How to promote a nonfiction book on LinkedIn

Is LinkedIn right for your book?

Ask where your reader spends working hours. If your book is for executives, managers, founders, advisors or professionals in a field, many of them are on LinkedIn, and they read posts by people they know or respect. If your book is a memoir for a general reader, LinkedIn is usually a supporting channel, useful mainly for reaching your own network.

Your network is the first audience either way. Scribe Media's launch checklist tells authors building a launch team to look through every contact in their phone, and on LinkedIn: classmates, colleagues and clients. The same checklist suggests asking your core supporters to write LinkedIn articles on launch day.

LinkedIn can grow with the book. Patti Temple's story reports a 4x+ LinkedIn following after the book, and Cliff Lerner's reports 10/week LinkedIn requests to advise or join boards. Each is one author's result, not a typical one.

Profile changes to make first

People who see a post about your book click your name next. Fix the profile before you post.

• Headline. Add the book after your role, for example "Operations consultant. Author of [Title]." Keep the role first: that is what people search for.
• Featured section. LinkedIn's Featured section FAQ says you can feature posts you authored, articles you published on LinkedIn, and external media, documents and links. Put the book's page (your site or the retailer) first, then your launch post or a sample chapter as a document. New items show first by default, and LinkedIn's how-to page says you need at least two items to reorder them.
• Publications. LinkedIn's page on adding profile sections lists Publications under Additional. Fill it in with a link to the book.
• About. One paragraph on who you help and how, then one sentence on what the book covers and who it is for.

Two limits worth knowing: the FAQ says only logged-in LinkedIn members can see your Featured section, and its content is not discoverable through search. So the book also needs a page outside LinkedIn, and a link to it in your Contact info.

A posting plan, before and after launch

LinkedIn's posting help page says posts can be up to 3,000 characters, can be saved as drafts and can be scheduled. Longer pieces go in articles, which LinkedIn limits to 125,000 characters. That means you can write launch week's posts ahead and schedule them.

The rhythm is your choice. LinkedIn does not publish a recommended number of posts. Its posting page says it may limit how many posts a member can make in a period, and may limit the visibility of excessive posting that suggests inauthentic activity or automation. Post when you have something worth reading, at a pace you can keep for three months.

Personal messages still beat posts. A short note to someone you have worked with does more than a post they may never see. Send them one at a time, only to people who will recognize your name.

A LinkedIn newsletter

A newsletter is a series of LinkedIn articles that members can subscribe to. LinkedIn's access criteria page says all members can create one (Pages must meet extra criteria). The details, from LinkedIn's page on managing a newsletter and its newsletter overview:

• The first edition invites your network. By default, your connections and followers are invited by notification to subscribe once the first article is published.
• Every edition notifies subscribers by push, in-app and email notification.
• Limits. Authors can run up to five newsletters at a time, and must wait two weeks after creating or deleting one before creating another.
• A public page. Each newsletter gets a page that anyone can view without logging in, though subscribing requires a LinkedIn account.

Name the newsletter after the problem your book solves, not the book, so it can outlive launch. Because that first invitation goes out once, publish the first edition when you have two or three more ready, a few weeks before launch. A LinkedIn newsletter does not replace your own email list: LinkedIn owns the subscriber relationship, so keep a sign-up link for your own list in each edition. The launch email plan covers that list.

Events and live sessions

A LinkedIn Event gives an online talk or an in-person launch a page, a guest list and reminders. From LinkedIn's events FAQ and event tips:

• Events are online or in person, using LinkedIn Live or an external event link. Type and format cannot be changed after posting, and you cannot save a draft.
• You can invite only first-degree connections, up to 1,000 invitations a week across all your events. Attendees can invite their own connections.
• LinkedIn recommends setting the event up at least 2 to 4 weeks ahead and using an image at least 480 pixels wide at 16:9.
• There is no built-in ticketing; for a paid event, LinkedIn suggests a link to an external ticketing site.
• Creating the event automatically shares a one-time post, so write its text with care.

Invite the people most likely to come first. A 30-minute session (one idea from the book, a conversation with a reader or client, then questions) is easier to attend than an hour. Planning an in-person launch is covered in the launch event guide.

Groups, invitations and paid reach

Groups. LinkedIn's group limits cap posting at 15 posts a week in a single group, 20 groups a week and 60 posts across all groups, and warn that posting the same content across several groups can be flagged as spam automatically. Join one or two groups where your reader is active, answer questions there for weeks, and share the book only where it answers the topic.

Connection invitations. LinkedIn's invitation limits page says it may restrict accounts that send many invitations in a short time or whose invitations are ignored or marked as spam, recommends inviting only people you know and trust, and caps networks at 30,000 first-degree connections. Do not send a wave of connection requests in launch week.

Paid reach. LinkedIn's help pages describe boosting from a LinkedIn Page, with a lifetime budget, and LinkedIn says boosted posts are charged by impressions. LinkedIn's boosting tips say to budget more than $25 a day. At those prices, ads tend to make sense only when the book leads to a service with a clear value per client. Compare it with the options in the launch budget guide first.

What LinkedIn's rules forbid

LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies and its spam policy page name the habits most likely to get a book promotion removed or its reach limited:

• Untargeted or repetitive promotion. The policies do not allow untargeted, irrelevant, obviously unwanted or gratuitously repetitive messages or similar content. Posting the same pitch daily, or pasting it into comments on other people's posts, fits that description.
• Promotional connection invitations. The policies say not to use the invitation feature to send promotional messages to people you don't know.
• Engagement pods. The policies say not to agree with others ahead of time to like or re-share each other's content, and not to do things to artificially increase engagement. Asking your launch team for an honest comment if they read the book is fine; a scheduled like-swap is not.
• Engagement bait. The spam page lists emoji or reaction polls that artificially boost engagement, chain-letter content requesting likes, reactions and shares, and excessive, irrelevant or repetitive comments.
• Giveaways and contests. The policies say you may not use LinkedIn to hold lotteries, contests, sweepstakes or giveaways. Run a giveaway elsewhere, such as Goodreads, and do not tie it to reviews.
• Automation. The invitations page says accounts suspected of using automation tools may be suspended or restricted.
• Inflated claims. The policies forbid false or misleading information about your qualifications or achievements. Say "bestseller" only if a named list or category says so, and name it.

If people who got a free copy post about it, the FTC's guidance says they should mention the free copy. The advance reader guide covers what to ask for.

What most authors get wrong

• Posting only the launch. One "my book is out" post, with nothing before or after, reaches the people who would have bought anyway.
• Selling in every post. Teach one idea per post. The link can live in your Featured section.
• Skipping the profile. A launch post sends people to a profile that never mentions the book.
• Mass messages. A pasted pitch to hundreds of contacts is the spam LinkedIn describes. Ten personal notes do more.
• Stopping after launch week. The first 90 days are when interviews air and clients finish reading; keep posting through them.

LinkedIn is one channel. For others suited to what you already have, see book launch ideas, and use the free launch planner to date it all. Scribe Media, which makes this site, sells book publishing and marketing services; if you want a person to look at your launch plan, book a free consult.