I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Monday Marketing, I research, plan, and evaluate my marketing and promotion activities.
I haven’t finished writing my book or getting it ready for publication, but I’m looking forward to the time when I’ve done that, I hope by the end of this calendar year. In The 3-Step Author Business System, Matt Holmes offers a simplified three step plan for marketing a book, and setting yourself up for readers to buy your new books when they come out. I’m sharing his steps here, with my paraphrases of what each step involves.
Step 1: Offer Clarity. Know exactly what you’re selling and who it’s for. Be clear about the subject matter and the target audience. I would add, for nonfiction, know what problem you are solving for your readers.
Then, your product page should position your book in a way that makes buying your book a must=dp once your ideal reader comes across it.
Step 2: Use targeted advertising with just one advertising channel to start. Holmes suggests that Amazon ads is a good place to start. They include attribution so you can see which ads are performing well.
Step 3: Convert readers into loyal fans who buy everything you write. Holmes details a reader journey that runs from ads through to capturing emails to recommending your other books and to a newsletter to keep the reader informed of new releases. This, I think, requires putting something in the book itself that draws readers to your website to get additional content. In my case, that could be a quiz like “how reckless are you?” or a “practical tips for reckless online dating,” or something like that.
These three steps make it seem doable, even if not simple, since each step involves a lot of work and experimentation and understanding of how to do everything well.