A successful book starts with an effective book marketing plan. In today’s publishing world, a book cannot succeed without defined goals, careful planning, audience identification, and determining target media markets.
A book marketing plan is your step-by-step guide to getting your book before the ideal individuals, at the right time and place, with the right budget. Think of your plan as a marketing campaign to make your book a bestseller.
Here are some helpful tips to help you learn how to plan for your book marketing!
Start early
It’s never too early to start letting people know about your book and about yourself as a writer or author. If you’re totally starting from scratch with almost no online presence to depend on, now is the time to build your platform even when you haven’t finished that book yet. Remember that it takes time to gain and build a following, so by sharing updates about what you’re working on and asking for inputs or feedback about the hints and ideas you gave regarding your book, you’re already encouraging a good sense of personal investment in your audience by making them aware and by interacting with them.
Assess your current situation
Book:
- What is your book about?
- Are there any books on a similar theme?
- What makes your book different from your competitors?
You as an author:
- Do people in the place know about you?
- Do you have unique expertise on the topic of your book?
- What makes you as an author stand out?
Set your main goals
Define your goals with a self-publishing marketing plan
By first defining goals, you can pick apart and afterward make your book advertising plan. Since each writer and book is unique, defining goals will shape a book marketing plan. The marketing plan for somebody who considers composing a book to be a side interest is very different from someone who plans to use a book and media coverage as marketing tools for their business.
Establish what your goals are:
- To sell books?
- Develop your author brand?
- Use the book as a marketing tool?
- All or a portion of the abovementioned?
Determine your audience
- Who is the most likely audience to buy your book?
- What similar interests do they have?
- What topics bind these people together?
- Why do they buy books?
Adding broad audiences like “parents over the age of 25” isn’t going to cut it – you will need to go into greater detail. If possible, write down multiple different audiences that you think would be interested in your book.
In the future, having an engaged audience you know well will benefit you whether you are a published author or self-published.
Advanced Review Copies (ARCs)
Advance review copies also called advance reader copies, or ARCs for short, are bound and/or electronic copies of your completed book. You’ll want to send these to booksellers, book reviewers, and to people, you might want to advocate your book. You can also bring them with you to readings or other events you plan for promoting your book pre-publication. ARCs help build buzz for your upcoming release and help you gain blurbs to put on the cover of your finished book and in your book metadata. The key here is establishing that initial connection.
Cover Design is a Marketing Must
Books do get judged and remembered by their covers. Some of the most iconic books became notable with their covers. Over 70 years after The Little Prince was distributed, the art style of its cover remains famous around the world and the design remained pretty much the same in all of its different editions so while the content of your book matters, very much like any item, it must be stylishly tempting right away to build deals and navigate rates. You may also see retail marketing plans.
Don’t forget that a product’s appearance would always affect a consumer’s buying decision. It should also, therefore, imply superior quality on top of aesthetics. Publishers have packaged services that would include the cover design and the amount you pay would, of course, depend on the material you decide to use, the design, and the number of colors. If you’re not doing this through the publisher, make sure you get a designer who understands the concept of your book and has enough experience designing covers for the type of book you wrote.
Set your budget
After listing different strategies and actions, the next step would be to calculate the approximate cost of those actions. If your budget is tight, choose lower-risk strategies that you believe will have the most effect. Some actions like manually reaching out might be slow, but are smart budget-wise and great for getting more contacts for your network.