What Was I Thinking?
When I first started out selling my fiction novels, I went ahead and had the books printed without even having a book marketing plan in place. I was so eager to sell books that I went on a spending spree. I wasted hundreds, maybe even thousands, on advertising and promotional activities that didn’t work because 1) I didn’t map out my marketing goals and 2) I didn’t do any research on my target reader first.
What in the world was I thinking? And if this is you right now, what are you thinking?
Before you do anything that involves spending a significant amount of money (hundreds or thousands of dollars) to help you sell more books, you should have a written plan first. Your book marketing plan will help guide you as you run your small publishing business. You will be able to make wiser decisions about where to invest your money, such as which print publications you should place ads with, which radio stations to call, and how to set up your website to attract your target reader and sell books.
Elements of the Book Marketing Plan
This is how I outline my own marketing plans for my books:
- Executive summary
- The Challenge
- Situational analysis (which includes a profile on the company, your main customers, competitors, and collaborators)
- Market segmentation (where you break down details on each type of customer who might be interested in buying your book)
- Alternative marketing strategies (the other strategies that you thought about implementing before choosing one to pursue-keep this as a backup plan)
- Chosen marketing strategy (the strategy you will now implement in order to sell books)
- A list of your short and long-term projections (once the marketing plan is implemented-discuss how you will measure your results)
This has been effective for me-I increased my book sales by at least 25% within a few months of writing and implementing my plan and saved money that I probably would have spent on more useless advertising expenditures. The plan gave me direction.You can outline your plan however you see fit, just make sure that it addresses most if not all of these major concerns.
Tips
If your books have pretty much the same theme and target audience, one marketing plan will suffice. If all of your books will target different types of people, create a separate marketing plan for each differing title.
You can create a short marketing plan (about a page long summary), a long one, or both. The short plan will be beneficial to you-refer to it for guidance on how to sell books regularly. The long plan will be for large distributors, who commonly ask to see your book marketing plan, and for potential investors or lenders.
Penelope Thompson is the author of a helpful, handy new little eBook entitled “How to Sell Thousands of Your Self-Published Book: A Solid Marketing Plan for Selling Thousands of Books This Year.”
More REAL tips for self-published authors including how to write a marketing plan, advertising and promotions (what works and what doesn’t), short runs versus large printing runs, and responsible spending as a self-published author can be found in this eBook.
If you want to ask Penelope a direct question about book selling and find out more about the eBook, shoot her a quick message from: http://www.howtosellmybooks.com/contactform.html
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