We are pleased to offer a wide range of book and ebook marketing services to Matador authors.

If you decide to sign up for our Book Trade and/or Media/Public Relations Marketing, our Marketing Department will work with you on a one-to-one basis to market your book to the retail trade and publicise it to the media. Matador offers in-house trade marketing and media and PR services for books and ebooks, based on many years of active marketing knowledge and experience.

Uniquely among self-publishing companies, Matador offers a full range of active trade, retailer and media marketing services to authors. If you take any of our book trade services or media marketing services, our Marketing Department will work with you one to one to carry out those services.

Our marketing services offer a wide range of options, from marketing both the ebook and physical book to the media, marketing to the trade, some DIY options and some full service marketing choices. We offer the following services:
Book Trade Marketing
Media Marketing
Ebook Marketing
Social Media Consulting
Author Websites
Supplementary Marketing Services

Book Trade Marketing

Marketing your book to the retail trade is the cornerstone of getting your book sold more widely than just to your family and friends. Without retail trade marketing, your book will still be listed by retailers as it carries an ISBN number, but no retailer will stock it or buy copies unless a customer specifically places an order.

We offer 2 retail trade distribution and marketing options to our self-publishing authors. We have been working with wholesalers and retailers for over 20 years, so they know us and trust that our books are well produced and saleable by retailers. As a result, most of our book sales are still made through high street bookshops and via library suppliers and wholesalers.

Our Retail Set Up and Distribution Service is our basic trade marketing and distribution service. It is designed for authors who want us to sell and distribute their physical book through high street bookshops, online retailers and on our own web shop.

Our next level of trade is our Trade Marketing and Sales Representation service, designed to get your book in front of those people in the retail trade who make the buying decisions. It is perfect for authors seeking a more in-depth bookshop option, backed up by an active sales representation team who will visit or present your book to buyers at key indie and chain bookshops across the UK.

You will need to take one or other of these services if you want us to sell and distribute your book.

  • Retail Set Up and Distribution
  • £250,00
  • Available to anyone who wants us to sell and distribute their physical book, through bookshops or online retailers.
  • Suitable for authors using either their own or a Matador ISBN.
  • Suitable for authors using POD or with a printed stock
  • We write the key marketing text for your book’s retail set up (i.e. the blurb, author biography, key selling points, keywords). We assign subject classification codes in three schemes (BIC, BISAC and THEMA), which the book trade use to categorise books for sale. We assign your book a Matador ISBN (unless you opt to use your own).
  • For authors using a Matador ISBN we handle metadata management for the lifetime of the book. Metadata is how the book trade order and discover new titles and how ISBN information is supplied to the book trade. Our metadata is sent electronically via enhanced Onix feeds. (We hold a BIC BASIC award for the quality of metadata we supply to the book trade.)
  • We notify wholesalers, retailers and our distributor about the book via digital data grids.
  • We list your book for sale on our online bookshop. You will have a book page listing your title, the option to add an author photo and author news and 24/7 access to the royalty and stock system and historic royalty statements.
  • We ensure our warehouse (and distributor, if appropriate) has stock of your book to fulfil direct, online and trade sales – we take care of invoicing, returns and despatch of orders.
  • Once printed, we add your book to our Amazon account and to our Bookshop.org web shop.
  • Trade Marketing and Sales Representation
  • £600,00
  • This service includes everything available in the Retail Set Up and Distribution Service (including assigning a Matador ISBN), but includes additional services for authors who are seeking the fullest trade release of their title.
  • Perfect for authors seeking a more in-depth bookshop option, our sales rep team will visit or present your book to buyers at key indies and chain bookshops across the UK. This option also gives you an entry into our sales catalogue, Highlights, which goes out to bookshops three times a year, is sent out with direct customer orders, available online and any trade events we attend.
  • For authors wishing to give their book the best possible chance of selling through high street retailers, we offer full trade sales representation through Star Book Sales. Star have a team of 11 regional sales representatives who actively hand-sell new titles into retailers’ head offices, local stores and other book retail outlets in the run up to a book’s publication date.
  • In addition to the digital metadata work that we do, managing the key data about your book and sending that to bookshops and wholesalers, we also create a Matador branded Local AI (Advance Information sheet), listing all the key information about your book – blurb, biography, publication and ordering information – to be sent digitally to local bookshops (UK only), and a PDF copy provided for your own use.
  • A half page entry in our tri-annual Highlights sales catalogue. Entry into Highlights magazine is only available to customers taking this service and is mailed out to customers placing direct orders and our retail trade list. Highlights is also provided to the sales rep force to help them sell in new titles.
  • This service unlocks the opportunity to have a listing in our Bookseller Buyer’s Guide adverts (the Bookseller Buyer’s Guide is the bi-annual listing of new books in the UK produced by The Bookseller, magazine of the book industry, and it goes to all bookshops and wholesalers to facilitate stocking decisions). To be featured in our advert, additional costs apply, but the opportunity to appear is only available to those taking this service.

