Marketing is About Making Friends
Question: How do I market my forthcoming book, The Sioux Code Talkers of World War II?
Immerse: In Joanna Penn’s book, How to Market a Book, she discussed the importance of “discoverability” or “how do people find you?” In addition to the usual social networking sites, your website and email list, Joanna shared how she uses video interviews and podcasts that invite readers to get to know her as an author better. Her book detailed so many aspects of building an author platform and meeting other people.
Notes: I love to hold real books in my hands because I write all over the pages. I underline, star, doodle and take notes in the margins. It helps me remember the information. It also allows me to stop and follow a trail.
In her book, Joanna wrote about videos and podcasting, so I thought I’d check them out. I found her youtube video interviews and listened to one in particular- an interview with Katie Davis. In the interview, I love how Katie said, “Marketing is about making friends.”
While I listened to their talk, I explored the topics they discussed by searching the internet. I usually have a notebook nearby, but if I don’t have a pen and paper, I use Evernote. I take notes so I can look back at them again. There is so much to learn. Studying how to market a book is all that I focused on this winter break from school. My brain is full. It’s overwhelming. But, this is the point when I know I’m ready to go and do something with the information I’ve collected.
Go: Once I’ve reached my fill of information, and this could take days or weeks depending on the topic, I decide what to do with the information. In this case, I made my writing goal for 2016- I will be focused on building my platform and marketing my book. So far, on this quest, I have prepared my goals in the form of questions, I have my 2016 writing notebook ready to go and am trying out a new plan to get my writing tasks done in a timely manner. I’m chunking my time and checking things off in my own version of a bullet journal. By chunking tasks into little pieces of time (one 45 minute block to write, four 15 minute blocks for medium tasks, three 5 minute blocks for small tasks) and starting early enough, I hope I’ll be ready to launch my book. (publication date TBA) Also, In order to connect with others and share resources, I compiled resources which will be added to my website soon. And, one last important thing I learned is to write reviews to help others. This is definitely on my monthly list of things to do. I hope to become a trustworthy writing friend in 2016.
2 thoughts on “How do I market a book?”
Great tips and CONGRATULATIONS on your new book, Andrea. I’m looking forward to reading what you were working on during the Rolling Ridge retreat!
Thanks again, Marcia! It’s been very exciting!