get a look at it or get a copy? I said, great, this is simple. I didn't really have to do a whole lot, but that was just the beginning steps.

Susan Friedmann [00:03:35]:
I love that. Just that little act. And it's something that I've talked about many times with authors. Is that you've got free real estate here below your signature. It costs you nothing to have that space that you can put whatever you want in, a cover of the book, where they can buy the book, the link to buy the book, the link to your website, whatever you want. It's your real estate to do what you want with. Fantastic. So you let them know this way, which was simple, hasn't cost you anything yet other than your time.

Kevin M. Hall [00:04:10]:
Correct. And I'm just sitting behind my laptop and I'm not traveling. I'm not expending any costs beyond just having my internet connection. That was the first step. Well, I also have a little bit of a following online. I think at the time I may have had 300, 400 people that I knew on Facebook and LinkedIn. Well, I've got a profile over there. What can I do with that? So I looked into it.

Kevin M. Hall [00:04:43]:
You can edit that. And I put out the fact that I'm an author. I also put out there the covers of my book and updated both my LinkedIn. And at the time it was LinkedIn and Facebook, updated both those profiles. Well, that led to even more inquiries. And I started to see book sales. Those were simple steps, very easy to do, no cost at all involved.

Susan Friedmann [00:05:15]:
I love that. That's music to people's ears that you've done all this. You've just gone to things that you already have. You've got this following, you've got a database. What did you say? 20 emails a day? That's not very much. I mean, you can do that depending on how much time you want to put into it.

Kevin M. Hall [00:05:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm retired and when I was working and I worked corporate America for over 40 years, I was sending out literally hundreds of emails a day. But in corporate America, unless you wrote a book or something that was associated with the company, You couldn't just update your email line. But if you are working in a business where you've written a book about that, for example, I knew a lot of people who were in project management and had written some project management books, and their signature line at their companies allowed them to put that they were an author of this book and therefore drew even more attention to them, but also to the company. Because that reflected very positively back on the company. That's another simple step if your company will allow it. Update your email signature line there too.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:39]:
Yes. I mean, again, just simple things. Now you have a philosophy of showing up, be genuine, and add value. I love it. It's beautiful. But what does that actually look like for an author who Who's trying to get noticed.

Kevin M. Hall [00:06:57]:
Let me give you just a simple example. And it just took off because here's the thing, Susan, you never know where this is going to take you. And Jonathan Stanley is an author. And Jonathan was at a book signing and it was at a local bookstore. And the typical kind of book signing at those is you'll get a few people coming up. You may get a few questions, And I spoke with Jonathan and he says, yeah, he got a couple questions, including a person asking him where the bathroom was. But then a little 4-year-old girl came up and she started talking to him and Jonathan engaged her and she said, well, this is kind of nice. I think I might want to be an author when I grow up.

Kevin M. Hall [00:07:49]:
Well, little did he know her mom was videoing the whole thing. The video she put on online went viral and Jonathan now has become a wanted speaker. His book is being translated in many languages for many other countries to sell. You just don't know, but what he did, and I spoke with him after and he said, you know, I didn't even know if I wanted to go there that day. Because I knew I wasn't gonna sell many books, but he says, I had to show up.

Susan Friedmann [00:08:27]:
Absolutely. I love that. That is a beautiful story. And as you said, you just do not know where or when opportunities are going to open up for you. I mean, just speaking to someone and a 4-year-old, that is precious.

Kevin M. Hall [00:08:46]:
Yes.

Susan Friedmann [00:08:46]:
She wants to write a book and she's been inspired by Jonathan to do that, but it could be any one of our authors to be able to do that. You just don't know the impact you have on people.

Kevin M. Hall [00:08:59]:
Absolutely. And then the next part is you have to be genuine. At least that's my feeling. I was speaking with an author just a little bit ago and they were saying they had different personas. I'm this when I'm on stage, or I'm this if I'm just speaking to Blah, blah, blah. I like to be genuine when I speak here, Susan. This is the same person and the same kind of tone and persona that I have if I'm on stage or if I'm speaking to my local book club. It's the same person.

