Do you remember Yogi Berra’s famous quote on the importance of planning? He said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up some place else.”

His wisdom applies to book marketing, too. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish with your book, you won’t know if you’ve done it – or how to do it.

That’s why you want to create a book marketing plan, even if your book is already published and available for purchase.

What’s a book marketing plan?

A book marketing plan is a document that outlines:

• What you want to accomplish with your book
• How you’ll do it
• What you will need to spend to make that happen
• When you’ll do the work involved

If you want to sell books, creating a book marketing plan isn’t optional – it’s essential. Even so, if you have no marketing experience, you might find the idea of creating a book marketing plan intimidating.

CLICK TO GET YOUR FREE BOOK MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE!

It’s not as hard as you might expect, though. It takes thought and effort, for sure, but it’s really just a matter of answering the right questions.

Here are the seven questions you want to ask and answer.

1. What’s my situation with this book?

Answer this by briefly describing your book and what makes it different from the competition.

Include what makes both you and the book marketable. Perhaps your book is on a timely topic or uses a new way to tell a story.

You might have unique credentials that qualify you to write the book, including professional experience. Maybe you’ve won relevant awards.

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Address your publishing situation, too, by noting your publishing model and anticipated publication date. The latter is particularly important because it helps determine what tactics are available to you.

For example, if your book is already published, certain tactics – engaging your audience by requesting their input on your cover design, for example – aren’t an option.

2. Who did I write this book for?

This is your target audience, your ideal readers. It’s who will appreciate and buy your book.

It’s especially important to understand your target audience because the more you know about who will love your book, the better able you will be to reach them online and in the real world.

Need help with that? My short training program, “Who Will Buy Your Book? How to Figure Out and Find Your Target Audience,” will help.

When you know as much as possible about your ideal readers, you can research the social networks they use, the media outlets they pay attention to, even the types of activities they prefer.

You can have more than one target audience, but one will probably rise to the top as the most interested in your topic or genre.

For example, the primary audience for a self-help book about how to live with or help a hoarder might be friends and family. A secondary audience is therapists and other counseling professionals who can recommend the book to their clients.

3. What do I want to accomplish with my book marketing?

This is all about goals.

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A goal is a broad statement of direction that is determined by your needs. In this case, your goals are related to marketing your book.

With good goals in place, you can look at each marketing tactic and ask, “Does this step help me achieve my goals?” If the answer isn’t “yes,” the tactic should be removed from the plan.

Goals are well-defined. They tell you which direction you want to go. Examples include:

• To develop a fan base that will lead to increased sales of subsequent books in my fiction series.
• To help position me as an expert in a way that will generate more clients.

4. What’s my book marketing strategy?

A strategy is your over-arching approach to promoting your book. It’s a “big picture” view that summarizes the thinking behind your marketing efforts.

Examples include:

• To use my large fan base to generate massive buzz during the first few weeks of my book launch.
• To focus on public speaking because I’ve learned that I sell a lot of books when people hear me speak.
• To put most of my time into creating fun TikTok videos because my audience is there, my following is growing steadily, and I’m good at it

Your strategy helps determine what you’ll do to market your book, and when you’ll do it.

5. What tactics will I use to reach my goals?

Tactics are the things you’re going to do to get exposure for your book.

Tactics vary from book to book – it’s not a “one-size-fits-all” situation – but tactics to consider (among others!) include:

• Soliciting reader reviews
• Creating a Facebook group
• Doing podcast interviews
• Optimizing your Amazon sales page
• Creating an image quote campaign

If you’re new to book marketing, don’t try to implement too many tactics. Start with two or three that will help you reach your target audience and learn to do them really well. When you’ve mastered them, add another tactic.

6. How much can I spend to promote my book?

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This is your book marketing budget. Your tactics can determine your budget, or your budget can determine your tactics.

There are lots of things you can do to market your book that don’t cost anything, but if you’re serious about getting your book into the hands of the people you wrote it for, you’ll need to spend some money.

A typical book marketing budget might include training program fees, website design and hosting, tools, and advertising costs.

7. What’s my book marketing timeline?

Use a calendar for this. Build your timeline around:

• When you will start marketing
• How long you plan to continue (think long-term – I encourage you to market your book as long as it’s available for purchase)
• When you will implement each tactic in your plan

For example, if you want to get reader reviews onto your Amazon sales page immediately after your publication date, get those review copies out to readers several weeks before the book goes “live.”

