Is your book marketing goal, “Sell more books.” That’s a good start, but not enough of one. A good book marketing plan starts by getting much more specific. Sell which book? To whom? How many? By when? And—most importantly—what are you willing to spend in money and time to make that happen?
The first step to a new marketing strategy is to:
Decide what you’re trying to accomplish.
Not every marketing campaign is about immediate sales. Maybe you want 100 new newsletter subscribers. Maybe you want 25 reviews. Maybe you want to revive Book 1 because Book 4 is coming. Maybe you want 50 Kickstarter followers before launch. Those require different marketing. Knowing what you really want will make your marketing plan more effective.
Decide who you’re trying to reach.
“Readers” isn’t an audience. Neither is “women who like romance.” Who is likely to love this particular book? List five characteristics of your target reader.
Pick the marketing activities that serve that goal.
Now that you know who you are looking for, pick the marketing activity that best suits that goal. You don’t have to use every possible marketing technique, just pick one or two and emphasize them.
Give each activity a purpose.
If you’re doing Facebook ads, for example, what are they supposed to do? Sell Book One? Build your mailing list? Bring people to a Kickstarter pre-launch page? If you’re sending out review copies, are you looking for reviews, social-media exposure, quotes you can use later—or all three?
Make a budget of both money and time.
Budgeting isn’t just about dollars. If you’re spending ten hours a week to create TikTok videos, that’s ten hours when you are not doing something else—writing your book, selling your book, handling the business details of your author business, or just simply relaxing. Make sure your time and money expenditures both make sense. Your time is part of your marketing budget. Spend it as carefully as you spend your money.
Decide how you’ll know if it worked.
Decide what success looks like before you start. Ten new newsletter subscribers? Five book sales? Twenty Kickstarter followers? A connection with someone who can help you take the next step in your author career? Set the measurement first. Then, when the experiment is over, you have something concrete to evaluate.
Look at the results and adjust.
Marketing is an experiment, not a test. If it didn’t work, that doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook ads don’t work or newsletters don’t sell books. Maybe the audience was wrong. Maybe the graphic didn’t attract attention. Maybe the offer wasn’t compelling. Maybe you simply didn’t give it enough time. Change one thing and try again.
My Marketing Experiment for September
Goal: ______
Audience: ______
Activity: ______
Budget (money AND time): ______
Time Period: ___________
I’ll know it worked if: ______