With over a million people accessing this website for information every month, Quora is a marketer’s delight. A website that has a massive user base in India, the US, the UK, Canada, and China, a marketer cannot afford to miss out on an opportunity to leverage the full potential of Quora. For us authors, Quora is a treasure chest of potential readers, where we can wittily market our books and keep the cash register ringing. And on this blog post, we will understand Quora and its effectiveness; get to know how to use Quora for Book marketing effectively, and accordingly set up a profile that will complement our purpose. Let’s begin:

What is Quora?

For the uninitiated, Quora is an online platform where users ask questions and look for appropriate answers. Remember the Yahoo answers or the ones like Ask.com? Quora operates the same way but differs in that it allows users to establish authority on a subject. On Quora, users ask a specific question for which they need an answer and post it under the appropriate topic. Users who know the answer then comment on the question by providing a solution. The solution can be a direct answer, a link to their blog post or something similar and redirect traffic to their website. The answer then goes as a notification to users following the question and those who answered it. Depending on the usefulness of the answer, users will either upvote or downvote an answer. On Quora, answers are ranked according to the number of upvotes.

How is it Useful for me?

As you know, book marketing involves a lot of effort and as authors we cannot overlook even the smallest of opportunities to go ahead and make our book visible to people. Apart from facebook, twitter, emails, pinterest, and Instagram, which have millions of users every month, if there’s one thing that has more quantum of target audience, it has to be Quora. One of the fascinating things about Quora is the legitimacy of users. Users on the platform are not there to pass their time, watch some video, or just look at some gif images. They are there because they are in pursuit of information. So, what we have in front of is a group of target audience we can reach out to and increase the visibility of our book. Unlike other platforms, where we post an update and wait for it to get shared and re-shared and then reach the one right person, Quora has a niche user base, making it easier for us to tap into that one particular reader.

Besides, Quora offers a long-term effect to our promotion campaigns. The questions asked on Quora are generic and are such that they can arise to any individual at any given point of time. When they have a question, they immediately resort to Quora and when they find our answers there, they are benefitted from it. Based on how we answer, they either come back to our website or get redirected to our book’s sales page.

Another important aspect why you should use Quora is that it allows people to see you as a subject-matter expert. Now as writers, we all want to achieve the status, as it increases our credibility and builds trust among readers to buy our book. The profile summary and the bio sections of Quora profiles allow us to add relevant information that will reveal us as authorities in what we discuss and answer. Besides, it even allows us to have a separate bio for different aspects of a particular topic. For instance, if you’re answering a question related to travel writing, it allows you to include a bio that will show up on that section. So, whenever a person reads at your answer, he or she will see you as an authority of that niche. On the other hand, when you answer a question on book publishing, you can include a separate bio for this niche to establish credibility on this topic as well. So, here on Quora, you have the chance to stand out in every answer that you provide to users, thereby just increasing your (and your books) visibility manifold.

How to promote your book on Quora?

Now, here comes the perfect example of irony. Despite being a marketer’s sweet spot, Quora doesn’t officially allow users to market their products or services. Quora believes in maintaining an organic traffic where legit people with legit questions get the information they need. So, it’s in Quora’s policy that marketing and promotional services are prohibited. So, how do we go about promoting our book to potential readers? One thing for sure, we cannot go against the Quora policy. What we can do instead is serve the purpose of the website and help people get the right answers and establish a solid presence there. By being organic, we can go beyond the convention and achieve a lot more than our intentions. So, to organically drive response to our book promotion campaigns and traffic to our website/blog, check out the tips below.

Set up a Kickass Quora Profile

Your Quora profile says about you and your online persona. If you don’t provide the right information, people will not even bother reading at your answers, no matter how powerful and effective they are. To set up an awesome profile, pick the right keywords on what you do, who you are, and how you are related to your book. For instance, if you’ve written a self-help about fighting depression, you will include words like author, motivational speaker, optimist, and more such effective words on your profile so people see you as an authority. By doing so, users will trust you and will connect to you instantly. When they connect, it becomes easier for us to promote our books. Besides, you should also write an effective bio about yourself for people to get to know more about you.

Find the Right Topics, Find the Right Questions

Quora is a repository of topics and questions and it is up to you to find the right niche depending on your book and make your way to the right target audience. Let’s take the same example that you’ve written a self-help book on fighting depression, what you should do is go to the search bar and type depression. When you search for this, Quora automatically throws all the questions on this topic. Now, you have to find the question you are confident you can answer and type in your response. Here, you have to remember that you cannot go directly answer the question saying, Read my book to know how to fight depression. Your response should be an organic one a genuine answer to the question, respecting the users plight. When you find a question, explain your thoughts in your answer and lastly include a call to action. After stating your response, add a single line saying, I have dealt with a similar thing on my book and I feel you might find it useful. Include the book’s page on the link and click on answer. By doing so, you are not marketing your book directly but are expressing your concern on the user and helping him with additional content from your book. This is the best way to market your book on Quora. Plus, you can also create a blog on your Quora profile and help users better.

Write Topic Specific Bio

As we mentioned, apart from your profile bio, Quora also allows you to set up bios for each specific topic you respond. For instance, if you have knowledge on investment banking apart from fighting depression, you can also write a bio for that niche and have a stand on this platform. This will help your profile become more credible and will bring you away from the I-am-here-to-promote-my-book image. Now, this is very important if you have to achieve your goal of marketing your book.

Ask Questions

Now, besides just making use of the existing opportunities on Quora, you can also create new ones and attract users. Ask questions on Quora based on a topic of your niche and be open to users answering to your questions. When you do so, you are actually looking at what people feel about the niche you’ve dealt with on your book. Ask relevant questions whose answers will drive them to buy your book. For instance, you can ask What information do people expect out of a self-help book on fighting depression? When you post, users will automatically pour in their response on the information they seek and you can immediately establish the presence of your book by upvoting their answers and leaving a comment saying that you’ve authored this book and asking them if the information on the book is what they were expecting. When the promotions become interactive, the intensity of the impact multiplies.

Be Active

Quora is something that will offer quick responses and results. When they find your answer interesting and useful, users will upvote it and even leave a comment stating how useful it actually was. When done right, they will also go ahead and purchase a copy of your book depending on what you answered and how you answered. So, be active on Quora and establish a strong online presence and credibility. The more you are active, the more users you will have as followers and having a good base of followers is always good for you and your book. Also, go that extra step and follow people in your niche to learn how others use this platform as well.

Book Marketing on Quora Best Practices

For better reach and engagement, follow some of the best practices for book marketing on Quora.

• Do not promote your book directly on your response or comments. You will either get downvotes or your account might get suspended.
• Do not write lengthy answers unless and until a question requires so. Use bullet points and also highlight the important section of your answers to attract immediate attention.
• Use correct grammar and punctuation. You are an author; proofread what you post and post what you’ve proofread.
• Use different forms of content. It’s not always necessary to write answers and post them. You can share an article from your blog, share podcasts, or even upload infographics.
• Answer only when you feel users will find your answer useful.
• If you’ve written fiction, take the writing aspect of novels and engage writers from that angle. For instance, select topics like creative writing, writing, and the likes and you will find questions like How to write romantic conversation. If you’ve written a romance fiction, quote a dialogue from your book and redirect them back to your book’s sales page. Choose a relative topic accordingly and be there with your answers.
• Acknowledge users who have take time to comment on your answer.

By now, you would have understood the power of Quora for authors and a clear idea on how you can go about marketing your book on it. Follow the tips mentioned above, create a stunning Quora profile, and start answering immediately. In time, you will have a significant change in your blog’s traffic and the sales of your book. Good luck!