Use Collaboration to Market Your Novels Without Social Media

This is the second in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media.

Collaboration:

I loved this module in the Writing Off Social—the Course Lite because I fully believe this is one of the best ways for fiction authors to promote their brands and their books.

For my marketing, collaboration takes several forms.

1) Group promos

I use BookFunnel (other authors use StoryOrigin) to join group author promos set up by other authors. Each promo is usually a specific genre, and there are two types of promos: newsletter promos and sales promos. 

All participating authors share the link to the promo’s landing page, which has every author’s book covers that readers can click on.

Newsletter promos feature Funnel Books. Sales promos feature books for sale whether on Amazon, on direct websites, or other distributors.

Promos usually only last a short amount of time, so I can’t give links to them. Instead, I’ll post screenshot images.

Here’s a screenshot of a newsletter promo:

Here’s a screenshot of a sales promo:

There are also group promos not done through BookFunnel, but arranged independently, such as Stuff Your Kindle days. Authors usually connect in a Facebook group. They all agree to make the book free or 99 cents for one day, and all books are listed on a central web page that everyone shares on the free day. The web page looks similar to the BookFunnel promo pages above.

2) Newsletter Swaps, also called Author Swaps

A newsletter swap is a cross-promotion between two or more authors, where each author agrees to feature the other’s book in their email newsletter. It’s a simple and effective way to reach new readers who already enjoy books in a similar genre.

This is a marketing tactic common for non-fiction authors, too. I do newsletter swaps through BookFunnel and occasionally I’ll personally ask a friend for a swap.

On BookFunnel, you can see slots authors have to showcase other books, and you pick a date. The author will indicate if they want a newsletter swap or a sales swap or either. Newsletter swaps will trade links to reader magnets, while sales swaps will trade links to a universal sales page with links to buy the book.

I’m assuming StoryOrigin and AuthorXP have the same thing, but BookFunnel has videos and articles on how to do Author Swaps on their website.

I’ll also add that guest blogging or participating in an interview on someone else’s blog can be just like newsletter swaps, but it also depends on the amount of traffic on an author’s blog. If their blog gets fewer visitors than they have on their newsletter list, the newsletter swap would be a better bet.

Also, guest blogging is more work than a newsletter swap, but it could also potentially interest the reader more as they read your blog post or interview.

3) Co-writing

This year will be the first time I try co-writing with some author friends.

I am co-writing a clean romantasy with my friend Jonathan Shuerger. He writes dark fantasy while I write historical romance with some supernatural elements (under my Camille Elliot pen name), so we are both branching out into a new-ish genre that still has ties to our regular genres.

I am also co-writing a Christian cozy mystery series with Alana Terry, who writes Christian suspense, while I write Christian romantic suspense (under my Camy Tang name). The cozy mystery genre is a little bit of departure for both of us but not wildly different from our romantic suspense genres, plus I wrote a few cozy mysteries for Guideposts many years ago.

I hadn’t wanted to co-author a book before, but somehow doing a co-authored book in a genre different from my normal genres seemed appealing. It hadn’t occurred to me to even try co-authoring in a different genre, so I’m mentioning it in case you want to also consider this.

I’d be cautious about who you choose to co-author with, since working together can cause friction between certain personality types. I know that for me, I treat it like I’m writing for a publisher—actually, I treat it the same way as when I was writing for Guideposts. My co-author is my partner, but I view them as a business associate like I viewed my Guideposts editors. We collaborate on the project and I’m sure to voice my opinions, but I keep a professional mindset as if I’m working for the other person.

4) Multi-author box sets

I fully admit I wouldn’t have gotten invited to multi-author box sets if I hadn’t been active on the Christian Indie Author Facebook group (not all social media is bad), but I’m sure other authors can find people to partner with on other networks like .social or Discord.

Basically, 10-12 authors agree to each write a brand-new novella or novel for inclusion in a digital anthology. They all agree on the title, cover, and genre of the anthology, and then it goes up on preorder anywhere from 4-12 months beforehand. They deliver their manuscripts to the group formatter by a certain due date. During preorder, they promote the anthology to their newsletters. After the release date, they often pool their money to take out some ads—Amazon ads and also newsletter ads like Ereader News Today, Fussy Librarian, or BookBub Featured Deal (if they can get accepted).

I’ve been in several anthologies, and it’s always great cross-promotion with other authors. We usually have the anthology in Kindle Unlimited for one cycle (90 days) and the royalties are split evenly. We always get a nice little bit of money from that. Afterwards, the anthology is disbanded and we can all release our novels/novellas individually. I feel like I get to launch my book twice and get a little extra royalties from it than I would have if I had simply released it myself.

5) Giveaways

I primarily use BookSweeps, which runs genre-specific giveaways for authors. Booksweeps does all the promo and advertising for the giveaway, but authors also share the giveaway with their newsletters. People who enter can opt in to the newsletters of other authors in the giveaway in exchange for a Funnel Book.

Other authors have put together their own giveaways, and BookSweeps even just added the ability to make your own giveaway using their website software.

Thomas Umstattd, Jr. did a podcast episode about this: How to Grow Your Email List Fast With Giveaways

6) Street Teams

A Street Team is a group of awesome readers who help an author get the word out about a new book. During a launch, they might post about the book on social media, share fun graphics or quotes, leave reviews, or just tell their friends about it. It’s a great way to support an author they love, and every little bit of buzz helps the book reach more readers.

Essentially, you as the author are borrowing your Street Team’s audiences to promote your book. 

I used to run a Street Team a long time ago, but it was mostly filled with people who just wanted a free copy of my book, and I didn’t get that many reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. So the few people who did review were rockstars, but everyone who didn’t review made me a bit salty about the whole thing, and I shut it down.

Then I listened to a talk by Kara Swanson at the 2025 Novel Marketing Conference about Street Teams. She doesn’t automatically give all her Street Team members a copy of the book. I talked to Kara after the talk to ask what she’d suggest I do with a small Street Team.

She says she does a lot of giveaways to her Street Team to keep excitement up and motivate them to share with others about the book. Each newsletter has a bonus or exclusive post about her or the book, so her Street Team feels like they have the inside scoop on the author.

I decided to try doing a Street Team for my upcoming multi-author Christian suspense anthology, Danger in the Shadows. I gave my newsletter a link to a page on my website with information about my Street Team and had them subscribe to a special Street Team newsletter. I also prepared a Street Team folder in my Google Drive with things like social media graphics/memes, the cover of the book, publication information, author bios, etc.

I intend to email the Street Team once a week for about 8 weeks (4 weeks before launch and 4 weeks after). I have lots of giveaways planned, including a grand prize drawing for an early release paperback copy of my book in the anthology, Year of the Dog. People can get more entries into the drawing by buying the book, posting a review, posting on social media (if they’re active on it), or doing anything to share about the book to others.

My Street Team is small, but I’ll see how things go.

And that’s what I’ve been doing in terms of collaboration to market my novels without social media. I realize I didn’t mention podcasting, but I talk about it in the “Other Platforms” segment of this blog series.