Advertising on Reddit can be a true nightmare. One wrong move and you’ll get brigaded with 1-star reviews, personal attacks, death threats in your email, and probably worse. That said, I’ve made thousands advertising my books on Reddit. How did I do it? Let’s dive in.
Step 1: find subreddits in your genre. No, r/books is not in your genre. Avoid any subreddit with 100,000+ subscribers. You’re just white noise there. A waste of time. Find smaller, niche-focused communities like r/litrpg or r/haremfantasynovels. Millions of subreddits exist, so you can certainly find your niche. And you can also look at non-book subreddits. Wrote something about a parrot? Try r/parrots or something similar. You get the idea.
Step 2: follow the damn rules. I cannot stress that enough. Read, understand, and read them again. Follow them meticulously. Almost every single subreddit has a very strict no ads policy. Follow it!!! Posting a billboard for your book in a subreddit that disallows ads is about as good as sawing off your foot with an old knife.
Step 3: participate in the community. Join discussions. Actively comment and offer useful insight. A stranger will not be able to market at all. A familiar / respected name will.
Step 4: look for specific self-promotion threads. Find out when they go live. Many subreddits have weekly or monthly self-promotion threads. Drop your links in there, but only when the thread is fresh. If it already has 5+ comments, don’t waste your time.
Step 5: as you follow step 3 and develop a name and reputation in the community, you’ll come across posts looking for your exact kind of content. DO NOT SHILL YOUR BOOKS IN THE COMMENTS. Don’t be that guy. Instead, message the person asking for a recommendation to offer them a FREE copy of your loss leader (from Bookfunnel) and list the reasons your book matches their interests. The goal is to create a fan organically, not pressure someone into clicking a link and then forgetting about you.
Step 6: always use “Old Reddit” instead of the new redesign. It is just 1000% better. 10,000% better. Infinitely better. And NEVER use the Reddit app.
There you have it. My tried and true guide to making thousands of sales on Reddit. If you put in the time and effort, it works. If you skip step 3, it backfires horribly. Cheers!