If you’re planning a virtual book tour, start building relationships with key bloggers at least six months before your anticipated tour dates. You want them to be familiar with you and your work before you ask them to participate.

Consider using a “reverse calendar” approach. This is one where you start with your end date in mind – the day your book is available, for example – and plan backwards from there.

Creating your book marketing plan

You can answer these seven questions with bullet points or paragraphs – whatever works for you. What matters more than word choice or format is that you capture this important information in writing.

When you’re clear on what you want to do to reach your book marketing goals, determine how you’ll get the work done. Can you do it yourself? Do you need to outsource any of it?

Remember to create that calendar detailing who will do what and when, complete with deadlines. If you don’t schedule the activities in whatever time management system you use, they might not happen. (Voice of experience talking here.)

Your plan is your marketing success blueprint

To make it easy for you, I’ve created a free book marketing plan template that you can download and use immediately. It includes:

• Instructions
• Examples
• Links to how-to information online
• A fill-in-the-blanks form

CLICK TO GET YOUR FREE BOOK MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE!

Once you complete that template and start implementing your tactics, track your activities and outcomes.

Do more of what works, less of what doesn’t.

Success takes time

Use your book marketing plan – your blueprint – as an evolving document that changes as you learn more about book marketing, your ideal readers, and how to reach them.

Finally, remember that everything takes time. Most books don’t become best-sellers as soon as they’re launched. They succeed over time because the author created, followed, and adjusted their book marketing plan.

And that’s what you need to do, too.

Do you have a book marketing plan? Please tell us how it helps you in a comment!

Her situation isn’t unusual. Sometimes authors feel like they’re doing all the right things, but they’re not seeing the results they expect. It’s frustrating.

But the thing is, they might not be doing the “right” things. Or maybe they are, but the execution is weak.

They might be hindered by other factors. Perhaps the book needs a cover re-design, or the Amazon detail page needs a makeover.

It’s also possible that they’re getting the right level of results for the activity, but their expectations aren’t realistic.

Determine what does and doesn’t work for your book

The first step in figuring out what’s going on with your book marketing is understanding what you’re doing that works and what you’re doing that doesn’t.

Naturally, you’ll want to do more of what works.

Do this by tracking your marketing activities and the results. Tracking will help you see, for example, if using what you learned in that Instagram marketing course helped sell any books. (Notice that I said “Any,” not “lots.”)

Track book marketing activity with four easy steps

Tracking is easy. You might even find it rewarding. Just follow a four-step process:

1. Execute one marketing activity at a time. Otherwise, you won’t know which tactic made a difference.
2. Log the activity and sales results in an Excel file or a Word table — or the Google Docs equivalent, if you prefer. (See example below.)
3. Study the outcomes to identify trends or patterns.
4. Make any necessary changes based on what you’ve learned.

My book marketing tracking results

That’s what I did when I released the updated version of Get Your Book in the News: How to Write a Press Release That Announces Your Book. Here’s my Excel file header:

I recorded each book marketing tactic, the book’s Amazon category ranking, and the number of books sold.

Here’s what I discovered:

• Everything I did sold books, but some tactics resulted in higher sales than others.
• I sold the most books after announcing the update to my newsletter subscribers. (If you aren’t a subscriber but would like to get free book marketing advice in your inbox every week, use the form at the upper right or under this article.)
• The second best sales source was a recommendation in colleagues’ newsletters.
• I sold the least number of books when I shared this image with a purchase link on social media.

Knowing what spurred sales helped me focus further activities on those that would most likely deliver the best results.

Implement and monitor one tactic at a time

It’s particularly important to implement one tactic at a time whenever possible. If you’re implementing several simultaneously, you’ll struggle to determine which one works best.

That means you don’t want to pay for Amazon ads if you’re on a virtual book tour. If your book marketing plan relies heavily on social media, try limiting your promotional posts to just one social network at a time. Don’t do a Kindle countdown if you’re about to get a big publicity hit.

And, when you believe something doesn’t seem to be generating sales, ask yourself why before abandoning the tactic.

Is it because the tactic isn’t a good fit for the book and its target audience? Or is it because you haven’t implemented it properly or effectively? Will learning how to do it the right way make a difference?

