Start Your Successful Book Marketing Strategy Today
Start Your Successful Book Marketing Strategy Today By Answering Three Easy Questions
The practice of book marketing (and it is a practice) can make the hardiest of writers break out into a cold sweat. Most writers find out far too late that writing the book is the easy part of book publishing. While book marketing can be challenging, it can also be a fun, creative outlet for writers.
To get started, take a deep breath and answer three simple questions.
The answers will be your book marketing fundamentals - message, audience, and hook - the essential elements that you will use in all of your book marketing materials and your book marketing plan. With the answers to these questions, you will be well on your way to creating a successful book marketing plan.
Question One: Who is your audience?
Who, specifically, will buy your book? The answer to this question is not who might pick up your book or may find it useful but who did you have in mind when you wrote this book? Take a few minutes to write down some of the characteristics of your quintessential book buyer and then distil that information into your target audience.
Question Two: What problem does your book solve? What is your message?
You wrote this book for a reason. You have a message, a message that was so important that you needed to write a whole book to get your message out there and to reach the rest of the world.
This question counts for fiction writers, too. I’m sure you have a fascinating story and you will need to share the elements of it: the main character, the inciting factor, and how the main character changes, but for now, to start book marketing, you need to identify your overall Message.
Question Three: Why are you the person to write this book?
Why are you uniquely qualified to share this message? What is special about you, your method, your experience, or your ideas that make you the perfect person to write this book? We call this uniqueness a HOOK. A hook is something or things that make you or your book or story unique, different, weird or interesting. A fun trick to draw out your book’s hook is to chat it out with a friend. Ask you friend to continue to ask questions about the book and about you until the hook becomes clear.
Answer the above three questions, honestly and thoughtfully and you will be on your way to creating a great book marketing plan - one that sells books.
How?
Because now you know where to spend your book marketing energy (you have identified your audience and can research where your audience hangs out) and what to share with your target audience (your message). Your hook is what will set your message apart from all the other books that also share that message, bringing you new book buyers.
Claudine Wolk is an author, podcaster, and book marketing consultant. You can find her and her book marketing newsletter/podcast at claudinewolk.Substack.com. Her new book, Get Your Book Seen and Sold: The Essential Book Marketing and Publishing Guide will be published in September 2023.
