Many indie authors are surprised to realize how much of the job is marketing. Once your book is written and out, you have to spend so much time getting people to see it. It can feel overwhelming, especially if you don’t know where to start or what marketing tools for indie authors to use to measure your impact.
Marketing is a slow and steady game. While we’re all hoping for a quick, viral success, it’s important not to make that your marketing plan, and still utilize marketing tools to best capitalize on that success. These tools will help you set your path to success and see where best to spend your efforts.
I have over a decade of marketing experience across industries, and I like to help other indie authors as I learn to apply it to my work. Here are some tools, ranging from easiest to most complicated, to help you get the most from your efforts.
Overview of Marketing Tools For Indie Authors:
Free social media scheduling tools
What are social media schedulers?
Social media schedulers have been around for a long time. While there are plenty of paid ones that will let you do all of your websites in one place, those are rarely in the budget for indie authors just starting out. Luckily, there are free options for almost every site these days!
How to use them
Facebook and Instagram have their own built-in scheduling options in each app, but Meta’s Business Suite Scheduler (mobile or desktop) will let you do both at once, duplicate posts, and more. You can schedule up to 30 days in advance, which is helpful for anyone who batch creates content.
TikTok also has scheduling options. While you can do it in the app, you can also do it from your web browser, which is good for anyone who creates videos on their computer. The downside of this version over a third-party program is that you can only schedule one post. However, this can be helpful if you don’t post frequently, or if you’re going to be away from your phone at your normal peak posting time.
YouTube will let you schedule videos and shorts up to 30 days in advance. Threads also launched scheduling options in 2025. X (formerly Twitter) has scheduling options. And Tumblr lets you schedule content practically infinitely.
Universal book links
What are universal book links?
We’re all citizens of the internet, but there still have to be different marketplaces for different countries. If all of your links are only for your country, you could miss sales for people who don’t want to go through the hassle of looking you up in the right marketplace. Enter Universal links.
Universal links automatically change based on a user’s location, giving them the right marketplace. They are also a good way to show all the places your book is available if it isn’t exclusive to one website.
How to use them
Several websites offer this feature—BookFunnel (paid), Draft2Digital/Books2Read (free) and GeniusLink (paid). Follow the instructions for the site of your choice and use this in your promotions, link in bio and more.
My website’s link page includes an American Amazon link so I can use my Amazon Attribute link, and a universal link for everyone else.
Amazon Attribute Links (and similar tools)
What are attribute links?
Attribute links, sometimes also called UTM tags or referral links, help you figure out where traffic is coming from, and if it’s converting to sales. Amazon is currently beta testing its version of this, called Amazon Attribution, through its Amazon Ads platform, however this tool is completely free. By using these specially created links in your marketing, ads, “link in bio” tools, and more you can see which of those links is getting the most clicks, and how many of those clicks are converting to sales and page reads.
Note: This is a new feature and not always the most accurate, but it can still give you a good idea of what’s working for sales and not. Personally, the page reads have never reported accurately for me.
If you have a website where you’re using Google Analytics, you can even make your own with a UTM tool.
How to use them
Sign up for their service, and create a new “campaign” for each type of link and follow the steps. Create a new add group for individual links so you can see the impact between them. Here is an example of how I create a new one for each of my blog posts.
Over time it will give you an idea of which places are getting
SEO Blogging and optimization on your website
What is SEO blogging?
Okay, I suppose I should start with: Get a website. While that part isn’t free, blogging on it and optimizing it is! People will inevitably search you out on the search engine of their choice, you might as well show up for them, right? Even better: showing up for what you aspire to be known for, instead of just your name. Search engine optimization (SEO) blogging and optimizing on your website will help make that happen. By making your website both appealing to our search engine overlords and using keywords to help people find you for things you aspire to be known for, you’ll show up in more searches.
How to do it
Lucky for you, I have a whole post on SEO For Indie Romance Authors, complete with tools, tips for optimization and blog posting, and blog post ideas!
Google Analytics and Google Search Console
What is Google Analytics and Google Search Console?
These marketing tools are harder to set up and use, but they’re also free. For people who love data, figuring out what people are engaging with on their website, what searches you’re showing up for and where, these tools are incredibly helpful, however, they’re a bit more complicated to set up and use. You can hire someone to set them up, but it’s not impossible to do it yourself, especially if you’re familiar with using website plug-ins.
You can also get Google Analytics training for free by Google (as well as other tools), and it’s such a universally used tool, there are a lot of resources on how to use it and set it up the way you want. While you might want to utilize someone with more knowledge to set up specific things, like sales conversion data if you are selling on your website, you can set up the basics yourself.
Examples of custom metrics I set up for my Google Analytics include seeing what outbound links people are clicking to leave my website. This helps me see which links on which pages and blog posts are getting clicked, letting me know which pages are doing the best and what other books I am mentioning are popular.
How to use them
You can set it up by pasting the GA code into your website, or you can use a plug in that will automatically connect them. Once you’ve got your GA set up, you can also set up Google Search Console to help you see what you’re showing up in searches for, and where those are ranking on Google.
Both of these tools can help you figure out how to tailor your website content to show up the way you want and rank higher, how people are using (or not) your website, and what content is doing well. This is one of the most powerful marketing tools for indie authors.
There are built in analytics tools on a lot of website providers or plug ins for them, but Google Analytics and Google Search Console are going to be the most comprehensive.
Final Notes
Marketing can be overwhelming, especially when it doesn’t seem like it’s working right away or going slowly. Do what’s sustainable for you, don’t try to do everything all at once. Consistency is key and will pay off over time! Utilize these free marketing tools for indie authors to make the most impact with the least effort and money.
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