How do you advertise a novel?

[Panpan]

Most likely novelists aren't artists. I've seen threads on here asking a similar question but pertaining to comics, so they post their art on Instagram, Facebook, etc.

But how do you do this for novels when there isn't art to share?

I commissioned my cover and I have a few icons being commissioned right now. This was shared on my Deviantart page which got a few saves. Obviously I can't afford to commission my artist every week to make a whole new cover just for a few Insta likes.

Are there certain groups on Reddit you share your novel links? Facebook isn't an option for me because I'm keeping my identity anonymous due to the nature of my novel (BL).

Fox Fire | Tapas

[Zorianna]

The best method I've found for promoting your novel is commenting in the forum on different posts for promotions. That's what I've been doing so far, and the turn out isn't too bad. And you don't always need fancy art to make your story great, you could try taking one of your favorite quotes or one at a pivotal moment in the story and making it into a small piece to use for promotion. The other benefit to commenting on posts here is you might be able to find an artist that you like and can work with them to do promotional art. Hope it helps. I also really love your novel so far, it has a really unique take on the idea of the southern lights and hell.

[Zaboem]

Publicity stunt! Just make sure you have your series name in big letters on your t-shirt as you are being arrested. The newspaper photographer may only get one shot.

I kid! I kid.

Seriously though, seek out some publicity. Your local newspaper, your morning AM radio show, and a podcast are all waiting to hear from you. They are desperate for content, and interviewing a new novelist is an opportunity for them. As a former podcast show host, I would have loved it if a new novelist were reaching out to me for a segment.

[Zorianna]

I'm actually really curious about that too. Do you still publish weekly, or do you have a novel mostly written before you start reaching out to those places? And if you're posting weekly, where do you post it, still here?

[MattRAuthor]

Twitter can sometimes be really good. They have a pretty decent writing community on there. It doesn't always guarantee readers, but you can make some pretty good writer friends on there. You can post the link to your series on your twitter and people might read it.
As for instagram, I don't use it, but I know some people put their book quotes on a pretty background and post that as self promotion.
I don't use reddit either, but I know there are writing groups there, I just don't know much about them

[BlunderingAlbatross]

But how do you do this for novels when there isn't art to share?

There is art to share, though Where a comic would post panels or pages, a novel can post extracts of paragraphs and things like that, tantalising little snippets to get a potential reader wondering about the context and wanting to go in and have a look.

Remember: writing as an art.

[Panpan]

My novel has been up for only 3 weeks and has 1.8k views and 91 subs with comments. I'm loving the turn out so far considering it's my first upload. I now have 18 chapters and few M chapters. I try to publish twice a week when it seems busy.

[foxnflames]

I post on Twitter, isn’t not help much, but I do 🤷🏽‍♀️. I also post in the forums and that helped me get my first 50. Maybe create some topics that’ll get more people to see your work, not link dumping, but engaging posts so people can get to know your story better. Frequent updates help you stay on popular, fresh, and trending so more people will see your story.