“Books aren’t toothpaste. They don’t sell by advertising” said Manu Joseph after I showed him my book. “Books sell by word of mouth. The most you can expect from book marketing is trial – that people will sample your book.”
That may be disappointing for some of us, but it does ring true. How do you buy books? By looking at ads? Or by hearing someone you know and trust recommend one? I’d guess it is mostly the latter.
So we shouldn’t market our books, then?
That’s not what I am saying. We should definitely market our books, because of the magic word – trial.
Another book marketing whiz – whose blog is a treasure trove of book marketing wisdom (if slightly dated) – is Karan Bajaj. He takes the trial idea further and says that you should send 1000 free copies of your book to people who are important in that sphere. What he is saying is the same thing : generate trial amongst the people who matter.
So please don’t cut corners and publish a book when it’s “good enough”. We know that writing a book is long and arduous, and can be taxing. Often people are just tired of their book projects, and towards the end they just want to “get it done with.”. That’s a mistake.
The first step to a successful book is to write the best book you can write. You can market the hell out of an average book, but it will do nothing except waste money.
Marketing an average book will get you a sales chart which looks like this:
But if you walk into a bookstore, you’ll notice that in addition to new books, many old titles continue to take up shelf space. Books like “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and “God of Small Things” just don’t seem to stop selling.
If your book is good enough to generate great word of mouth, your sales chart can look like this:
So let’s assume you have this fabulous book in your hands (finally). You now want to market it, and are looking to hire A book marketer in India – someone who can help you generate sales.
The book marketing companies in India are quite varied. In fact, few do book marketing only. Many are general services firms which do book marketing amongst other things.
The below list is not curated: we have spoken to a few agencies / authors but not all. Often, our understanding of what they do is an impression – an external one mostly based on third party information, websites etc.
As you can see, most of these businesses are founder-driven, single–person shows. Even if there are teams, the founder has a lead role in most.
This is a small, specialized field, and vanity publishing has given it a big push. There are few set formulas. You’ll notice that most companies don’t look alike, and often their approach and marketing packages vary a lot.
Book Marketing Companies in India (in alphabetical order):
1. Authors Channel – Aruna Naidu
Based out of Bangalore, Authors Channel is headed by Aruna Naidu who has decades of experience in the publishing industry, including marketing experience with Oxford Bookstores. It is a one-stop destination for Authors as they provide services ranging from publishing to distribution, editing to book cover designing, and marketing. Under their Marketing wing they cover the following services:
– Display Marketing
– Social Media Marketing
– Media Mentions
– Literary Festival Coverage
– Corporate Events
2. Booknerds – Rohan and Neha Raj
Booknerds is a literary startup based out of Dehradun (Uttarakhand) founded by husband-wife duo Rohan and Neha Raj with the vision to connect book lovers and authors in India and beyond. They claim to have conducted over 150 meetups and literary events and hosted more than 300 authors. (Their WhatsApp Business Status).
3. Bound India – Tara Khandelwal
Mainly an editorial services company, Bound was also once running courses and retreats. In fact they are mentioned in our blog on creative writing courses in India. They recently seem to have shifted focus to become a content creator.
They also offer book marketing services. Information is limited. Details at: https://www.boundindia.com/services/.
4. Clueless Literary Consultants – Sahil Sharma
A young and enterprising man, Sahil started his career as a book marketer seemingly by accident. His name turned up in conversations with well known authors like Stuti Changle and Aashisha Chakraborty. His core strength seems to be doing Amazon ads very well. His clients include:
Book Deals
Penguin Random House – 9 books (Stuti Changle, Akshat Gupta, Nidhi Upadhyay, Geetanjali Pandit)
Jaico – 2 books (Indrazith Shantharaj, Sunil Gurjar chartmojo)
Manjul – 1 book (Indrazith)
Srishti – 1 book (Megha Ahuja)
Fingerprint – 2 books of Saranya Umakanthan
Audio Deals
Audible Original – 1 (Stuti Changle)
Kuku FM – 5 books (indrazith)
Sahil hopes to make Clueless into a full fledged literary agency soon.
