Three Easy (But Crucial) Book Marketing Tasks: Identify Audience, Message, Media Contacts
Start Your Book Marketing Today!
If you are a new author - published or self-published - you most likely know by now that you are expected to market your own book - to be a book marketer - to sell yourself (yikes!) and to sell your book! As a writer, book marketing may not have been on your mind as you banged out your great story or your great non-fiction ideas on your keyboard and then into your manuscript.
Now that your book is here or almost here, it is time for you to think about book marketing. Where do you start? There are so many possible ways to market your book: there’s social media, advertising, interviews, etc. The list goes on and on. I’m going to help you get started with might seem a gargantuan task, point you to a productive starting point and help you build from there to get your book seen and sold.
Book Marketing Basics
Book marketing is simply the things you need to do as an author to get your book seen and sold.
I’ve covered a few of the things that a book marketer does in prior Substack articles - have a look. In this article, I want to go back and focus on three essential elements that will form the backbone of your book marketing. A strong backbone will keep you organized and focused but most of all, it will bear book sale fruit!
Grab a Notebook
Chances are that you are already an author or are in the progress of writing your book.
The time to start thinking about book marketing is as you write it. (It’s ok if you haven’t thought about it and your book is completed)
Grab a notebook and place it by your laptop. While you write your book, have the notebook handy for any cool marketing ideas that pop into your head that you want to follow up with later. As book marketing ideas come to you, jot them down.
You might be thinking:
How do I know what to jot down in my new notebook when I don’t even know what book marketing entails?
Good question
Not to worry because I am going to share the answer with you.
Book Marketing Essentials
The first things to write down in your notebook is your book’s Audience and Message.
Audience
Who will buy this book? Who will like this book? Who is this book meant for? I wrote a bit about audience in Substack articles – A Great Query Is The Key To Get Your Book Seen and Sold and To Sell Your Book You Need A Toolbox. You can review those tips on identifying your audience. Jot down who you think will buy this book, like this book, and talk about this book in your notebook as you write.
My advice is to not to pick a separate section in your notebook titled ‘audience.” Instead, simply open the notebook. When an idea for a possible audience comes to you write “audience” - and the idea.
For example: Audience - women over 40 or Audience - historical fiction book club or Audience - women entrepreneurs
Highlight the word “audience” in your notebook. When you go back to focus on your possible audience you will quickly find all the audience ideas you had.
Message
Next identify your message. What are the possible messages in your book? What do you hope to teach? What is your goal in sharing your message? Again, take time as you are writing your book to identify all the different messages in your book and jot them down in your notebook. Write and highlight the word “message” and then jot down the message you considered.
Media Contacts List
Research a few media contacts and add them to your notebook and then even to an excel spreadsheet for easy access - name, publication outlet, and email to a list.
What is a media contact?
A “media contact” is any entity or person including tv, radio, newspaper, magazine, as well as book industry reviewers and long lead reviewers that a publisher or author decides to pitch with a media kit. I will detail each media contact type and ideas on where to find them in future articles.
What will I do with a media contact?
1. Create a pitch (for an example, check out “A Successful Book Pitch”)
2. Send pitch along with selected media kit items, i.e., a press release
You now know the three backbones of book marketing and your starting point. You are tasked with identifying your audience, your message, and some media contacts. Once these three essential elements are identified you can build a full book marketing plan from there. Your next step is to create a few media kit items, especially the press release. Once armed with audience, message, media contacts, and your media kit items you will be on your way to pitching, to marketing your book!
Have you had any success in identifying your audience, message or media contacts? Please share your story!
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