Media Marketing

Our media/ marketing services are for authors who aim to give their book a cost-effective media profile. Some authors wish to undertake some or all of the media marketing themselves, while others require a more comprehensive campaign run on their behalf. Or they wish to pursue both options simultaneously. We can assist in both cases.

Our Author ‘DIY’ Marketing service has been carefully designed for those who want to carry out marketing to the media themselves. This service offers a range of materials and support designed to help you target key marketing areas direct to readers, online and the media.

Our Matador Media Marketing service, on the other hand, is for authors who want to give their book a cost-effective media profile, with the campaign carried out by Matador. Run in-house by Matador’s marketing team, this service aims to achieve basic media coverage by planning and running a media campaign on your behalf. Our media marketing work aims to interest print and online media in reviewing a title, interviewing the author or in placing an article on the subject of the book. The service is targeted closely to each specific new title, it does not use a ‘blanket’ approach that is the same whatever the title.

Both of our marketing services can be taken simultaneously, with Matador running a marketing campaign and the author undertaking ‘DIY’ marketing as well.

  • Author 'DIY' Marketing
  • £250,00
  • For the independent author who wants to market their book to the media themselves.
  • A range of printed marketing materials to help market your book direct to readers; social media graphics for use on your social media channels and websites; as well as a professionally crafted Press Release (PR).
  • Printed marketing materials: select those which best match your requirements. Choose from either 50 x A4 posters or 100 A5 leaflets and 100 x postcards or 100 bookmarks (so you receive two sets of printed marketing aids; more can be purchased if required). All printed materials are designed bespoke based on your book’s cover.
  • We create three individually designed graphics around your book for use on social media channels – for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or all three. We’ll include one of these on our own social media.
  • We write a press release about your book for you to send out to your media contacts.
  • We send you a printed copy of our Matador Marketing Handbook, a guide that’s full of ideas for marketing your own book based on many years of media marketing at Matador. The handbook includes hints & tips, author case studies and suggestions for targeting different sectors of the media.
  • Matador Media Marketing
  • £750,00
  • For authors who are looking for a professional media marketing campaign on the launch of their book.
  • A dedicated Marketing Controller to create and manage your media campaign – who will write and distribute a press release, create and run a bespoke PR campaign, respond to and follow up media and review requests on your behalf.
  • We create a bespoke press release about your book and you as its author. As we are handing the entire media campaign on your behalf the release is Matador branded and will contain text relevant to the media, a cover image, bibliographic information and an author biography and quote. You get the final say on the content of the press release before it is released, and a copy in PDF format for your own use too.
  • We create a bespoke media contact list using our industry-standard media database, identifying national and local journalists and media organisations (across printed, audio, visual and digital media) who may be interested in your book. You approve the media list before the campaign begins, and we also highlight those journalists to whom we’ll send a review copy on your behalf (up to 10 review copies to UK reviewers).
  • Your Marketing Controller will follow up on your media campaign, liaise with you over coverage and send you any clippings and features as we receive them.
  • We list your book and ebook (if you have one) on the NetGalley review platform for four weeks. (NetGalley is the UK’s leading review site for librarians, publishers, reviewers and bloggers.) After four weeks, we’ll chase for any outstanding reviews and then send you a report showing activity (downloads, reviews, etc.). Positive book reviews will be placed onto your book entry on our website, and the reviewers encouraged to post them to online.

