Did you pour your heart, soul, and dreams into announcing your book to the world?

And then, did you walk away from it just a few weeks or months later?

Maybe you were burned out. Disappointed with sales. Hated putting yourself out there with your book. Or dying to get started on your next project.

Stalled book marketing can’t be permanent

There are many reasons for your marketing to stall out, but it should be a temporary situation, not a permanent one.

Your book deserves the attention you can continue to bring to it. You wrote it to entertain, educate, or inform people, so you have to let readers who will love it know it exists.

Let’s fix your stalled book marketing problem now.

It starts with mindset.

Here are seven things you can do to make the essential attitude readjustment that will help you get back to it.

1. Surround yourself with positive people.

And ditch the Debbie Downers.

via GIPHY

They will suck the life out of you.

Truth is, the negative, whiny people in your circle are often uncomfortable with what you’ve accomplished.

They fear your success. In their minds, the higher you soar, the more likely you are to leave them behind.

I realize, of course, that you can’t always remove these people from your life. But you can certainly get some distance.

Make that a goal, because you can’t fly high with anchors weighing you down.

2. Resurrect that book marketing plan.

Your book marketing plan is your action blueprint. It details what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to do that.

If you’ve got one, pull it out now and review it.

Never created one? Fortunately, it won’t take long to fix that.

Start with my article, “Create your book marketing plan by answering these 7 questions.”

It includes a link to my free Build Book Buzz Book Marketing Plan Template with complete instructions, but you can download it here, too.

3. Make yourself accountable.

One of the best ways to resurrect stalled book marketing is to make sure you’re accountable to someone who will hold you to your commitments.

I have a goal buddy for this. In late December, we meet to review what we accomplished that year and to share goals for the coming 12 months. We follow the annual review with regular check-ins that hold us accountable for hitting those milestones, or explaining why we didn’t.

Look for someone who can do this for you – and vice versa. Another author is your best option, but it’s not necessary. All you need is a friend or colleague who also needs accountability support.

4. Get out of your comfort zone.

Nothing invigorates me like learning how to do something new, especially when I think that “something” is over my head.

Take a few minutes to list book marketing-related tactics you think would work for your book and its audience, but that intimidate you for whatever reason.

Here are mine just to give you a few ideas:

• Creating short social media videos quickly
• Creating short social media videos quickly
• Creating short social media videos quickly

(I have to get over this, right?)

Whether yours include contacting an up-there-at-the-top influencer for a book blurb or mastering TikTok, pick one and start. Just start.

I promise that you’ll love the feeling that pushing your boundaries a bit gives you.

5. Find your tribe.

Do you often feel like you write in a vacuum?

The people you spend the most time with don’t understand your publishing challenges, struggles, and successes – not your co-workers, your friends, your family.

You need to plug into a writerly community. If you’re already connected to other authors, it’s time to reconnect or participate more.

Attend those meetups in person. Join the Zoom gatherings. Engage more in the Facebook groups (and please join the brilliant authors in the Build Book Buzz Book Marketing Group on Facebook).

Start conversations. Pay attention to what group members share about their book marketing experiences. Ask them to brainstorm with you – and return the favor.

6. Create a mastermind group.

If you’re already connected to authors – if you’ve found your tribe – invite a select few to join a mastermind group.

Not already networking with other authors? Now’s a great time to get started. A small, focused mastermind group will work fine.

With a goal of helping each other keep the momentum going – and that can be for more than marketing – establish ground rules and a regular meeting schedule.

Your reward will be inspiration, insight, and priceless moral support.

7. Be analytical.

Your goal with book marketing is to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Think back to the last time you promoted your book. What seemed to contribute to awareness and maybe even sales? What disappointed you?

What did you share on social media that generated lots of engagement? Which types of posts got crickets?

If you didn’t track activity and results, scroll back through your social media posts. Check likes and comments on launch-period blog posts. Review the open rate and unsubscribes for newsletter mailings.

Invest a few minutes reflecting on what triggered the highs; what triggered the lows. All of this will help identify where to put your effort again.

What are you going to do now?

Which of these seven options will you start with? Which one speaks the loudest to you?

Do you need to surround yourself with other creative people like you to get motivated again?

Or do you need to return to what worked best during your book launch and do more of it?

Can I help? I offer one-on-one telephone book marketing coaching that lets me zero in your situation and help you find solutions that will work for you and your project. Learn more here.

Only you know what will help you eliminate that deadly stalled book marketing. But whatever it is, just do it.

