Marketing your book

Marketing © Palgrave Macmillan

To reach the greatest number and widest range of readers, we apply an effective mix of marketing and promotion for your book. We also encourage you to spread the word about your book! 

You should start thinking about marketing your book at the same time that you formulate your ideas for the book’s content. As you consider who the book’s audience is, also consider how to let that audience know about the book.

Read on to get tips and tools that help you maximize the visibility of your publication.

What we do and how you can help

Book homepage

All books will have a home page on our content platform link.springer.com, which offers free sample pages to all readers and full text content to the customers of the respective eBook collection.

Via their library, millions of users get access to and can read or download your book. Each book’s content is fully searchable by keywords and hyper-linked with other online publications.

Feature the link to your book’s homepage on Palgrave.com in your email signature, on your own website, in presentations, in your blog, contribution to a forum or anywhere you find opportunities to talk about your work.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Did you know that over 60% of Palgrave.com visitors come from search engines? This shows the impact of search engine optimization! 

To make sure your book's homepage appears at the top of the results list of an appropriate keyword search, we constantly update and optimize Palgrave's product pages. 

Read here how you can contribute to your book's success! 

By following a few tips when creating your book’s title, its back cover description and unique selling points, you can make sure that potential readers are able to find your finished book. 

Email alerts

To stay up-to-date, many of our readers and library customers have registered for subject-specific emails.

In addition to customized information such as highlighted products of our eBook collections, the newsletters feature discount offers, award news or conference announcements.

Book partners (Amazon, Google and others)

  • Readers can get information about your book and place orders even before it is published.
  • Booksellers receive all relevant data about your book weeks in advance of publication.

This ensures an enormous visibility of your book that becomes even higher once the book is published. Every newly published Palgrave book has electronic sample pages available – not only through SpringerLink but also through Google Books or Amazon’s Look Inside feature.

Book reviews

We proactively promote new book titles to book review editors sending them their own dedicated newsletter in their chosen subject area(s). A very convenient book review process allows reviewers to have immediate online access to the book they would like to review, as well as enabling them to conveniently upload their review to Palgrave.com after six months.

Conferences

Palgrave attends important industry exhibitions and (virtual) conferences each year, presenting books and journals in print and online formats, along with other tools and services for readers and authors. While we have a selection of recent books on display, we promote even more books in our conference-specific catalogs and on dedicated websites, with special discounts for conference participants.

Conferences are often promoted and supported by social media activities using our various accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other communities.

Social Media

To effectively spread the news about your research, it will be important to become an active and trusted member of the online communities that may be influential in helping to promote your publications. 

Palgrave maintains many social media accounts that are subject-specific and interest group focused, allowing us to connect with new and existing audiences. To keep them informed and engaged, we promote conferences and run special campaigns both on a discipline and product level, e.g. book raffles, photo contests and product/content highlights, often in connection with a specific event or theme. Mention the Palgrave accounts in your own posts so we can further share your message. 

Social media is ideal for spreading the word about new publications.

They can be beneficial to authors and editors in a variety of ways:

  • By connecting you with like-minded people and communities
  • By promoting you, your organization, your books, chapters or articles
  • They are helping you shape your reputation.
  • Personal websites, social media, forums and blogs have allowed for wider discovery of your content (by search engines such as Google). 
  • When mentioning your book on social media, be sure to include the book's title and either its ISBN, its DOI or a link to your book on Palgrave.com or on our content platform link.springer.com.

Book distribution

You can be confident that we will do our best to ensure that your book reaches the greatest number and widest range of readers possible. Your readers, in turn, have the freedom to choose in whichever medium they would like to read your publication.can provide eBooks in a variety of formats including PDF, HTML and as an ePub file. Files for each eBook version can be quickly disseminated to our distribution partners in the format that they have specified.

Current range of distribution channels:

  • SpringerLink – with millions of downloads per year.
  • Amazon – our close business relationship with Amazon provides a valuable, direct route to market for Palgrave authors and ensures that almost all books can be made available via the Amazon Kindle.
  • eBook reading devices – Palgrave eBooks can be accessed and read on a number of eReaders and platforms including Sony Reader™, Apple iPad® and Barnes and Noble’s Nook® platform to name but a few.
  • Google Books – Thousands of Palgrave books have been included in Google Books. New publications follow as soon as the files are ready. Google Books allows users to browse a part of the book content prior to making a decision to purchase.

The Author Affiliate Program

Join the affiliate program and earn a commission. Read more here.

Author FAQ

I’d quite like a book launch – is this possible?

If you would like to have books available for purchase at your event, books can be sold to you to sell at the event. If you wish to order books, you can contact our customer service department on customerservice@springernature.com who will be able to advise you of the terms and conditions and assist you in placing an order. We would recommend waiting 6-8 weeks after the publication of your book before holding a launch.

How do I get hold of copies of my book?

You should have received an advance copy and some further complimentary copies as per your contract, but you can also buy more copies with your author discount – just email customerservice@springernature.com and they will be happy to help!

If you have not received your complimentary copies, or are unsure when to expect them, please contact your editor.

A journal/reviewer has contacted me requesting a review copy of my book.

Please contact your editor if journal editors or reviewers get in touch.

Some of the information about me is incorrect on the website – how do I fix this?

Please contact your editor with the correct information and we will be able to correct this as swiftly as possible.

How do I submit my book for a prize?

If you would like copy(ies) of your book sent in consideration for a prize, or you represent a prize committee interested in reviewing a Palgrave Macmillan title, please visit our Prize Portal.

How can I best optimize my time at a conference?

Network, Network, Network – you’ll be doing this anyway but why not mention your book to colleagues or hand out a couple of flyers?
If you are a Tweeter check if there is a conference hashtag and make sure you use before, during, and after the conference. Share your experiences at the conference, tweet at other colleagues and speakers attending, as well as the Palgrave and Springer Nature Twitter handles.

What are some things to keep in mind as I embark on utilizing social media?

Before you dive in to social media be sure to ask yourself a few questions:

  • Do you have the time? It’s an ongoing commitment. You can’t build an effective following if you never post or Tweet. An abandoned profile is worse than no profile at all and will reflect badly on both you and your book. Set aside a bit of time each day where you can tweet one or two things, interact with people who have tweeted you, and find accounts to follow that interest you.
  • Are you willing to write content? Engage people first with your insight and convince them of your expertise before you try and sell them a book.
  • Will you be able to reach the right people? Before you set up a profile purely for the purposes of selling your book, take a look around. Are colleagues in your research area in these communities? Do relevant university departments or organizations have profiles? Interact with them and re-tweet some of the things they have to say.

What are some self-promotion techniques I can use to help promote my book?