Marketing Plan? What's That?

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If you are asking yourself, “Why do I need to read this? My publisher takes care of all that stuff” then I say to you, “You need to get a clue.” The days of publishers taking care “of all that stuff” are gone unless you are a mega-blockbuster author. Nobody cares more about your book than you do. So show it. Be prepared to shoulder a lot of the promotion and marketing load.

When I submit to an editor or agent, I offer to share my multi-month book marketing plan. I want them to know I have thought about the business end of being an author. I am a professional, and I’m serious about promoting my books and my career.

Just what does a marketing plan look like? I’m not sure there’s a template out there, but there are a number of articles about how to create one. I listed those resources at the bottom.

I can share my nascent marketing plan for Prime Rib and Punishment with you. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the final edition, but there’s enough here to spark your own marketing plan, I’m sure. Sorry about the formatting. It got all wonky.

Also, my marketing plan is based on one I developed for Oak Tree Press. They required a 12-month marketing plan when you submitted your manuscript for review. This is PRE-CONTRACT, we’re talking. Impressive, right? OTP wanted to know up front about your commitment to making the book a success and what your plans were to make that happen.

15-Month Marketing Plan for Prime Rib and Punishment

Prime Rib and Punishment, 60,000 words, is book two in the “Dinner is Served” culinary mystery series. Personal Chefs, Alli Wesson and Gina Smithson find themselves teaching at the new Culinary Arts School-Glendale (Arizona) even though the Executive Chef hates “amateur cooks.” Add in a diet scam operation and a guy with a mafia connection, and things become . . . complicated. Murder is part of the complication. At the end of the book are recipes, mostly meat, that are mentioned in the mystery.

My audience is people who like to cook, enjoy the desert Southwest, mystery lovers, single women, and small business owners.

9-12 months prior to publication

         Compile list of potential reviewers for blurbs

         Compile list of bloggers who review mysteries

         Compile list of bookstores, kitchen stores, and other places for book signings

           Compile a list of podcast possibilities 
           Create media kit including: press release, questions for author, author bios 

                      (short and long), talking points for interviews, and brochure)

         Create book club reading kit

         Attend writing conferences and present on panels

         Seek speaking opportunities with libraries, Sisters in Crime, et al.

           Continue to compile e-mail addresses for announcement of publication 
           Weekly blog posts on sharonarthurmoore.blogpost.com with some mention 

                  of PR&P (recipes, character interviews, writing culinary mysteries,

                  information on topics in the novel, etc.)

         Monthly food column for small town paper with mention of PR&P

        

8-6 months prior to publication

         Create components for virtual launch on Facebook

         Contact cooking stores, book stores, former Glendale Sugar Beet Factory,

Cucina Tagliani restaurant to set-up real-time book launches

         Contact Glendale, AZ Visitor Center to see if they’ll carry the book

         Compile list of bed and breakfast inns to see if I can place the book with them

         Contact local Pampered Chef demonstrator to see if can partner

           Continue to seek speaking opportunities 

         Weekly blog posts (sharonarthurmoore.blogpost.com or samwriteaway.blogpost.com) 

                  with some mention of PR&P (recipes, character interviews, writing culinary 

                  mysteries, information on topics in the novel, etc.)

         Monthly food column for small town paper with mention of PR&P

         Contact bloggers for guest blog spots upon publication (include cooking blogs, as

                  well as mystery and romance)

5-3 Months prior to Publication

         Contact bloggers to set up guest posts

         Create business cards if cover art available (front: cover art and contact info;

                  back: recipe from PR&P)

         Continue to seek speaking opportunities

         Continue above activities as appropriate

Two Months Prior to Publication

         Create a series of e-mail messages and Facebook and Twitter posts to distribute

                  to 25 supporters to send to their followers over a one week period

         Develop my Pinterest board on PR&P

         Set up an Instagram account for promoting PR&P

         Contact local libraries to set book signing dates

         Continue blogging on my sites

         Continue above activities as appropriate

One Month Prior to Publication

         Contact local radio and TV stations to pitch cooking and book promo spots

         Contact area newspapers (Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff) for interviews

         Create a new YouTube video for “Alli and Gina’s Cooking School” channel and

                  promote on all my social media accounts

         Continue blogging on my sites

         Continue above activities as appropriate

Publication Month

         Big splash on release day from 25 supporters—social media blitz

           Virtual book launch on Facebook (4 hours with giveaways, quizzes, recipes,

         pictures)

           Blog tour with 15 guest posts

         Offer free book club reading kit on my website

         Cross-pollinate across my four Twitter accounts, five Facebook pages, and four

                  blogs

One Month after Publication

         Blog tour with 15 guest posts

         Post a few recipes from PR&P on website

         Create a new YouTube video for “Alli and Gina’s Cooking School” channel

         Continue other efforts from above as appropriate

Two Months after Publication

         Cross-pollinate across my four Twitter accounts, five Facebook pages, and four

                  blogs

         Continue blogging and writing newspaper column

         Continue guest posting on blogs

         Continue other efforts from above as appropriate

Three Months after Publication and beyond

         Cross-pollinate across my four Twitter accounts, five Facebook pages, and four

                  blogs

         Continue other efforts as appropriate from above

         Submit PR&P to Arizona Library Association Adult Fiction Book Committee

         Submit to Public Safety Writers Association published book award contest

         Book signing at the Pinewood Country Club

         Continue other efforts from above as appropriate

Please leave comments below for more ideas I can try or for your reaction to this plan. When authors work together there is nothing they cannot accomplish.