Ebook Marketing

We offer an ebook marketing service designed to give your ebook the chance of being seen by journalists, bloggers and reviewers worldwide. The service includes an entry on NetGalley, the leading ebook media review service – where members worldwide can browse for ebooks by subject, publisher or keyword, and then request a review copy.

The aim of our ebook marketing service is to get reviews and feedback for your ebook, which we then encourage reviewers to leave on retailers’ sites, as the more reviews an ebook has, the earlier it appears in search results. Customers are also more likely to buy an ebook that has reviews. NetGalley members are often regular Goodreads/Amazon reviewers or have their own book blogs/bookstagram accounts, so they may also post reviews through those accounts. Feedback from NetGalley can also be used by you in your own marketing efforts.

Ebook marketing is undertaken around the time your ebook is released for sale, and is designed to work around the release of an ebook to retailers by our in-house production team, over a period of around six weeks.
If you are taking our Matador Media Marketing service for your printed book, you do not need to take our ebook marketing service.

  • Ebook Marketing
  • £350,00
  • An expertly prepared ebook listing on NetGalley.com, the leading ebook review site for librarians, publishers, reviewers and bloggers (the listing will be live for four weeks).
  • The creation of two promotional graphics for use on social media or in your own advertising efforts. These will be included on our own social media feeds (for a limited time).
  • An extensive online booklet looking at things you can do yourself to promote your ebook – alongside our marketing effort.
  • We follow up with reviewers who downloaded a copy of your ebook and encourage them to leave a review.
  • A full report at the end of the four week NetGalley period summarising all activity generated as a result of the listing, including number of download requests, feedback on the cover, reasons people gave for wanting to read the book, and a round-up of any reviews received so far.

Social Media Consultation

Social media is inescapable in the modern world and authors are finding they need an online presence to reach their readers and increase visibility. For many, however, social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram remain something of a mystery. For this reason, we offer a flexible menu of social media options that can be taken singly or grouped together for a wide range of complementary options.

Our three different social media consultation services will help you to get up and running on the three main social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), by offering a one-to-one consultation with a member of the marketing team, based around your own needs and social media plans.

  • Facebook Tutorial
  • £200,00
  • Get your Facebook account up and running, or repurpose an existing account to promote your book, with the help of this service.
  • Up to one hour phone or video call tutorial with a member of the marketing team to help answer your questions and get you up to speed in using Facebook for promoting yourself as an author (we’ll ask you to fill in a short questionnaire before we chat to understand your aims and social media experience beforehand).
  • Access to our training video on how to set up a Facebook account.
  • A copy of our Getting Started on Social Media handbook to answer your questions and take you further.
  • General Social Media Consultation
  • £200,00
  • Assistance on the social media platform or platforms of your choice.
  • Up to one hour phone or video call tutorial with a member of the marketing team to help us answer your questions and get you up to speed in using your chosen social media platforms for promoting yourself as an author (we’ll ask you to fill in a short questionnaire before we chat to understand your aims and social media experience beforehand).
  • A copy of our Getting Started on Social Media handbook to answer your questions and take you further.
  • Twitter Account Setup
  • £250,00
  • If Twitter is a mystery to you, this service will help you get established quickly.
  • We set up a Twitter account for you – with bespoke graphics, banner and professionally written author biography.
  • We’ll get you started by ‘following’ relevant accounts and posting five tweets on your behalf over the first five days of the account being live. After which we hand the account over to you to run.
  • Access to our Getting Started on Social Media handbook to answer your questions and take you further.

