How to Market a Fantasy Novel: The 2 Key Phases Detailed
Bella Rose Emmorey
book editor, rogue behaviorist, digital marketer, writer, brand builder, plant aunt, and cheese enthusiast.
Learning how to market a fantasy novel involves more than just a single skill. It’s not like you can throw a book mockup image on your instagram day in and day out and expect that to work.
Spoiler: it doesn't.
That doesn’t mean you can never use that means of book promotion. It just means that you have to understand the holistic nature of marketing a fantasy novel. As someone who’s been in the marketing world for a decade—half of which I spent helping authors market their books—I’ve got more insight than the same old advice repeated ad nauseam online.
For learning how to market a fantasy book, you’ll have to learn about the two phases.
But first, a note on genre and reader expectations.
What Readers Look for in a New Fantasy Read
You can’t go into marketing a fantasy book—or anything, really—without understanding your customer. What do they want? What are they looking for?
For one, they want a well-written fantasy book. So forget any other marketing tactic if you don’t know $ how to write a fantasy novel$ well.
Fantasy readers typically have elements they like, and they will seek these things out when searching for a new book.
Take dragons, for example. Some readers want more dragons. They’ll read any and all books containing them. Others are sick of dragons.
Now we can apply that very narrow idea to other elements common in fantasy novels. Because "fantasy" is too broad for a reader to solely rely on. Urban fantasy readers, for example, may not want an epic fantasy set in its own world, and vice versa.
Think about what elements your book contains, because readers seek those out specifically. They look for specifics like:
These are also the types of keywords readers search for when on book-buying sites like Amazon.
We’ll cover more about using keywords and categories effectively to market your fantasy book below.
For now, make a list of the various elements in your fantasy book, like:
- The type of world it takes place in
- The level of magic use
- The presence of animals/creatures
- The types of fantasy creatures (vampires, shifters vs witches vs natural abilities)
- Subgenres (more on this later)
Once you have a strong understanding of the types of readers you’ll attract, it’s time to focus on learning how to market a fantasy novel through the two phases.
Phase 1: Initial Marketing for a Fantasy Novel
The method you use to launch your book makes a huge difference. This makes your book discoverable.
It’s the process that kick starts your efforts in Phase 2. Without these, it’ll be extremely difficult to market a fantasy novel.
Book Cover
People judge books by their covers. It’s a thing. Believe it and your life will be that much easier.
You need a good one. Not only do you need a good one, but you need one that will fit your subgenre and even categories. These differ greatly, even if the book is "fantasy". Just take a look at these examples of various fantasy novel covers:
If you’re $ self-publishing$ , hire a good artist who knows what they’re doing. Supply them with example covers from within your subgenre (based on the list of elements above). It doesn’t have to look the same, but readers of those books should want to read your book based on the elements.
You can $ make your own book cover$ , but make sure you’re savvy in the design space and know how to optimize it for your reader.
Your cover is a huge piece of marketing. Readers love a great cover, are proud to show it off, and are more likely to take pictures and share it.
Book Description
If your description online sucks, readers won’t buy it. This is your blurb, your chance to show them what they’ll get inside the book. Here is where readers decide if the book has the elements they’re looking for.
Your book description should create intrigue, showcase elements your reader will get, set the tone, and introduce characters and their influence on the plot.
Take this great example from V.E. Schwab’s $ The Fragile Threads of Power$ (italicized here for easier reading):
Once there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London.
After a desperate attempt to prevent corruption and ruin in the four Londons, there are only three:
● Grey London, thriving but barely able to remember its magical heritage
● Red London, ruled lately by the Maresh family, flourishing and powerful
● White London, left to brutality and decay
Now the worlds are going to collide anew―brought to a dangerous precipice by the discoveries of three remarkable magicians.
There's Kosika, the child queen of White London, who has nourished her city on blood and dreams―and whose growing devotion to both is leading her down a dangerous path.
Then there's Delilah Bard, born a thief in Grey London, who crossed the worlds to become a legend far from there. She's an infamous magician, a devious heroine, and a risk-taking rogue, all rolled into one unforgettable package. Having disappeared to seek new adventure, an old favor now calls Lila back to a dangerous port, to join some old friends who need more help than they realize.
Last there is Tes, a young runaway with an unusual and powerful ability, hiding out in Red London while trying to stay out of the limelight.
Tes is the only one who can keep all the worlds from unraveling―if she manages to stay alive first.
This example does multiple things:
- Introduces setting - London
- Subgenre - portal fantasy
- POV type - multiple perspective
- Introduces characters and their impact on plot
- Sets the tone - dark, dangerous, chaos
Think hard about how you can seamlessly convey these elements in an intriguing book description.
Categories, Keywords, Subgenres
These are exactly as they sound; the categories and keywords that will describe your book when you publish it on the backend. Of course, more important for self-publishers, as traditionally published authors have people who handle this.
The categories and $ subgenres$ will make your book searchable to the right people. In Amazon’s filtering system, they appear like this:
Ensuring your book is in the correct one is vital—not the one you want, the one your book best fits in. Choose wisely.
Book Title & Tropes
The title is what you choose it to be, but you can also include a subgenre or trope in the title itself to aid in searchability.
This is more common in $ romantasy$ because of the various $ romance tropes$ authors use, and readers love to search by. Keep in mind that this will make your title look longer. You may or may not like how it appears online.