Kevin M. Hall [00:09:33]:
So that's what I mean by being genuine and then add value. What I mean there is always think of the audience. How can I leave them with something of value? Because they've spent their time to come see me and I want to give back to them. So that's kind of what I like to show is like a 3-legged stool, show up, be genuine, and add value.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:00]:
Beautiful. And yes, that whole authenticity, which obviously is very big these days. I remember when I first started out in the speaking business over 30 years ago, And I thought I was a teacher, so I put on this persona of being a teacher. And I learned very quickly that that really wasn't me. I just want to be genuine and let people see, you know, I've got flaws just like everybody else.

Kevin M. Hall [00:10:30]:
Yes.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:31]:
I'm not perfect. However, at the time, I thought I had to be. I had to get over that very quickly. That's why I love this podcast too, because I just sort of feel, oh, let it rip. We can go whatever direction as long as we feel we're doing the job and helping authors. Excellent. I love it. If you don't ask, the answer's always no.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:58]:
I had this just this morning with a potential client. It's like, okay, if you don't ask, you don't get. It's a matter of asking. So what have you learned about having the courage to ask?

Kevin M. Hall [00:11:13]:
The point there is, and really, Susan, this is my golden nugget that I tell everyone. You're starting at a no. What's it going to hurt to ask to see if it can be a yes? You're there at a no right now. You know, That if I wanted to go speak at a TED Talk right now, the answer is no, because I haven't asked. Why not ask? What's the worst that can happen? They say, well, no, not at this time. Well, that's where you were at. But what if it's that yes? That's why I say always, always ask. And that's something I took outta corporate America.

Kevin M. Hall [00:11:59]:
I was a technical person there and I worked with a lot of salespeople and I always kind of sat back in my chair when they would ask for the sale. And I was talking to a few of them afterwards and they told me, look, we're starting right now at a no. We want to get to a yes. We don't know if we're going to get there until we ask.

Susan Friedmann [00:12:24]:
Why not Yeah, I think that taps into this fear of rejection. People don't want to ask because they are fearful of that word no. That means to them that they're being rejected. But as you say, that isn't the case because it might be starting off that it's a no, but then looking at, well, okay, what might help turn it into a yes?

Kevin M. Hall [00:12:53]:
Yes, exactly. And that's the big thing I stress throughout the book. And in fact, I got to state this. I was thinking out loud at the kitchen table one night and I was saying, I wonder if I should do that and reach out to this person or not. And my wife stated those words right back to me and said, if you don't ask, the answer's no. So I wound up saying, you're right, honey. And I took and made the inquiry.

Susan Friedmann [00:13:23]:
Yeah. And you're right. And so many people, as I say, fear being rejected. Yeah. As you said, you just have to ask and be prepared. You can get so many nos, but eventually you'll get a yes. I mean, it's the law of averages. I believe the more you say one thing, something opposite is going to happen.

Kevin M. Hall [00:13:46]:
Absolutely. That's another thing throughout the book. I'm giving examples of how they can go about doing some of these things, and they're the actual examples I used. Let me give a couple other little tips here. I reached out to my hometown library and while I was writing my, uh, what I call memoir history book, I asked them for some photos and stuff, and they were gracious enough to lend them to me. And then when the book was published, I reached back out and I said, here's the completed book. Why don't you take a read and gimme your opinion on it? They read it and got back to me and they even said, I think we want to carry this in our library. I said, fantastic.

Kevin M. Hall [00:14:36]:
What do I need to do? So I sent them a nice clean copy. And that was May of 2022. It wound up in their library at that time. They advertised it a little bit just on flyers and stuff. I'm getting an email January of 2023, letting me know that that was the number one book checked out of that library for all of 2022.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:05]:
Wow.

