Marketing
“Not all marketing people are writers, but all writers must learn to be marketers.” – Joanne Kraft
Marketing your book begins way before you finish writing your book. It starts when you are first fired up about writing your book.
What’s the story? Who will read it? Will it make an impact? Will people like it?
When writing a book, people often overlook the importance of marketing. When they think of marketing, they tend to think that it’s something they should do after the book is released. This couldn’t be further than the truth. Marketing your book needs to happen as soon as possible and needs to be integrated into your daily activities – even as you are writing your book.
Many well known authors like Diana Gabaldon of the famed Outlander series and Natasha Lester (author of The Paris Seamstress, A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald and others) have a very active social media following and even as they are writing their books, they give their readers sneak peaks into the characters, the story, their writing space and sometimes even ask for reader comments. All of this not only builds interest and curiosity, but also anticipation; because when the book is out, guess who will make a bee line to buy the books?
Yes, everyone of those people who were following the author keenly over the months.
Marketing a book has many moving parts. But if done right, it can be the difference between minimal sales and your book hitting bestseller status.
Write your book story first before you start writing the book:
As an author and entrepreneur, I've seen firsthand how powerful it is to know not only why you're writing a book, but also who will be your readers and ardent followers.
Even before you start writing, ask yourself these
- What's the story about?
- Who will read it?
- Who is your audience?
- What's your message about?
- Who are your influencers?
- How can you get in front of them?
- What else do they buy? Can be other books, workshops, conferences, etc.
The more specific you get about who the audience is, and what their needs are, the easier it will be to determine if there is even a market for your book and what readers need. How many people will find value in this type of book, and how will they find out about it?
You can also consider submitting guest posts in leading magazines and blogs. Tell the public you are available for:
- Interviews for podcast and online publications
- Book launch and marketing plan
Once you are close to publishing your book, consider a full blown marketing strategy. You will need some concrete goals to work towards. For instance:
- How many books do you want to sell in week 1, 2, 3 and so on?
- Can you get at least 5 reviews before your book is out?
- Is there an influencer or well-known author who can write the foreword or blog for you?
- Do you have a considerable social media following or do you need to build one?
- Can you send out media releases so that your book can be featured in local and international channels?
There are many more things that go into a marketing strategy, but each book and author has unique needs.
Our marketing team doesn’t offer one size fits all marketing strategies for book sales. We like to sit with the author, understand the needs and then we create a bespoke marketing strategy that is guaranteed to work.
If you would like to have a chat about how we can help you market your book, schedule a FREE 30 minute chat with us here.