Resources:

https://www.standoutbooks.com/13-steps-to-write-a-book-marketing-plan/

https://www.dogearpublishing.net/wordpress/how-to-write-a-book-marketing-plan/

https://allfreelancewriting.com/free-book-marketing-plan-outline/

https://www.thebookdesigner.com/marketing-your-book/

If you think others should read this blog post, please share on your social media sites. Here are some pre-made messages for you. And thanks!

Facebook: Authors need to be thinking marketing BEFORE they have a book contract. Sharon Arthur Moore Author shares her marketing plan for her next book, Prime Rib and Punishment. Check out her ideas and add to them at http://bit.ly/2uVngab

Twitter: Do you have a book marketing plan? @good2tweat posted her 15-month marketing plan for an upcoming book at http://bit.ly/2uVngab

Caught in the Author Web!

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I was snagged to participate in a spider web blog challenge. Janet Greger snagged me; Ilene Schneider snagged her; and I snagged Sandra Bremser. You get to meet some bloggers you might not have encountered as we play this game! Additionally, you find out more about this blogger and her work as an author. Check the bottom for links.

Each of us has the same four questions to answer. Here I go! Tag! I’m it!

WHAT AM I WORKING ON NOW? 

I am deep into two novel sequels, a romance short story for an anthology, and revisions of a mystery short story for a contest submission. The two sequels are Sex for Sale, sequel to Streewalker, my erotic romance series and Prime Rib and Punishment, sequel to Mission Impastable, my culinary mystery series.

In Sex for Sale, my protagonist, Carrie, and her business partner, Harlan still run their Upper East side brothel, but Harlan is distancing himself more and more as he develops his photography interest. Carrie is trying to get out of the brothel business and find more legitimate ways to sell sex as she opens an erotica art gallery and restaurant. Relationship misunderstandings interfere with their developing romance. Stuff happens. Will they part forever?

Prime Rib and Punishment picks up a couple of months after the end of Mission Impastable and finds the newly-minted personal chefs still struggling financially. They take part-time teaching jobs at a new culinary school but the head chef, forced to hire them by his boss, hates Alli and Gina. Unfortunately for them, that makes them prime suspects when he ends up dead. Filled with recipes, this two-fer, mystery and cookbook, will keep readers guessing as they try to solve the mystery alongside Alli.

In addition, I am writing a short story, “Just Say Something” (tentative) for a romance anthology to be published in October.

I am in the process of edits for an historical suspense romance, Lucinda, that I really want to publish later this year.

And for fun this summer, and as a break, I plan to finish my play about a single guy moving into a retirement community. Hot Dishes refers to the food the women show up with and how they view themselves.

WHY DO I WRITE WHAT I DO?

I write in a wide range of genres because I let the story unfold. Sometimes that means paranormal, sometimes romance, and sometimes something else. I have to say I love writing culinary mysteries just as much as historical fiction or as much as erotic romance.

Each genre teaches me something more about the craft of writing as I struggle to master different genre elements. I think writing in a variety of genres is the sign of a healthy imagination rather than a sign of a dilettante who can’t focus! Right?

HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF THE SAME GENRE?

My protagonist, Alli, struggles with commitment and suffers from huge personal issues traceable to being abandoned as a youth. She is a hard worker, but Alli questions authority, and that hasn’t sat well with her dozens of employers over the years. She lives in the backyard casita of her friend from 2^nd grade as part of her friend’s extended family.  She is a natural cook who finds measuring anathema. Her business partner in their newly-minted personal chef business knows they have to be more mindful of the details. The women struggle, not with their cooking, but with the business aspects of their chosen line of work.

HOW DOES YOUR WRITING PROCESS WORK?

I can be a pantser, a plotter, or (as one speaker identified in her session), a puzzler. A pantser lets the story roll out on its own. Sort of like mid-wifery. Just helping along a natural process. I am also, with some of my novels, a plotter (and I go into more detail on that). But at times, I am a puzzler. At a workshop recently, Lexi Post/Alexis Walker said that folks who don’t write chronologically, rather they write scenes out of order, are puzzlers. The pieces will fit together somehow.

I always work on more than one piece at a time. That shotgun approach staves off writer’s block. I also find that working on different genres helps me stay fresh with writing as well, as described above.

I start with a situation, question, or character and then play “what if?” to find plot lines to explore. “What if their first client died of food poisoning?” “What if Alli had a police officer boyfriend?” and so on.

I do major character sketches. I have the characters tell me, in first person, who they are, what’s important to them, what scares them, and so on.