Kevin M. Hall [00:15:06]:
You don't know until you make that inquiry, make that ask. And that's simple. Yeah, it is. And that led to a book signing there, which I still think about to this day because I had so much fun. You never know where these things are going to lead. They asked me to come down and do a book signing. I said, fantastic, let's do it.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:28]:
You didn't have any 4-year-olds, did you?

Kevin M. Hall [00:15:31]:
No, no, no. But I'll tell you, they had a clicker in their hand and they were counting the people coming in and going out because the room only held so many folks. They were cycling them through and they even told me afterwards, we had to stop clicking. There was just so many people here. We just couldn't keep track of them all.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:51]:
Who promoted that? Was that you promoting it? Was it them promoting it? Tell us the process there because that's pretty unusual.

Kevin M. Hall [00:15:59]:
It was actually both. I promoted it through my social medias and they promoted it locally. Let me tell you, it just kind of grew word of mouth. Now, I grew up in a small town, about 10,000 people at its max, and I was totally stunned by the folks who came in. I have some family members that still live down there, and of course they spread the word that I was going to be in town. I will tell you also, Susan, I go to town and there was a grocery store butcher shop that we had always gone to as a kid. And I went there looking for specific things and I had ordered some stuff ahead of time. And so I go in and they said, oh, Kevin Hall, wait a minute.

Kevin M. Hall [00:16:49]:
And they went back in the back and brought me out a couple things. We're gonna be at your book signing tonight. We want you to have this. So I'm thinking, whoa, this is really phenomenal. And there were some other authors in the town, but I wasn't expecting any of this. And it all started from a simple ask, would you review the book for me?

Susan Friedmann [00:17:17]:
Incredible. And of course you're a celebrity in town and especially in a small town. How many authors do you have there? Probably not too many. Yes. What about the media? Did you reach out to the media? Did the library reach out to them? Were they represented at all?

Kevin M. Hall [00:17:35]:
The local library did reach out to the local media there. The media was not at the event, surprisingly, but that did result also in me getting a radio spot. to go on and talk about the event and talk about the book, et cetera. They did pick it up from that perspective, but it's just so much from a simple ask. And that's why I constantly tell people, especially new authors, if you don't ask, the answer is no. And you never know where this is going to take you.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:12]:
You don't. And you don't know who knows who. you know, again, you're talking to people and they're like, oh, I must introduce you to, you know, my cousin or my first aunt, 2 times removed. I don't know. Things happen. You don't know who people know. You don't know what people know. So again, it's opening that door.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:36]:
It's like Pandora's box.

Kevin M. Hall [00:18:38]:
Absolutely. And that brings me to another stool that I often talk about, a 3-legged stool. Collaboration, community, and consistency.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:49]:
Oh, talk more about that.

Kevin M. Hall [00:18:51]:
And I wish I would've had this concept, Susan, when I was writing the marketing book, but it all kind of coalesced afterwards. You need to get involved in your community. You need to collaborate with other folks, and you need to be consistent. With your ways of doing those. So for example, if you're collaborating with authors online, and it could be through a blog, it could be through your website, and you're posting out information, be consistent in that. If that consistency is daily, weekly, monthly, make sure you continue to do that because folks on the receiving end, are expecting that and that'll happen over time, but they want to see these things. Otherwise, if it's an email list, they're going to unsubscribe. That's the consistency part.

Kevin M. Hall [00:19:51]:
The community, it's your local community. It's the indie author community. How can you get your name out? And I'm constantly looking at how can I further extend my name? This just happened very recently, Susan, where I challenged another author in a very friendly competition online, openly in a few forums, and that author graciously accepted. And let me tell you the comments that we received. It was kind of a race for views on another podcast forum that we both were on. And it just became involving the whole community. And it was just something that was spur of the moment, but we decided to do that. We did it collaboratively.