Clueless doesn’t have a website yet, but Sahil’s personal Facebook page is a proxy. You can visit it here. Sahil can also be reached on message.sahil@gmail.com .
5. Creative Circle – Chitra Padmana and Niladri Mitra
This agency seems to dabble in many things writing including:
· Editing
Lee Nolan, a Canadian born Brit who lives in Mumbai has used their services for his recent book “A Crate of Rags and Bones”. He says “They are based somewhere near Kolkata. I’ve had no personal meetings yet, but many hours of zoom meetings.” He adds “I am pretty happy. It’s been very pleasant working with them.”
Website: https://thecreativecircleofficial.com/
6. Half Baked Beans / better Books – Chetan Soni
Half Baked Beans (HBB) started out as a book publishing company and has evolved over time. It now has a division that also does book marketing called “Better Books” (BB).
They offer services in many areas of book marketing including:
Influencer Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Bookstagrammer Associations
Video marketing
Beta reading and reviews
Email marketing
7. Keemiya Creative – Namrata
Keemiya Creatives was founded in 2018 by Namrata, a freelancing writer, and editor. Namrata is very knowledgeable about publishing in India, and many of the very popular posts in this blog are written by her.
The idea behind Keemiya Creatives is to make publishing accessible to writers and to make great books reach readers. They offer both pre-publishing and post-publishing support to writers that includes editing, beta-reading and online book-marketing. Their services include Amazon marketing and customized social media marketing. They offer offline marketing only in select cities. You can write to them at contact@keemiyacreatives.com to know more.
8. Marketmybook – Lipika Bhushan
Lipika Bhushan has built a good reputation over the years. The company has an impressive website and a list of author-clients which seems very convincing. The services they mention include:
Display Advertising
Content Management
Social Media Marketing
Video Marketing
Reputation Management
PR & Publicity
9. Siyahi – Mita Kapur
Based in jaipur, Siyahi is a well respected Literary agency. In 2022 they announced a separate vertical of book marketing services. They are reputed to work closely with their authors and coach them on how to market their work.
Siyahi’s Digital Marketing vertical is called The Extra Edge. Their write-up goes:
“We know how demanding the process of writing a book can be – the hours you spend writing, rewriting and refining your work. We also understand that marketing a book is tough, what with the ever diminishing shelf space and stiff competition. The Extra Edge vertical aims to help authors in marketing their books and reaching out to more people through carefully crafted and meticulously implemented plans. It is your one-stop shop for digital marketing, branding and positioning. We’ve been industry leaders and trendsetters for over 15 years, and we’re now hoping to bring all this experience and expertise to help you.
We tailor-make plans to suit your books, and to help them reach the world. We have the expertise to work across all major digital platforms to create different kinds of media and content. Our approach to marketing isn’t just trends and gimmicks, but about creating socio-culturally sensitive and time appropriate communication, driven by audience research, and industry standards. We believe that every book and every author’s vision for their book is different and we’re happy to make a plan that works for you.”
10. Writersmelon – Priyanka Purkayastha
Writers Melon started life as a place where one could get bloggers to write good reviews. It has now grown, and they have a book review program which resembles www.Booksirens.com from the US.
They also do other things, and their services include:
- Book Reviews
- Content Creation
- Social Media Campaigns
This list of professional book marketers should help you push your book. If you know of other professionals who do such work, please share their information in this form.
We’re working on a series of other book marketing service providers for our future blog posts. These include:
1. Bookstagrammers
2. Book bloggers
3. Booktubers
4. Book PR agencies
The above blogs will be published shortly. If you know people who do any of these, please fill out this form.
If you have any personal experience with any of the book marketing companies from India listed above, please do add it in the comments below. Happy Marketing!!
