I can’t help but quote the late, great James Brown… “Please, please, please… (Please, please, don’t go).”

Please do not take your book to market if you have not developed a marketing plan. That includes:

– define your target audience (visualize specific people you plan to buy the book)

– make a list of specific organizations that could

– organize a book signing or speaking engagement

– development of promotional materials – sales sheet, website, postcards and bookmarks

– write an attractive description of the book

– determine the ideal outlets to sell your book (internet 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 book is produced; it must begin before the book goes to print. Why not wait for the book to be printed? First, you’ll 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 is probably not a priority for you.

Another good reason to think about marketing before printing or publishing your book is the book cover. After all, you can’t expect your readers to judge a book without its cover!

MARKETING PLAN

Regarding the cover of your book, the marketing plan will help you determine the appropriate design, keywords and content for the back cover. When developing a marketing plan, he will be forced to consider:

○ specific target markets

○ your interests and wishes

○ your reliable and frequent sources of information

Armed with this information, you’ll be able to write a description of the back cover that will entice potential readers to open and buy the book.

Target market

Once you understand your target market, where they buy books, and whose reviews they trust and admire, you’ll have enough information to identify the appropriate places of sale (internet retailers, bookstores, conferences, etc.). I have included a sample target market analysis at the end of the book.

Here’s an example: I mentioned to the client that he’s writing a young adult fiction novel. She told me that her target market was teenagers and young women ages 15-35. 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: Black high school adolescents ages 15-18

Note that we didn’t just say readers, but 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, therefore this is her primary geographic focus. We’ve expanded this to include the Southeast region of the US, as it’s easy for her to travel to neighboring states for book signings and lectures. She also has extensive contacts in New York, so we included the Northeast as a secondary geographic market. Segmenting the market in this way doesn’t stop the author from pursuing domestic sales, it just helps her focus on specific regions.

Don’t worry if the thought of writing a formal marketing plan makes you feel apprehensive. Instead, consider using a tool that my clients and I have found extremely useful: the book proposal. Traditionally, book proposals are only necessary for authors looking for an agent or a traditional publisher, however, I have found the proposal to be a great help to all authors.

In the process of writing a book proposal:

○ Clarify the topic hook (brief and compelling description of the book)

○ Introduce 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 started 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 inquiry letters to agents and publishers.

I also used the book proposal format to help a client edit their novel and write a description of the book to use on the back cover and promotional material. To solve this problem, we wrote the topic 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.