Are You a Book Author? Create Your Own Marketing Plan

Publishers are struggling these days. Your publisher may cut back on publicity to save money. What can you do to boost sales? I created my own marketing plan. Years ago, I worked for a software company and was a writer in the marketing department. When I created my marketing plan I drew upon this experience.

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Lee Ann Obringer, author of the article “How Marketing Plans Work,” thinks everyone is responsible for marketing. That includes you — the book author. Creating a marketing plan is a proactive step. My plan has seven parts: goal, budget, place, competition, action, tracking, and revision. You may start with my plan and customize it to meet your needs.

1. Goal. My goal is a simple one — to increase sales. Increasing name recognition is a secondary goal because name recognition leads to sales.

2. Budget. I had $300-$350 to spend on my plan, not much, but better than nothing. Besides, the Internet is the main marketing tool, and I know how to use it. One listing leads to hundreds of others.

3. Place. If you asked me to draw my plan on paper I would draw three concentric circles. The smallest circle in the center represents my home town. The middle circle represents the state. And the outer circle represents the nation. I started with local publicity.

4. Competition. In marketing terms, this is called SWOT Analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Though I did not have time for a detailed analysis of the competition, I had the time to surf the Internet and check local book stores. Hundreds of grief books have been written. Few have been written about multiple losses and that makes my book unique.

5. Action. My actions focused on no-cost or low-cost publicity. Harold L. Shenson writes about keeping publicity costs low in his book, “How to Develop & Promote Successful Seminars & Workshops.” Most newspapers and radio stations have a weekly schedule, he points out, “an excellent way to increase your exposure, while stirring wide general interest in your topic.”

6. Tracking. A marketing plan requires effective action, according to “Create Your Marketing Plan in Five Easy Steps,” published on the Making It! website. To ensure effective action, the article explains, “you need to track your results.” I keep an ongoing list of results and it is growing by the week.

7. Revision. I decided to stick with my plan for six months and then evaluate it. But I am already making revisions. For example, I can tell that my book talk is evolving into a workshop.

Four months have passed since I started to put my plan into action. The results are astonishing:

* review in an Internet health newsletter (daily publication)
* feature article in local newspaper
* three local stores now carry my book
* appearance on local television
* feature story on local television station and a link to this story
* feature article in Florida newspaper
* article in college alumni magazine
* feature articles in national magazines
* publicity in electronic newsletters
* possibility of a listing in an alumni electronic newsletter
* appearances on 3 radio talk shows
* increased website traffic
* huge increase in Internet listings
* designed as a contributing author for a national website
* offer to write a column for a new national magazine

All this, for spending $350 on publicity. Most of this money was spent on re-designing my website. Just so you know, I kept my publisher informed on the results of my plan. My publisher is at a national meeting now and my book is selling well. Do you have a new book out? Support it by creating your own marketing plan, and watch the results roll in.