How To Promote Book Apps

We use our phones for almost every activity like shopping, doing exercises, improving our lifestyle, traveling, navigating in a big city, listening to music, chatting with friends or making our visuals more beautiful. Why not using them for reading? Sure, the entire experience is different than carrying a real book wherever you go, seeing it on your nightstand or seating in a quiet place and turning pages one by one. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of a virtual book while you wait in line or during your coffee break at work. And apps, more specifically book apps are the best when it comes to enjoying some good stories displayed on mobile devices. On the other hand, if you are a book app creator and you struggle to communicate with potential users, you will find very useful our following tips and tricks for this category.

Business Model

We will start by analyzing best book apps already available on the most important app markets in the United States. App Annie has the lists for iOS and Android devices and the situation is very different from one platform to the other. While on Apple App Store popular book apps are free or free with in-app purchases and bibles or audio books come with a price, on Google Play Store dictionaries are paid apps while the other types of books are free. It seems that the contrasts between the two markets are more visible every week. In the same time, Books is another category for which subscriptions represent a good choice. Again, these are only some observations and suggestions. Please feel free to select the business model you like, the one that will bring you the wanted results.

Top book apps in Google Play (US)

Top book apps in iOS App Store (US)

How To Promote Book Apps

Now, we can talk about some marketing methods which will allow you to attract readers and to convince them that your app is similar to a handy library they can access anywhere and anytime.

Judge The Book By Its Cover

The first question that comes to mind is: How to make people pay attention to your app when there are so many options available on the market? Well, the answer is to start with the app store and to continue with your app’s design. Create a compiling page for your app and engage them with high-quality screenshots. A preview video would be very efficient for encouraging book lovers to try your app. The app description is the place where you can enumerate the reasons why users should choose your app. Start with the most important ones. And if the reviews are good and great then you are on the right track to impress your audience. Pleasant colors and delightful presentations are the most important elements required by customers when they open your app for the first time after installing it. Beautiful images along with special font styles will make users understand that your creation is what they need for reading their favorite stories. Wattpad app has a great app store page and the small image with a book from the title is a very smart detail for attracting potential customers.

Leaf Through The Book

Now, that we’ve made everything clear with the app’s design let’s move on because we should talk right now about user experience. It is very important to have amazing images but if users struggle to browse through the huge number of books or they can’t find what they want they will uninstall your app immediately. Try to create a simple interface and organize all the titles in well-defined categories. Allow users to spend their time reading and not trying to find their way through your complex app. In the same time you need to pay attention to the way they enjoy the time spent inside your app. When they finish a page, a tap should be enough for them to reach the next one or even a more spectacular effect would be page flip. The light is a very important element so special solutions for day and night reading will be very appreciated by your audience. Also, an option for users who prefer audio books because they don’t have time to read is very helpful. Take a look at the big list of features provided by Amazon Kindle and you will get our idea when we talk about the best methods to create a great reading tool.

Don’t Forget About The Story

Well, we’ve reached a sensitive point of our discussion, because it is mandatory to take care of your customers while they use your app but you mustn’t forget about the most important factor that will convince them to come back every time they want to read a good story. Wouldn’t be great to hear them say that the app is wonderful but the content is excellent? It isn’t enough to offer them a friendly application without providing the books they are looking for. It is vital to have a variety of titles and to make users recognize that your app is very addictive because they enjoy every second they spend inside your creation. This is the most powerful technique for making your users to spread the word about your work. A good example here is Scribd with an impressive database which offers readers everything they need. In the same time don’t forget to tell the story of your app whenever you have the chance. Remember how Hooked did it?

(App) Book Reviews

After making sure that you provide rich content for your users and you meet their high demands you need to tell them that. And what way is better for announcing them about your great app than to convince authors from influential sites to write about your work. If your app is somewhere in, let’s say, “50 best apps for book lovers in 2018” then people will want to know more about it. And the same thing happens if you post interesting details on social media. Readers interested in finding great resources will appreciate your app. Talking about reviews, Goodreads represents an inspiration for all developers who want to discover how to create a tool for users who expect to find other readers’ opinions about certain books or to share their thoughts about a specific title. Going further, customers can also follow their progress which will encourage them to continue with their reading habits.

Final Thoughts

Here we’ve wrote a few small chapters on how to impress book lovers with your app. Keep in mind that marketing strategies are very important, but you need to be careful with the content offered because no matter how efficient are the techniques you choose for promoting your creation, if the product offered doesn’t reach users’ expectations your entire effort is pointless. So, make sure that users enjoy your app and then apply the methods listed above for a successful campaign!