Today we welcome Derek Doepker—#1 bestselling Kindle author, speaker and coach—to the Bublish blog. Derek was our guest for a recent webinar, “Your Bestseller Journey.” You can watch the replay via the link at the end of Derek’s post.
Derek, welcome to the blog.
Thanks! Glad to be here.
In today’s age, the biggest challenge for many authors isn’t figuring out what they can do to market their book. If anything, authors are drowning in excess and often conflicting advice.
When you have so many options, how do you decide where the best place to spend your time, money, and energy is? Let’s take a look at the key principles and questions that will guide your decisions when creating a marketing plan for your book.
Book Marketing Principle 1: Adopt a Pro Mindset
Virtually all pro authors are building their email list, regularly producing work, and testing a variety of marketing strategies to stay current. They also limit their marketing efforts to just a few highly effective channels. Are you doing the same thing? Asking yourself, “What would a pro do?” can be a simple way to focus your efforts.
Granted, pros can do a lot of things the “average” author can’t. Nevertheless, you can still ask yourself, “What gets me one step closer to what a pro would do?”
You can filter through many different marketing methods by asking other experienced and successful authors in your genre what worked for them. Ask, “Who else has tried this and what was their experience?”
Book Marketing Principle 2: Give Readers What They Want
Trying to offer only what you like to readers if it’s not what they want is like speaking the most beautiful French to someone who speaks Spanish. It may seem great to you, but it won’t connect. You must find the balance between self-expression and effective communication.
In order to convert browsers into buyers, ask, “Does my book fit what readers of this genre want?”
When you get in the habit of getting feedback from readers on your book’s core concept/plot, description, cover, and other marketing material, you save yourself a lot of time and headache trying to determine for yourself if it will work. Remember to get collective feedback as the feedback of just one person or reader isn’t enough to draw major conclusions.
Book Marketing Principle 3: Collaborate
There’s one surefire way to overwhelm yourself, and it’s by limiting yourself to the question, “What can I do to market my book?” The principle of collaboration means getting into the habit of asking, “What can we do?”
Who makes up the “we?” It’s primarily other influencers who can reach your ideal readers, your readers themselves, and platforms such as Amazon, Facebook, and book promotion sites that can get your book in front of people when you leverage their systems.
Ask yourself, “Who else can reach my audience and how can I collaborate with them?” In case you’re wondering, yes, this does work even if you’re just starting out.
Now What?
These questions are open-ended enough that they’ll spark your creativity as well as help you avoid wasting time going down the rabbit hole of time wasters.
However, you may want some more tactical and tangible strategies for laying out a book marketing plan. Check out my recent Bublish “Lunch & Learn” Webinar, “Your Bestseller Journey.” During this one-hour webinar I go in-depth on each of these principles, give you plenty of actionable tactics and strategies and answer your book marketing questions. To watch the replay, just click the link below. I hope to see you there.
Related Posts
