7 Steps To A Book Promotion Plan

When I wrote my book Building Online Relationships – One Reader At A Time. I didn’t have the title of Book Promotion Strategist. I was an author who wanted to sell copies of my book. I sat down and wrote things I wanted to do for my book. I wanted to do something each month for the rest of the year. I will be honest and say I did a lot of things and don’t recommend it, but it helped sale books.

As I started down the path of teaching others about book promotion, I shared my tips on creating a plan to reach your readers.

Today I will share with you the seven steps I use to create a book promotion plan for me and my clients.

Step One – What Are Your Sales Goals?

How many book sales would you like for the year?

This is an important step because many authors release the book with no idea of how many books they want to sale. When I work with traditional published authors most start with 2500 books because that’s usually the first print run of a traditional publisher.

2500 is a nice start but as I ask the author and will ask you. How will you reach 2500 readers?

This goal will help you build your promotion plan.

I like to do my plan in quarterly sections.  This way I don’t overwhelm myself by trying to think about the whole year as I promote.  I divide 2500 by 4.  I want to sale 625 book each quarter to reach my 2500 goal.  Now how can I reach 625 readers?

Step Two – What Are Your Promotion Goals?

What will you do to reach your sales goal?

What do you want from your promotion?

How long did you need to reach this goal?

What are your readership goals?

Knowing your promotion goals helps you with your plan and keeps you consistent and on track.  Take time to decide on your goals. They will help you determine how to reach these 625 readers.

For examples some of my goals:

Attend one literary event a month.

Two podcasts a month.

Blog twice a month.

Daily social media promotion.

Go live once a month.

50 new readers on my email list.

5 new reviews.

Step Three – What Is Your Promotion Budget?

How much is your budget?

Where would you like to spend your promotion budget?

Will you pay for promotion?

Will you create promotion content or pay for it?

Most authors don’t think about the budget because they think they don’t have any money. You can find the money if needed. I always recommend starting with $50 each month.

I also tell my clients that if you don’t have a budget. Your time becomes your budget. How much time are you committing to your book promotion?

Step Four – What Is Your Promotion Schedule?

How often will you promote?

What kind of promotion do you want to do?

Where will you promote?

Will you schedule promotion?

I suggest to my clients to promote three times a day. Morning, Afternoon and Evening. I had someone tell me that was too much. My question to him and to you, how often do you want to promote that will make a difference with you reaching new readers?

Step Five – What Is Your Promotion Content?

What type of content will you create?

What type of content will you repurpose?

Will you share other people’s content?

Promotion content is important to your book promotion plan because this is what you will be sharing when you promote your books.

Examples Of Content

-graphics

-quotes

-bookmarks

-marketing material

-audio

-videos

Step Six – What’s On Your Promotion Calendar

 What are the dates of your promotion?

I honestly can not live without my calendar. I make sure all my promotion dates are on there before I start scheduling or booking events. Your calendar keeps you consistent with your promotion. You can look at your calendar and see if you are promoting or not promoting.

Examples Of What To Put On Your Calendar

1. Prerelease dates – What will you be doing for promotion?

2. Release dates – What will you be doing for the release?

3. After release dates – What will you be doing after it releases?

4. Content sharing dates – what will you be sharing to your community?

Step Seven – What Are Your Promotion Results?

What are the results of your promotion?

Many authors skip this part of their promotion plan. They sometimes get stuck on book sales and think their promotion isn’t working. This is why you make promotion goals because those goals will let you know if your promotion worked or if you need to tweak it more.

Here are few questions to answer:

Did you meet your promotion goals?

How was your social media engagement?

Did your social media platform grow?

Did your email list/newsletter grow?

Did you get interview invites?

Did you get literary events?

What will you continue to do?

What will you stop doing?

What will you try new for the next time?

How did you do with the seven steps?  Do you have a promotion plan, or do you need to create one?

Here are few things you can do.

ACTION PLAN

1. Start your promotion plan.

2. Answer the questions from each step.

3. Write down your goals.

4. Schedule tasks on your calendar.

5. Implement your tasks.

If you know someone who needs book promotion tips, share this newsletter with them.

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See Ya On The Net,

LaShaunda