Who Will Buy Your Book in 2017?
By Mary Walewski, Buy the Book Marketing
Hope is not a strategy. You have to have a plan if you want to sell books.
Selling your book is hard. You publish your book and you hope people will see it and buy it. Unfortunately, with over a million books published in the US every year, your book will be buried unless you tell people it’s there.
Here are 5 questions you can ask yourself to start creating your selling strategy for 2017
- Make a list of what you did this year to promote your book. Include events, speaking engagements, promotions, social media, etc. What did you enjoy doing most? What did you enjoy least?
- What was your marketing budget this year? What are you budgeting for next year?
- Approximately how much time did you spend each week promoting your book this year? (include activities like blogging, social media, booking speaking engagements, getting reviews, etc.) How much time are you able (and willing!) to spend promoting your book next year?
- Approximately how many books have you sold this year and where did you sell them? (for example, on Amazon, on your website, at speaking engagements, other live events, bulk sales, etc.)
- How many books do you want to sell next year? How much time and effort are you willing to put in to make that happen?
Your answers to these questions will help to shape your plan for the new year. Once you have a list of activities you want to do, such as line up more speaking engagements, create a calendar to work on your plan every week. If planning out a year of activities seems overwhelming, start with an action plan for the first quarter of 2017.
Review and tweak your plan weekly or monthly along with your results. This is not something you do and then file, never to look at again! Before the end of the first quarter, schedule time to assess your first quarter plan, make appropriate changes and then create your action plan for the 2nd quarter. Continue this schedule for the 3rd and 4th quarter.
Here’s to a productive 2017 for you and your book!
Mary Walewski, M.L.S., Buy the Book Marketing, is a book marketing consultant and social media trainer for authors. She founded Buy The Book Marketing in 2005 to help self-published authors sell their books using online marketing. She is the recent past president of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.
The views expressed herein are not those of Colorado Independent Publishers Association, its officers or directors. They are solely and completely those of the author. The Colorado Independent Publishers Association will not be held liable for any legal action resulting from information published in this newsletter, and the organization’s insurance will not cover any such action.