I can’t help but quote the late and great James Brown… “Please, please, please… (Please, please don’t go).”
Please don’t take your book to market if you haven’t developed a marketing plan. That includes:
– define your target audience (view specific people who expect to buy the book)
– make a list of specific organizations that could
– organize a book signing or speaking engagement
– development of promotional materials – sell sheet, website, postcards and bookmarks
– write an attractive description of the book
– determine the ideal outlets to sell your book (online retailers, your website, independent bookstores, talks, etc.)
What is the worst that can happen? You could be one of those authors who never sells more than 99 books!
Marketing should not start after the production of the book; must start before the book goes to press. Why not wait for the book to print? First of all, you will miss out on several crucial marketing opportunities. Second, if you wait until the book is in your hands, you’ll feel pressured to sell it, and planning probably won’t be a priority for you.
Another good reason to think about marketing before you print or publish your book is the book cover. After all, you can’t expect your readers to judge a book without its cover!
MARKETING PLAN
When it comes to your book cover, the marketing plan will help you determine the appropriate layout, keywords, and back cover content. In developing a marketing plan, he will be forced to consider:
○ specific target markets
○ your interests and wishes
○ your reliable and frequent information resources
Armed with this information, you’ll be able to write a back cover description that entices potential readers to open and buy the book.
Target market
Once you understand your target market, where they buy books, and what reviews they trust and admire, you’ll have enough information to identify the appropriate outlets (Internet retailers, bookstores, conferences, etc.). I have included an example of target market analysis at the end of the book.
Here’s an example: I mentioned to the client that he is writing a young adult fiction novel. She told me that her target market was teenagers and young women from 15 to 35 years old. It’s a great start, but it’s not enough. With my help she was able to expand this description…
○ Primary target: single black women and single mothers ages 23-30;
○ Secondary target: Black young adult women and college students ages 18-22
○ Tertiary target: African-American high school teens ages 15-18
Note that we didn’t just say readers, we were specific about their gender, age, marital status, and education: single women, single mothers, college students, and high school students.
We also consider geography. The author lives in Atlanta, GA, so this is her primary geographic focus. We expanded this to include the southeastern region of the US, as it is easy for her to travel to neighboring states for book signings and speaking engagements. She also has extensive contacts in New York, which is why we include the Northeast as a secondary geographic market. Segmenting the market in this way doesn’t stop the author from pursuing national sales, it just helps her focus on specific regions.
Don’t worry if the thought of writing a formal marketing plan makes you a little apprehensive. Instead, consider using a tool that my clients and I have found extremely helpful: the book proposal. Traditionally, book proposals are only necessary for authors looking for an agent or traditional publisher, however I have found proposal to be a great help for all authors.
In the process of writing a book proposal:
○ Clarify the topic hook (brief and compelling description of the book)
○ Present the hook of the book (title, sales identifier and length)
○ Identify specific benefits and features
○ Identify competitive titles
○ Address marketing strategies and tactics
While writing God Is My Consultant I found myself a bit confused about how to position the book, how to make it different and better than other spiritual/self help books and the main selling points of the book. After two rewrites, I still like that it wasn’t quite right. So I stopped working on the manuscript and dedicated myself to writing the proposal. By the time I finished writing the proposal, I was able to remove a lot of superfluous information from my manuscript, had a complete marketing and promotions plan, and knew exactly what to include in query letters to agents and publishers.
I also used the book proposal format to help a client edit her novel and write a description of the book to use on the back cover and promotional material. To solve this problem, we wrote the theme hook and target market sections of the book proposal. In doing so, she was forced to focus on the main theme of the book and why it appealed to her target readers.