When is NOW a good time to start marketing your book?
Getting a Head Start on Your Competition
If you are going to invest in writing a book – there is no smarter approach than to build it like any other business, with a strategic plan that includes marketing. When accepting that your book is a business, the number one biggest foopah, if you will, of a novice writer – is to wait until the book is complete before engaging in marketing activities.
Let me ask you a question, “If you were to create a mom and pop store, selling children’s toys – when do you think you would start marketing your new store… the day AFTER you officially opened for business?” Probably not! You would start getting the buzz out as soon as you knew your dream would become a reality! Why, then, would you think that waiting would be a natural choice as a successful business owner whose product just happens to be a newly published book?
The buzz simply MUST begin in the early days of your writing. In fact, if you are taking the most strategic approach possible, you will have predetermined – and write the core of your book around:
- Who your reader is,
- Where you would ultimately find and market to them, and finally…
- Why they would consider adding your book to their library or must read list.
Since many books are truly looked at as that “big business card” knowing how you are going to build your entire sales funnel – in advance of publishing your book is a strategy that will keep you light years ahead of your competitors… you will be able to promote your upcoming products, services, workshops, etc. right in your first run publication!
Your Book Platform
This brings to mind a part of the strategic process of marketing, which is known as building your book platform. Strategically speaking, it is yet another topic of which novice writers are unaware and which requires, at a very significant level, the need to integrate marketing efforts BEFORE your book is done.
What is a platform?
It is the strategic process of determining exactly how others will recognize you; it is the ability to reach your audience as represented by your current “influence” in your industry or genre and the vehicle you have designed to actually sell to your market. It requires somehow making you a “celebrity” before your book is released.
How is that managed? Strategically! Through any number of avenues which might be most appealing to you as the author. For example:
- Article writing/blogging/forum responses
- Social Media
- Video marketing
- Public speaking
- Expert interviews – radio, television, tele-classes, webinars
At the very core of my being lie two elements – 1) that left-brained tendency to strategically plan everything that should transpire in the quest for achieving any successful venture and 2) the need to encourage others to engage in the kind of positive, life-altering activities that will ensure an ultimate long-term sustainable benefit. Which reminds me of a lot of public speakers who have a phrase they use to get the audience’s attention, “When is NOW a good time to…” When it comes to writing a book, I would query the author, “When is NOW a good time to start your marketing?” The answer a resounding, “Always!”
Keeping Concepts Simple…
I trust you come away with a number of simple concepts today:
- Even if you are using your book as a “big business card” you must still approach the process as though your book is a business!
- You must strategically design your marketing efforts to run in tandem with your writing.
- Understanding the importance of creating and marketing from the strategic standpoint of a solid Book Platform.
If this has stimulated queries for which I can provide answers – my email voicesinprint@yahoo is always an open door!
Anna Weber The literary strategist that helps you become highly compensated for leaving your mark on the world!
I never thought of platform in quite that way. Too often the term is thrown around but never defined, but that was an excellent definition.
Never thought of marketing a book before being finished writing it. Does the promotional part change what’s written based on the audience response? Presumably you want to write for someone because you have something important to say to him. How does one avoid the potential pitfall of one’s original message being unduly influenced by responses?
Janina,
Thank you for your input and I am glad you were able to gain some clarity around the term, platform. You are so right about it being tossed about – and unfortunately too many uses made of it, which can tend to dilute the power and purpose. For close to a decade I have watched authors struggle – and the underlying reason is the lack of appropriate timing in creating their authority or celebrity status before the book is complete. The marketability of the author is as important as the marketability of the book and if that is not established prior to release date, alas, it is too late! I have always been of the understanding it takes a good nine months to create that status; I just recently heard, with the plethora of new materials being brought to market, the savvy book marketer will now be initiating actions roughly a year ahead of time.
Whether the promotional aspect changes what you write is certainly within your choice. Two things come into play, the first being whether you are fully passionate that your initial intended message is THE one that needs to be delivered – or, alternatively, whether your intention is to more fully meet the needs of your audience. I am fairly confident that there need not be undue influence if you are strong in your key deliverables; you just get a better opportunity to share and more fully respond to the “need” as you now more clearly see it – rather than the narrower scope of your own personal perspective.
Thank you for expounding. What you say makes good sense.
The ability to respond and speak more fully to your audience before the first book is even published is powerful. And it doesn’t mean that the purity of the message will be sullied or blurred in any way.
I think I had a tendency to assume otherwise because I spent some time in an industry where artistic vision is always being co-opted and perverted in exchange for short term monetary gain.
But what you’re saying sounds like it’s engaging the audience in a dialog, engaging them before the book comes out so they can get excited about it. It sounds like it’s also possible to use their feedback for help with the editing process.
I’m learning so much from your blog. Thank you.
Janina, I am excited that you are learning! That is what it is all about. Just as I share my knowledge in such a manner that actually “engages” you, let that be your mission – to engage your clients in the richness of what you offer. A