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

Promo and Marketing for Writers, Part 2

I signed a contract for book two in my culinary mystery series, Prime Rib and Punishment, and it will be followed a two-three months later with book three, Potluck. While those are in production, I will be writing Ancient Grease in which Alli and Gina work for a cruise ship as demo cooks. 2015 is going to be a good year for me!

Jeana, our marketing guru at Oak Tree Press, just e-mailed me with some requests, one of which is sending her my year-long, month-by-month marketing plan for Prime Rib and Punishment. The plan begins three months prior to release and continues for at least nine months after that. I had to complete one for Mission Impastable, too, but I know a bit more now than I did when I created that one.

I have a guest on “Write Away” next week, but I will share parts of my marketing plan with you two weeks from now so you have a sense of how to produce one if your publisher requests it or you are indie publishing and wonder what a marketing plan can (not must) look like.

But here are some tidbits for marketing and promotion as teasers:

I will order business cards as soon as the book cover is finalized. I am hoping we go for another “food on a fork” picture like Mission Impastable. I like the simplicity and the branding effect of a similar style cover. Remember, I like to use the real estate on the back side as a reason to keep my card so I will be pulling recipes from the next three books for that purpose.

A couple of years ago, I ordered car magnets for my doors. I’ll be getting another pair of magnets for PR&P and other books in the series. It is cheap, passive advertising. I drive to the grocery store and somebody asks me about the book title! Everywhere I go, my name and my book title go along.

Of course I’ll be announcing my new title this month to the readers of my cooking column in a small local newspaper. I already show the cover of MI; I’ll just add in PR&P when it’s ready. I am fortunate to have this free advertising opportunity each month.

I’ve arranged for some guest spots on blogs later this summer, and I’m doing a fall podcast that will allow me to tout all three books.

I’m going to create some of those Rotten E-Cards with promo material (you have to be careful not to violate their guidelines), but I know they catch one’s attention when they pop up in a Twitter of Facebook feed.

Tweets and Facebook posts will let people know something comes this way! I am asking ten people to post tweets and Facebook posts (which I prepare in advance). The reach of ten others to their followers/friends will greatly extend my exposure. I prepare those in advance for distribution to them with instructions for when to release the messages.

I know these items are pieces of my marketing plan, but I have to put more effort in pulling off both a virtual and in-person launch. My plan will tell Jeana that’s what I’m doing, but I will have two other documents with the details for each.

What has been successful for you in book promotion and marketing? Please share below so we all learn!

Be sure to stop in next Tuesday. Sue Faris Raatjes is back with tips for those who want to write for the Christian fiction market! And in two weeks, I’ll share the marketing plan for Prime Rib and Punishment.

Book Marketing 101—Part I

You are the center of my life, Dear Reader, except of course for all my family and real friends. Still, you are important. So in your best interests and mine, of course, I scoured the web for book platform and marketing plan ideas.

There are bazillions of commercial opportunities on the web. Lots of people want to help you achieve your publishing—and marketing—dreams. I have mostly avoided that here in favor of free stuff. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want to pay someone to do something I should be able to do for myself. Also, there were some articles on e-mail as part of the platform, but I hate spam, so I didn’t include them.

I can learn this stuff. I can do it, too. And I care more about successful marketing than anybody I can pay.

My criterion for inclusion? Did I learn anything? You may already know all this stuff. I didn’t.

Certain terms kept coming up: form a relationship, on-going/long-term, brand/identity, diversified approach. I get it. A marketing plan and author platform is not just about selling this book to the public, but it is about making the public clamor for more from me.

So, here in Part I, I am listing some of these sites I found helpful. Part II will appear in “WriteAway” on Feb. 10. With a guest blogger in between! Read more at the end of this post.

“How to Build a Marketing Platform” by Christina Katz (she of Get Known Before the Book Deal) published in Writer’s Digest, May/June, 2010.

In order to market our books, Katz says we must have an area expertise, find a unique niche, and get a relationship going with the target audience. Her “10 simple steps” are ones we can all take. They are: 1) Find your tribes; 2) Connect, don’t network; 3) Serve to learn; 4) Give public readings; 5) Learn to teach; 6) Speak up; 7) Start something; 8) Pen articles; 9) Offer assistance; and, 10) Create a one-pager.

Read what these all mean at http://bit.ly/QAMhn

“Building a Media Platform for Your New Book—Part I” by Barry Fox

Not so much an article with new stuff as it is a tidy reminder of what you might already have heard but stated succinctly here.

Read more at http://bit.ly/eJP0aC

“Publisher Simon and Schuster Says Authors Should Blog and Social Network” by Joanna Penn

This article is full of links to related articles on blogging and social networking. A really good one-stop shopping source for bloggers. Very useful info here. Plus with the imprimatur of S& S, well . . .

Read more at http://bit.ly/doFddJ

“How to Build Your Author’s Platform from Scratch” by Dvorah Lansky

Practical, pointed suggestions in plain speak. Sort of a put up or shut up article.

Read more at http://bit.ly/h2Yj6P

“Your Author Platform—Branding” by Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer

Smith makes the case in this short article for getting known by picture and brand. She uses “The Savvy Book Marketer” as her tagline after her name. We all need one, she says, and she offers suggestions.

Read more at http://bit.ly/8ltbIe

“Just Say ‘No!’ to Authors without Healthy Marketing Platforms” by Michael Drew.

Drew believes that editors ought to ask these four questions and like the answers before offering a contract to an author:

1. Does this author have a publishing history?
2. Does he/she have a large fan base to work with?
3. What kind of a marketing platform is in place?
4. How will the marketing plan bring readers into the bookstores?

Read more at http://bit.ly/91zYEv

Part II appears on Feb. 10. So come on back for it. In the meantime, set your alarm to show up here tomorrow for Kris Tualla’s blog tour. She will share info on e-publishing and give away some books to some lucky visitors. See you tomorrow. Right here. Write Away.

Book Marketing Plan

I am submitting my “naughty novel”, Streetwalker, to Eternal Press early next week. I went on their website to find out the submission guidelines and discovered, for the first time since I have been looking at submission guidelines for fiction, that they require a marketing plan.

It shouldn’t have shocked me the way it did. I’ve written about this before. Every conference I go to, every class I take, someone, sometime mentions that you are in large part responsible for marketing your book. If you don’t care the most, who does?

In all my years of publishing non-fiction books, I was expected to know the target consumers and the competitive texts. My reputation in the field (based on presentations, articles, and other books) was part of the marketing plan. When I submitted a book proposal, I had to include sample chapters, an outline, and a skeletal marketing plan.

I get it.

But, fiction has been shielded from the worst of this for so long. Now, it is endemic. You must promote yourself and your works. At minimum, I learned at one conference agents/editors expect you to have a following through your blog, website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. That’s the minimum.

So what does one do when one encounters this expectation for the first time, in real life, with consequences? The message I took away from the Eternal Press info re submissions was that my marketing plan was part of their consideration for whether to offer a contract. Hmm.

What did I do? I sent out a distress call to my two critique groups. They came through dutifully and beautifully. One critique partner in particular has a business background and her suggestions were amazing. Learn more about Sandra Evans and her many books with business applications at livinglegacyjourney.blogspot.com.

In a later blog, I am going to share what I send to Eternal Press in hopes it will help some of you who are facing the same thing.

It doesn’t even matter that we resent having to invest our time this way. It just is. So do it.