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I write the ten key events for the novel. I put the events spaced within a 40-line grid leaving grid spaces on either side to fill in as scenes. What happened before and after each of the ten? Then on either side of those. Each line of the grid includes who is in the scene, where/when is the scene, the point of the scene, and other stuff that needs to be there. This plotting does not restrict me (I veer off on side paths frequently), but it gives me a compass for finishing the novel.

However, as the puzzler, I have also written novels where I capture scenes that I write down and then weave together later. I write scenes from any place in the book. I’m afraid if I don’t get them down while they are pressing on me, I’ll lose them.

The spider who caught me in this web was Janet Greger. See her at www.jlgreger.com  She was caught by Ilene Schneider. See her at rabbiauthor.com. She was caught into the web Sandy Fairfax. See her at sandyfairfaxauthor.com. I snared Sandra Bremser into the web. See her blog at www.sandrabremser.tumblr.com   

Tweet Me Well: @good2tweat

You met Alli Wesson, my personal chef character (from the “Dinner is Served” culinary mystery series I am writing) when she dropped by for an interview. She is quite a character, so to speak!

Anyway, Alli and I were talking about how we’re going to develop a marketing plan for the “Dinner is Served” series. One thing that occurred to me, and Alli just loved it, was to start a Twitter following of her recipes. That is such the hot thing these days among foodies.

So I set up a Twitter account. Follow me there @good2tweat. I promise some cooking tips, food facts, and recipes in miniature. Additionally, I have a food blog, "Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time" at www.sharonarthurmoore.blogspot.com. If you go to the food blog, take the garlic quiz.

I ordered Eat Tweet: 1,020 Recipe Gems (Maureen Evans), and I follow Maureen on Twitter. She is amazing! She does unusual stuff, complicated recipes, even ethnic ones and she does it in 140 characters or fewer. That includes spaces and punctuation by the way. To show you what I mean, here is a recipe from Alli that appears in Prime Rib and Punishment, the book I am currently writing:

Savory Butter: Pulse n mini fd proc .5cbutter/3T bell pep/1grn onion/1clv garlic.

Sprd bread or Portobello shrooms n grill. Srv 1T on cookd meat.

Alli and I are going to tweet some recipes to those of you who like word puzzles AND cooking! Look for me on Twitter now @good2tweat and you will find cooking tips, recipes, and food facts accumulating.

Whether you like to cook or not, you may have friends who do. Let them in on Twitter recipes. Build up my traffic for that Twitter account! Retweet me to all your friends.

I gotta admit that I am having trouble with getting my head around how much marketing we are expected to do for our books. I get it that budgets are tight, and I get it that NO ONE cares more about my books doing well than I do. Still. More on marketing in a later column.

Dilettante is as Dilettante Does

I have accused myself of being a dilettante because I write in so many genres. It surely helps with writer’s block to have so many different projects going—plays to children’s books to culinary mystery to erotica to historical fiction to . . . well, you get the idea.

But, this time, I think I out-dilettante-d myself!

I started book two in my “Dinner is Served” series about two personal chefs and the murders they solve. Good you say? Not so fast. It’s not like book one is done. That’s the one I dumped and had to start over. But I can’t. Not yet.

It’s like there is static in my head. I want to “re-purpose” parts of book one, but I have to have a new killer and motivation. The red herrings change. Nope—can’t do book one right now. I can’t get a handle on the new story because part of my brain is still working on the old one.

Fortunately, long ago I planned out multiple books in the series. So, I moved on to book 2 to get back into the series. The hardest question was do I make Cooks in the Can book two or should it be Prime Rib and Punishment? After a suggestion from one of my critique group partners, I began Prime Rib and Punishment, set in a cooking school.

Interesting to me, anyway, is that I am not writing it episodically as I wrote book one. I used Hallie Ephron’s planning guide then wrote first two chapters. Then I wrote part of last chapter because I read somewhere that when writing plays, if you write the last act first, you know where you are headed and can plant seeds throughout that ripen and come to harvest in the last act. Okay, so that’s make some sense. Then, I started getting scenes in my head, so I wrote two other scenes that will appear someplace, not sure where.

Have I planned my novel? Yep, but my pantser stepped in. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I just know I have no control over the flashes. This has happened to me before with other novels. When I get the scene flashes, I know to write them down. Even if they end up on the cutting room floor, the more I write about my characters and my story line, the better it will be for the final book.

I took the first two chapters to my Pens Afire critique group yesterday. There were multiple problems to fix (as is always the case, eh?), but the biggest one harkened to Sue Grafton’s comment re writing a series. How do you keep the recurring characters fresh? How do you introduce them to a new audience while not boring your fan base?

Writing Alli Wesson and Gina Smithson or Gina’s mom Maria and her pal, Pearl—pretty easy. I know these women! I like them, and I can tell you what they are likely to have for breakfast whether at home or when they go out to IHop.

But therein lies the problem. I am not reading this with the eyes of a reader new to my series. So Pens Afire (Sandra Bremser and Annie Weissman) called me on it. Good for them. Even though I knew of the danger, I skated right past the warning signs onto the thin ice. It’s cracking around me, but I now know, early in this book, to skate away. Thanks, Pens Afire.