Find Donna on Goodreads at: www.goodreads.com/donnamarieoldfieldRead her blog here: http://donnamarieoldfield.wordpress.com/
Follow her on Twitter: @donnamalena
How to Strike the Right Balance Between Marketing
Your Book and Writing the Next One
As any indie author knows, publishing your book is only the
beginning of the long road to getting lots of people to buy it. If you want readers
to discover and (hopefully) enjoy your novel, then you need to market it to
make sure they know about it in the first place.
However, marketing is so time consuming that it can take
over your life. Before you know it, you’re spending the whole day placing ads,
posting tweets and statuses and contacting bloggers about reviews. And let’s
not forget checking your sales stats regularly to see if your hard work is
paying off.
While it’s important to put your book out there, don’t let
it be at the expense of writing your next masterpiece. Not only is it important
to keep writing for the sake of your creativity, but many experts claim that
publishing more books is an important part of any marketing strategy. So by
making time to keep writing, you’re also promoting in the long run and killing
two birds with one stone.
Here are a few tips about finding the perfect balance when
writing and marketing.
Do an initial marketing blitz
Once your book is published, dedicate a couple of weeks to
solely promoting your book. Follow a strategy that includes sending out
enquiries to reviewers and bloggers, placing adverts in prominent places and
implementing your own social media campaign. If you have the time to send out
advance review copies and post teasers, begin this blitz in advance of release
day. If you’ve hit the publish button already, don’t worry you can start right
now instead.
It’s OK to take time off from writing at this stage because
when you’ve just finished writing a book, it’s wise to give your brain and
creativity a rest before moving onto the next one.
Set a time limit
Once your promotion blitz is over and you start writing the next
book, set yourself a marketing time limit each day.
How long is down to you,
but an hour is a good figure to aim for.
Use this time to focus on marketing
research, sending emails, buying advertising space etc.
You can pop onto social
media sites throughout the day to make regular posts, but if you do it at your
desk, be tough with yourself and limit it to ten minutes before returning to
your writing.
Take advantage of ‘dead time’
Keep a diary to find out when pockets of dead time occur in
your schedule, such as while waiting for a bus to arrive. Use this time for
social media marketing, so you have more time to write during the rest of the
day. Alternatively, you can utilise it for writing by making notes about your
plot and characters or proofreading some draft pages.
Schedule social media posts
If you have one of those days when you can’t write a single
page of your book, create a back catalogue of blogs, Facebook posts and tweets
instead. WordPress and many other blogging platforms allow you to schedule
posts in advance, so you could write four posts today and put up one a week for
the next month.
The Facebook Pages application also allows you to write a
post now and set it to appear at a set time later. Alternatively, try out
social media management tools such as Hootsuite, which allows you to schedule
future Twitter, Google+ and Facebook posts.
Scheduling is a great way of managing your time and it
allows you to make regular contact with your audience even when you’re busy.
This way, you can plan for posts to pop up at suitable times too, such as on a
Sunday afternoon when people might be looking for a new book to read. You will
get much better results when you have a captive audience than at 2am when
everyone is asleep.
Monitor results
The strategies that work will depend on your target audience
and genre, so it’s important to track which actions result in actual book sales
for you. When you place adverts on websites, note down how many extra sales or
downloads you received that day so you know if it’s worth using the same site
again in future. If you want to find out how many people are clicking on your
social media links, use bitly.com to create them. If you open a free account on
the site, it allows you to track how many clicks each shortlink receives, so
you know when someone has engaged with a post you placed on Twitter, Facebook,
forums and blogs etc. Once you discover which methods and websites convert to
clicks and sales for you, focus your time and money on them.
Do one thing each day
No matter how busy you are, try to do at least one thing to
market your book every day.
Even if you’re rushed off your feet, on holiday or
engrossed in writing the next book, you’ll still have time to send a review
request or tweet.
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| 365 day inspiration - 'Operation Author' |
This keeps your brand out there and makes sure you don’t lose
momentum too.
Marketing is like writing – it can be easy to fall out of the
habit and before you know it, one day of inaction turns into a month.
Above
all, figure out what works for you, get the balance right and keep at it.
Your
hard work will pay off in the end and it will get easier with each book.
If you'd like to see more of Donna's work check out her
YA book on Amazon:
Out of Time
Also, her contemporary adult fiction book -
Instant Karma
Message from me:
Some great tips and ideas here from Donna and a massive thank you for contributing.
I've highlighted the parts that really stood out for me.
I wholeheartedly agree on the importance of doing something every day, even if it's only a small thing, and this was the reason I embarked on...
Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming A Successful Author
Accountability and sharing ideas and inspiration are the driving forces behind this blog.
If you're a writer and would like to be part of Operation Author by guest blogging -
get in touch : amy@tomcatdesigns.co.uk
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