Kevin M. Hall [00:20:44]:
We involved the community and we did it for 5 days consistently. So again, this is a way that you can get your name out there. And I had a lot of fun and I'll tell you, because I told the other folks, There were days I was giddy like it was Christmas morning, you know, I couldn't wait to go see the results and post what was happening. So it was a ton of fun.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:10]:
You gamified this, which people love playing a game. And as you said, it helps, you know, them get involved. They like the 2-way communication because otherwise it's just one way and They don't have any say and people want to have a say. They've got opinions. They have got things they want to share with you. The more you share and be willing to, you know, accept feedback from people, invite people to give you feedback, I think all of that is dynamite.

Kevin M. Hall [00:21:45]:
Yeah.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:45]:
What else? I mean, you've got consistency. I think I want to hone in on that because So often, and you've probably heard it too, Kevin, is that authors try something. They try it 2, 3, maybe 4 times. Oh, it didn't work. And then they give it up. It can take years sometimes before, but you have to be top of mind. You have to be there. Your articles, your podcast interviews, whatever you're doing to help promote you and the book.

Kevin M. Hall [00:22:21]:
Mm-hmm.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:22]:
Your message has just got to be consistent and just persevere with it.

Kevin M. Hall [00:22:28]:
Absolutely. Because they're expecting it and you don't want to be, oh, I'm going to put everything out now and then wait. It doesn't work. You've got to be consistently in front of people and give you a quick example here. There's 4 million plus books Written a year, at least new titles. Add that to everything else that's on these book platforms. If you're not consistently in front of someone, you're going to soon be forgotten. And this is your business.

Kevin M. Hall [00:23:05]:
And so you need to treat it like a business and you need to keep your name out there. I'm just helping the new authors and those that maybe written a few books get their name out with less of a cost to them. And that's really what I'm trying to do is give them that leg up, let them do some simple things, get some early results, and then they can look into more aspects of the business, you know, tracking the data, placing paid ads, things like that. But let's get 'em started. And that's what my book is about.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:48]:
Fabulous. Great segue, Kevin, for you to tell our listeners more about the book, about you, how they can find you, how they can find your book. Take it away.

Kevin M. Hall [00:24:01]:
Absolutely. I'm gonna give 'em one last tip and then I'll get into that. Don't neglect your alumni associations. It could be from something you're doing with the Rotary Club. It could be something that was from your college. They put out usually newsletters. If you're in an HOA, HOAs put out newsletters. Don't neglect them.

Kevin M. Hall [00:24:27]:
Think about how you can think out of the box and get them to work for you. If they want to reach me, Kevin-Hall.com is the best way. All my books are out there. Contact information is out there. I do not ask for anything from you. You can just come on in and grab the information. I have marketing tips out there. Please, I welcome you all.

Kevin M. Hall [00:24:54]:
Check it out.

Susan Friedmann [00:24:55]:
Beautiful. And we'll put that in the show notes, Kevin, for you as well. And as you know, I always ask our guests to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?

Kevin M. Hall [00:25:09]:
It's like I said in the beginning, Susan, if you don't ask, the answer is always no. So why not ask? And you will have to get over some discomfort of feeling, oh, I don't like that rejection. I don't know if they're going to say no. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:29]:
Oh, such wise words. So simple. Yeah. Ask. It took me a long time to learn to do that because I was so fearful myself of that rejection. And now I'm like, as you say, if I don't ask, the answer's no, because I'm not giving people an opportunity to say yes. I love it. Excellent.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:51]:
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. This has been such fun. I love your energy. I love your enthusiasm. And that's something else, by the way, that I often talk to authors about is you've gotta be excited and enthusiastic about your subject matter because if you are not, why should anybody else be?

Kevin M. Hall [00:26:13]:
Right. Susan, thank you very much.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:15]:
My pleasure. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together. to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales. You've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. That was my ask. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:52]:
Here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

Here's how to connect with Kevin:

Website

FaceBook

LinkedIn

Instagram