If you’re following the advice that you find on every site that talks about marketing a self-published book, you have already created a book marketing plan. From this, you may have tried to use various marketing methods (i.e. virtual book tours, book signings, etc.). However, your sales statistics aren’t showing any signs of improvement.
How could this be? You are following every piece of advice you have received to the letter. It may be that your book marketing plan’s structure is, in fact, costing you sales. This is actually a fairly common problem among self-publishing authors.
Here are a few ways that your book marketing plan is working against you:
- You haven’t clearly defined your target market. When you wrote your first book, you knew that everyone would love it. It would make you the talk of the town (or maybe even the talk of the nation or globe). It would be the “it” book that everyone would want to read. That’s a
rather lofty goal. Even the most successful authors (Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, etc.) aren’t able to reach EVERYONE with their books. That’s fine for them, though. They have developed a very loyal audience of readers who are committed to them and their books. That’s the type of audience you want to seek out. Figure out who will love your books and focus on marketing to them. If you don’t, you may find yourself wasting quite a bit of effort attempting to turn someone who loves horror books into a romance novel lover. - You don’t know what differentiates your book from the other books available to your target market. Can you tell me why your book is better than any other book on the market? Is there a lesson taught in your book? Are your characters easier to relate to? There has to be a reason why I want to read your story about vampires versus reading Twilight. Find out what makes your book special and use that as your unique value proposition.
- You don’t update your book marketing plan on a regular basis. The book marketing industry, like any other, is changing rapidly. If you don’t keep your plans up to date, you can easily become irrelevant. I recommend that authors review and update their book marketing plan at least once per year.
Have you been making any of these mistakes? How did you bounce back to have a book marketing plan that “sticks”?
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ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS: Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press. She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book. |
Self Publishing Advisor 
I definitely agree with targeting the market. Some people think they can just write a book and blindly sell to anyone. Doesn’t work that way. Too often, they end up frustrated, wondering why they can’t sell the book.
I think writer’s are in too much of a hurry to get to the tactics of selling and do not clearly define their product positioning, understand their competition, or target market. My publishing company The Pantheon Collective has created a comprehensive book marketing template authors can use to make sure they don;t miss any of the critical components of a successful marketing plan. Following this template has allowed us to sell 10,000 books in less than 2 years…http://slidesha.re/nBRIXQ
Actually, writers often find themselves in such situation because once they feel a good story is coming up, they feel to excited to write and publish it without having to deliberate on what it would become when out in the market. Every book needs proper planning too for the market to find it useful, enticing and worthy. And I agree, some writers are going into a pitfall if they try to please everyone. Even the greatest ideas are bound for criticism and dislike.