I’ll be cheering you on.

Are you suffering from stalled book marketing? What are you going to do about it? Please tell us in a comment.

In December 2015, they left about 10 billion comments in various groups and generated 25 billion-plus likes on group posts.

Don’t you want to be part of that Facebook group action?

You can not only be part of it — you can lead it by creating your own Facebook group. It’s not hard to do it. In fact, it’s so easy even I can do it.

(Not sure about the difference between a Facebook group, Page, and profile? Read, “Facebook profile, Page, or group? An author’s primer.“)

Why you want to create a Facebook group

A Facebook group lets you build a community around a shared interest, issue, or cause.  People join groups to learn, share, and discuss.

A group isn’t an overt book promotion tool in the same way that a Facebook ad is. A group lets you get to know people who share your interest. For authors, that should be something related to your book or its genre (for example, a group for people who read BWWM — black women/white men — romance novels).

While you get to know them, they get to know you, too. Perhaps you share snippets of your writing, offer advice related to your expertise, or help people make connections.

The point is: When you create a group, you create the foundation for a community built around a shared interest in something related to your book.

That’s a quick overview of the “why.” What about the “how?”

How to create your Facebook group

Before creating your group, I recommend you a join a few Facebook groups related to your interests so you can see how they work. Observing a variety of groups for a while will help you figure out what you want to achieve with yours, and maybe even how to do that.

Once you’re familiar with them, the process is pretty simple. I’ll walk you through the process using screenshots I grabbed when I created the Build Book Buzz Facebook group two years ago. (To see a larger version of any of the images below, just click on the image.)

Login to your Facebook account. On the right side of your newsfeed where you find your activity options, select “Create Group” under “Groups.”

A window pops up that asks you for the group name. I want you to know this in advance so that you already know what you want to name your group. This is important, right? You want to be thoughtful about the name. There’s no need to agonize over it, but it should communicate what the group’s about.

In that same window, you have to select your group’s privacy — open, closed, or secret. If you’re not sure already, read this article, “What are the privacy settings for groups?” The Build Book Buzz group is “closed,” which means that it can be found in a search, but what happens in the group stays in the group.

Staying in that window, now you have to invite members. My reaction to this was, “What??? Already? I haven’t even seen my group on the screen yet!”

Yeah, too bad. This is how they roll on The Facebook.

I invited just one friend at this point only because I had to.  I invited others later, after the group was set up.

Click “Create” and you move to a screen that lets you select an icon for your group. The icon shows up next to the group name in members’ groups list on the left side of the timeline. I chose a book for the Build Book Buzz group. (That was a no-brainer.) You can also skip this step if you want.

Select “Okay” and like magic, your group appears in front of you!

Now you upload a cover photo.  It works the same way as it does for your profile — just select “upload photo” and select one that’s waiting on your computer.

Tip: Now that you realize you have to do this, have your image pre-selected.

With the group cover photo set the way you want at the top, move to the right side of the screen to describe the group and add tags.

Find the “Description” section on the right and select “Add a Description.”

Your description should tell people what to expect from the group and why they will want to be a member. What’s in it for them? Include any group rules, too.

Then add the “tags” using that option just underneath your description. Tags are words related to the group topic that help Facebook users find your group in searches or through Facebook recommendations.

Next, you determine your group’s Facebook web address — the URL you will send people to when you’re sharing information about your group — and the email address linked to it, which, by the way, I have never used.

To do this, click on the three dots next to the word “Notifications” at the lower right of your cover image. Select “Edit Group Settings.”

On the next screen, next to “Web and Email Address” select “Customize Address.” This will let you create a URL for your group with the official group name rather than a string of numbers.

Type in your group name (or whatever you want in the web address). Select “Customize Address” at the bottom.

While still in the settings, you can select preferences for membership approval, posting permission, and posting approval.

In my group, everyone can post and what they share goes live immediately — it doesn’t wait for my approval. If someone posts something that’s counter to the rules, I delete it. If they do it repeatedly, I remove them from the group. Select preferences that work for your group goals. If one of them is discussion and engagement, then don’t put any limits on that.

Your group is now ready to share with the world! Select “Discussion” in the upper left under your cover photo to return to your group’s home page. Add people using the “Add Members” box on the upper right under the cover image or by sending them the link to the group and asking them to join it.

That wasn’t hard, was it?

Do you have a Facebook group? What’s the URL for it, and why did you create it? Please tell us in a comment.