Author Websites

Having an online presence as an author is essential. Readers are active online more than ever before, turning to social media and the internet to find out about authors. With the rise of #bookstagram, BookTok and book bloggers, we’re noticing more and more how readers discover new titles and share their reviews with others online.

Having an author website is an ideal option for authors looking to have everything to do with them and their books in one place, easy for readers to find. Your website is a centralised landing page for your readers. You can showcase your work and include links to buy, share news clippings, interviews, video and images, and allow readers to post reviews. You can really start to build your author brand.

Our Author Website services provide cost-effective and flexible solutions; with a bespoke website design created for you by a professional web designer, it is a collaborative process where you will have input on layout, content and colour schemes, while having the guidance and support of a professional. In fact, we have our own website devoted to Author Websites!

Our services allow you to create a website specific to your requirements, so you’re not paying for features you don’t need. Our ‘Standard’ website includes a homepage, a biography page and a contact page. Or you can opt for our ‘Portal’ website service, where you can choose from a range of modules to suit your needs - a blog that you can update regularly, a page for posting your new writing, a page for sharing news articles, a blog, reader reviews, a page for videos, and more. Once your website goes live, you can then add to your own content easily, and add new features as and when you need. And we offer ‘bespoke’ websites, for those who want something a little more involved.

Have a look at our Author Websites website, which gives all of the options we offer and is a place to start things moving.

  • Entry-Level Author Website
  • £349,00
  • An author website like no other that grows with your needs yet which has a bespoke design.
  • A .co.uk domain name of your choice (subject to availability), registered for two years.
  • Hosting of your website for two years on our dedicated secure server.
  • The creation of a bespoke author website based around the design of your book, featuring a home page, author biography page, book information page, plus links to retailers and a ‘Contact’ page.
  • Author access to their own website ’back end’, where a simple user interface allows you to add information to some sections, and manage many website functionalities yourself.
  • The ability to add further functionalities when required (additional costs apply, from £20). Want to add a blog? Social media feed? A book review facility? A fully-functioning bookshop? Want to add an ‘Extracts’ page? With additional modules in development.

Enhanced Discoverability

Getting your book noticed in an increasingly competitive world is ever-harder. Discoverability is vital if you are to boost your sales. One means of enticing readers is to allow them to read some of your book first, beyond the short synopsis. Think of this as something akin to a reader browsing in a bookshop, where they can dip into the text, read the first few paragraphs, flick through and get a real feel for the book. This type of enhanced search is available from both Amazon and Google, and it has been shown to help drive sales of books.

Our Enhanced Discoverability service places your book on both Amazon ’Search Inside’ and Google’s ’Search in a Book’ platforms, so that potential readers can ‘browse’ your book. Both platforms make a percentage of a book available to view, never all of it! But neither allows us to specify what can or cannot be displayed, it is carried out automatically by the suppliers with different random pages being available to view with each visit.

  • Enhanced Discoverability
  • £75,00
  • When your book is ready to go to print, we place your book onto Amazon in their ’Search Inside’ programme. This allows Amazon customers to browse some of the content of your book before buying (like browsing in a bookshop).
  • We also place your book onto Google’s ’Search in a Book’ platform, enabling those searching on Google to sample your book.
  • Amazon customers have a ‘Buy’ button on the same page as the ’Search Inside’ function, allowing easy purchase for their customers.
  • Google’s search platform includes links to your book on various retailers’ websites to help easy purchase by Google browsers.

Supplementary Marketing Services

We offer all our authors – whether or not they are taking any of our marketing services – a wide range of supplementary marketing services. All are designed to raise the profile of your book or ebook, and many can be used by you directly to promote your work to retailers and readers.

Our Supplementary Marketing Services are detailed in our flip-book, and include:

  • A wide range of printed promotional materials, including pop-up banners, posters, bookmarks, business cards, leaflets and postcards.
  • A video Book Trailer with which to promote your work on websites and social media.
  • Social media graphics.
  • Meet the Author video.
  • Instagram tours.
  • Book2Look Biblet.