Create a Marketing Plan Your Publisher Can Support
If you are the average author reading this blog, publishing companies do not have the financial or staff resources to market your book. Your editor will lobby to get a promotional budget for you, but more than likely they will be salmon swimming upstream. Do not blame your agent; your agent’s hands, when it comes to another company’s promotional budgets, are tied. This is not a hopeless situation. It may not be what you want to hear, but you can fill the vacuum. Yes, you can even make the change.
Why do big name authors, who are already big-name authors, get all the money? It’s simple economics. This strategy is the publisher’s protection of its major investment. These big names are a publisher’s main sources of income. They keep the company afloat. They are proven commodities. You may not be. But you can prove your worth through your own efforts. You can create a career yourself, or an image, that will change how publishers view you. If you rely on your publisher only, you will suffer from underpromotion. Reading this sentence, when it happens in your career (over and over), you need not be surprised. How do you remedy this? You create a marketing plan your publisher can support prior to submitting your manuscript. Yes, this is true. You make the plan. I’ve done it myself. It has worked.
What is included in this plan? It’s simple. What are you willing to do to promote your book? Are you willing to set up book signings? Are you willing to speak? Who will you speak to? What radio, TV, and internet channels would you be able to appear on or write something for? All of these are specifics, not generalities. Specifically, what blog sites are you willing to write for? What blog site has already said it will let you write something for it? And, if you put this in a marketing plan to accompany your manuscript, you’ll let your publisher know that you are willing to help support the sale and promotion of this book. You may be surprised at what happens. They might suddenly find money they did not know they had. I’m surprised every time it happens to me. (But then I’m really not. Publishers love authors who know how to market their books.)
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