Here’s an example:
Book Launch (Reviews, Sales)
Put the effort in to have a strong book launch. While these tactics will make your book discoverable, what will make people click and be curious enough to buy is the reviews.
Reviews can be gained naturally, but having at least some listed from the beginning will make it much easier for readers to risk spending their money. Growing a launch team is a lengthy process, but here’s a great resource for learning the process of $ setting up a pre-order campaign$ that can help with the launch.
Phase 2: Ongoing Marketing for a Fantasy Novel
Now it’s time for the "evergreen" book promotion strategies. These are what you’ll do over time to continue sending people to your book page to buy.
Do you have to do all of these all the time? No. That would be overkill. The key is to find a method you both enjoy and works well. You may have to try a few before discovering that.
Social Promotions
Most people think about this when learning how to market a fantasy novel. They want to know $ what to post on Instagram$ , which TikTok strategy will make them money, and how they can grow their following.
Social promotion tactics all depend on the platform, really.
What you want to remember, though, is that constantly posting a picture of your fantasy novel with a "Get it now on Amazon!" will never work as a consistent book promotion method.
Instead, think about marketing like this: It’s not about the book, it’s about the makeup of the book.
Nobody cares that your book is on sale if they don’t know whether or not they’d enjoy it. The cover can help to a degree, but you want to be posting about the content within the book.
This is where those elements you listed above will come in handy.
To learn how to market a fantasy book, learn to separate content by elements of fiction, like:
- Setting
- Characters
- Themes
- Tone
- Animals/Creatures
- POV
- Process
Craft content around each of these to promote it on your socials. Create a reel/TikTok that features imagery of the world (setting). Create a meme that depicts the personality of a main character (characters). Post quotes that contemplate the meaning of something explored in your story (themes). Share updates about what you’re writing and how it’s going (process).
Vary all of these and post consistently. That doesn’t mean daily. At least every few days, and try not to go more than 5 days without posting to please the Algorithm gods.
$ Sabaa Tahir$ is great at promoting herself as an author, and sharing her books without being pushy.
Book Reviewers
Contact accounts and websites who promote books in the fantasy genres. A big part of learning how to market a fantasy book is about networking with the right promoters.
This doesn’t mean spam their instagram until you get an answer. Engage with their content, reach out through their preferred means (check their bio) and see if they’re interested.
If you can put together "promotional boxes" that include the book and some swag to send, that offer gets more interest than a simple DM. They’ll likely share the unboxing on their Insta stories, for example.
Ads
Facebook ads tend to work well for the fantasy genre. You can join a fantasy author group and even post a question asking which platform works well for your specific type of fantasy.
For example, romantasy novels tend to do well with Amazon ads due to the ability to show them on Kindles, a device more highly used by those who read romance and steamy books. But you can create ads on any platform that allows you to sponsor a post.
A great way to go about this is to review the analytics of your social posts (if you market this way) and see which one got popular and coincided with book sales. Boost that post instead of creating a specific ad for it.
TikTok is a great place for this strategy specifically.
Otherwise, keep an eye on fantasy book ads that seem to do well. These usually contain a mood-driven background image with a quote from the book, its cover, and/or a screenshot of a review.
You can even use negative reviews to help promote your book if you’re clever.
Newsletter
Get people to sign up for your email newsletter. If you want to learn how to market a fantasy novel, it’s important to understand owning your contacts. You don’t own your followers. You do own the contacts in your email list.
Which means if the powers-thatat-be ever decide to mess with social platforms, you still have a way to contact people interested in you and your book.
Make sure to offer something specific, instead of just telling people to "sign up for your email list". This could be a promotion discount code, a sneak peek chapter, or even the ability to buy fan-art or other exclusive offers for those on the list. These freebies are known as "reader magnets," and can range from access to an exclusive community to a free novella not available elsewhere.
You’ll ask for their name and email in exchange for sending them this goodie, which you can do through various email software (I like $ Flodesk$ ).
Connect with them consistently. Give updates on books, and make them feel special and "in the know" with you as an author.
Free Days / Amazon Promotions
You have the ability to adjust the pricing on your book, and create promotions, including free days on Amazon.
Now, "free days" doesn’t sound much like a fantasy book promotion method, but hear me out.
When you create a free day, your book shows up in a list that a lot of readers navigate for new reads. It’s often how they discover new authors without the risk of losing money on something they don’t enjoy.
Set these up regularly, and make sure your email list knows about them first, though you can share on all your channels.
Giveaways
Book giveaways are great because if you do it well, you’ll be able to collect and keep all the email addresses. These are also great to use as ads because you’ll build your list of people actually interested in your book. If they don’t win, they may be open to buying your book through an email.
Write More Books (Series)
The more books you can write, the more readers can find you. Book series are vital to marketing for fantasy authors, as these readers love series.
It also means more entry points for readers to discover you. Your books will show up under "readers also bought" sections as well as comparisons for authors like you. It all has to do with building a presence with the book-seller algorithms.
The more categories and subgenres chosen for various books of yours, the more your author profile will grow in the search engines of these sites.
Keep writing! Keep publishing! Keep promoting. The most important part about learning how to market a fantasy novel—and anything, for that matter—is to be consistent. The effort builds over time.
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