Keep it going

Log activity and monitor results on an ongoing basis, being careful to be as specific as possible when documenting the marketing tactic. Specificity will help you zero in on the best platforms, messages, and images to use, among other things.

Continually adjust your book marketing plan as you learn more until you understand what works best for your book, not anyone else’s.

You’ll find that it’s well worth the small amount of time you put into it.

What book marketing tactic has helped you sell the most books? Please tell us in a comment. 

It refers to blind imitation – copying what others do without thinking about whether doing so is appropriate or makes sense.

It’s a problem with authors.

Focus, focus, focus

When you just mimic others because you don’t know which book marketing tactics you can ignore, you lose focus. You also waste your time.

Your book marketing goal is to get the right message to the right people at the right time and in the right place. If you’re copying someone who’s a successful business book author and you write cozy mysteries, you’re probably using the wrong tactics for your audience.

To help you find your focus, I’ve identified three popular tactics that aren’t going to work for most authors. There are exceptions, of course. But for most, these are book marketing tactics you can ignore when you see others using them.

1. Amazon pre-orders

A successful pre-order campaign takes almost as much work as a book launch because the goal is the same: to generate orders. That doesn’t happen simply by enabling pre-orders on Amazon.

Curious about how much work is involved? Read Diana Urban’s excellent guest post, “How to run a successful book preorder campaign.”

It works best for authors with a strong platform – a large and enthusiastic following that can’t wait to read the book.

Is that you? If not, skip it.

2. Running Amazon ads as soon as you launch

I’ve got a couple of reasons to wait a bit before paying to advertise on Amazon.

First, readers don’t want to buy a book from an author they’re not familiar with if it doesn’t have an unofficial reader seal of approval. Those review stars at the top of your book’s sales page are that seal of approval.

Because of that, spending money on ads until you have that reader validation is pointless. Make getting reader reviews a priority; wait until they’re in place before advertising.

For more on this, read “Get reader reviews before advertising on Amazon.”

Use the Build Book Buzz Reader Book Review Form to help get those reviews.

In addition, many authors discover after publishing that there are issues with the book. They might be spelling or grammar mistakes that weren’t caught, a cover that doesn’t cut it, or a book description that needs a refresh.

Give it a little time to see if any of these challenges surface so you can fix them before advertising. Your book really needs to be top notch before you spend on ads.

3. Jumping on the latest “it” thing

Right now, it’s Clubhouse, a social network for “casual, drop-in audio conversations – with friends and other interesting people around the world.”

To participate, you need to add yourself to a waiting list or snag an invitation from someone already using it.

This “not everybody can use it right now” approach creates a sense of what marketers call “scarcity.” It suggests that only the cool kids are using it, which can make it more appealing for some.

Is this particular “it” thing a good fit for your book marketing plan? It is if your ideal readers are using it. Consider it, too, if your author brand relies on you being a trendsetter and early adopter.

If neither applies to you, let it go.

Whether it’s Clubhouse or something else, be careful about investing time in new and untested social networks or resources for book marketing purposes. Make sure it’s a good fit for your book, your audience, and your goals.

You do you

Book marketing isn’t one size fits all.

What works for one book might not work for another.

Do the work to figure out where you’ll find your readers and what resonates with them.

Then determine what tactics will help you reach them while also making the best use of your time and skills — and therefore what book marketing tactics you can ignore.

While playing follow the leader can work with the right situations, these three tactics might be a waste of time, energy, and money. Be thoughtful about each before using them simply because you see others doing it.

What tactics do you see others using that won’t work for your book? Please tell us in a comment!

Tip of the Month

I like to share a “Tip of the Month,” a free resource or tool for authors, on the last Wednesday of the month.

If you’re a Twitter user, you’ll appreciate Hashtagify, a Twitter hashtag tracking tool. It allows you to find the best hashtags to reach your audience, gives you custom suggestions, and helps you analyze your influencers and your competitors’ strategies.

To evaluate the hashtag you use the most and find others related to it, type it into the search box on the Hashtagify home page. After clicking on the “search” button, scroll down to get data related to the hashtag, suggestions for similar hashtags, and tweets using it, as well.

If you’re a power Tweeter, consider subscribing to the premium level for more hashtag suggestions and insights into influencers and trends. The free version is probably enough for casual Twitter users.