Baffled by Book Marketing
A newbie’s experience in conquering the learning curve
Email lists. Landing pages. Social media (or not). Author websites. Pop-ups. Subscriptions. Content. Content. Content.
You get the picture.
Book marketing, even for a sales and marketing professional, comes with a steep learning curve. I know these terms, their definitions, their purposes, and can point to examples. Creating them? Mastering them? Making them work for me? These challenges make my brain hurt.
Digital marketing is a different beast. The publishing industry is — at least for me — the netherworld where digital marketing spawns monsters ready to devour naive, unsuspecting debut authors.
Am I Perseus slaying Medusa? Or am I Icarus, flying too close to the sun?
What have a learned and how am I beating the learning curve?
Lay the foundation
If you only know a little about book marketing, start with learning the key terms, concepts, and recommended actions you need to take. Clarify for yourself the marketing steps you want to take and the goals you want to achieve.
I frequent two websites for learning about book marketing: Wildfire Marketing with Rob Eager and Author Media.
What I like about Wildfire Marketing: Rob offers three e-books right out of the gate to help you with marketing. He also has a page titled “Free Tips” with loads of helpful content. Rob has a proven track record of success with a number of NYT bestselling authors.
What I like about AuthorMedia.com: Thomas Umstaddt Jr. hosts an informative podcast with a deep archive. He provides transcripts for his podcasts if you prefer reading the content. He offers a free author website tutorial useful to anyone new to WordPress, plus several other courses. His material is accessible and affordable.
Set goals
After I got a general understanding of book marketing — VERY general — I set some goals for myself: set up a website, establish a social media presence (separate from my personal interactions), and start building a community. That’s it. I did not set out to build the best website ever or gain hundreds of subscribes in record time.
A good friend of mine who is an entrepreneur extraordinaire is making a transition from business coach to book coach. She set the goal to create a minimally viable site for her new business while she completed her certification, wrapped up coaching engagements with her existing clients, and did all the things necessary for launching a new business.
Minimally viable resonated with me. “All the things” takes a lot of time. Add “the things” to the Mount Everest of Learning Curves and anyone could get easily overwhelmed.
Setting goals enabled me to focus on the minimally viable steps to take. Now, I’m out there as an author while I continue learning behind the scenes.
My goals also streamline my learning efforts. Instead of spending time reading a little bit of everything, I read deeply in the topics related to my goals. For example, I read about building my email list instead of book launch events and other marketing plans I won’t need for several months.
Use existing skills and knowledge
If you are an author, you want people to know about you and your works. You will often hear or read the term “author platform.”
I’m still learning about the ins and outs of building a platform. Two components of an author’s platform include a website and social media. These two pieces I get.
I started with what I know.
I’ve used WordPress.com for years. Recently, I learned the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com relates to how each app hosts the site. WordPress.com hosts the site for you, whereas with the .org version, you need to pay for external hosting.
Supposedly, WordPress.com makes set up easier on the front-end and limits creative options. That’s what I was told. I find it does exactly what I need it to do. I’ve used it long enough that I’m comfortable with it.
Starting with what I know, I built a basic website with a sign up form, an About page, and a Contact page. That’s it.
Use tools that work for you. Start with what you know, or at least, what’s easiest for you to learn. Build from there.
Next steps
Sometimes thinking about what I need to do next is overwhelming by itself. I stick with the resources I like (instead of searching the web) and adhere to my goals to narrow my scope. I apply what I learn one tiny step at a time.
What about you? What are your favorite book marketing resources and tips? What questions do you have?
Respond in the comments. I’d love to learn from you or find answers that can help us both.
Want to see my website? Visit jcvandewater.com. Want to see an example of a landing page? Follow this link to my landing page.
Receive the first chapter of my debut novel, The Lamp Still Burns, launching Summer 2024 when you subscribe to my mailing list through either the website or landing page.
Next for me — learn how to integrate the two! :)
