September 29: the twenty-nineth day of InSeMaMo
Today's challenge is to create a marketing plan for yourself.
I've thrown a lot of huge marketing challenges at you this month. Most of them cannot be done in a day, and many of them require ongoing effort.
Before you begin to feel like you've become a marketer who also wrote a book, instead of a writer who also markets your books, let's try to make this reasonable.
Getting book reviews, a community that will spread the word about your books, and direct sales are your end goals: the first two because they will funnel into the last. Now you need to choose which activities you are comfortable using to accomplish those goals.
Building relationships with the popular book reviewers and book bloggers in your field is crucial to getting the reviews that will sell QUANTITIES of your books so I would advise getting to know who they are. Reading and commenting on their blogs or their reviews should be one of your regular weekly marketing activities.
Building a community of readers who will buy and spread the word about your books is also crucial, so growing your email list is your second regular weekly marketing activity.
Everything else is optional, so build those two things into your week and stick to them, whatever else you do.
Do you feel comfortable speaking in public? If so, do that, and take a newsletter sign-up sheet as well as your books for sale when you do.
Do you feel comfortable on Twitter? If so, make time each day to post tweets, converse and retweet for others, and grow your followers, making sure they're members of your target market.
Do you like blogging? If so, compose blogs for your target market, and offer to guest blog often, especially for influencial, popular bloggers on your topic/genre.
Are you visually creative? Pinterest and Utube might work for you, if your target market hangs out there.
Do you like Facebook? LinkedIn? Have a presence and get to know people there.
Don't try to do it all. Focus on what works for you, and keep it simple. Tomorrow is my last marketing tip, the most important one of all.
Today's challenge is to create a marketing plan for yourself.
I've thrown a lot of huge marketing challenges at you this month. Most of them cannot be done in a day, and many of them require ongoing effort.
Before you begin to feel like you've become a marketer who also wrote a book, instead of a writer who also markets your books, let's try to make this reasonable.
Getting book reviews, a community that will spread the word about your books, and direct sales are your end goals: the first two because they will funnel into the last. Now you need to choose which activities you are comfortable using to accomplish those goals.
Building relationships with the popular book reviewers and book bloggers in your field is crucial to getting the reviews that will sell QUANTITIES of your books so I would advise getting to know who they are. Reading and commenting on their blogs or their reviews should be one of your regular weekly marketing activities.
Building a community of readers who will buy and spread the word about your books is also crucial, so growing your email list is your second regular weekly marketing activity.
Everything else is optional, so build those two things into your week and stick to them, whatever else you do.
Do you feel comfortable speaking in public? If so, do that, and take a newsletter sign-up sheet as well as your books for sale when you do.
Do you feel comfortable on Twitter? If so, make time each day to post tweets, converse and retweet for others, and grow your followers, making sure they're members of your target market.
Do you like blogging? If so, compose blogs for your target market, and offer to guest blog often, especially for influencial, popular bloggers on your topic/genre.
Are you visually creative? Pinterest and Utube might work for you, if your target market hangs out there.
Do you like Facebook? LinkedIn? Have a presence and get to know people there.
Don't try to do it all. Focus on what works for you, and keep it simple. Tomorrow is my last marketing tip, the most important one of all.
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