What is Your Book Marketing Mindset?

In the last several years, technology has made promoting a book easier in many ways. Social media, subscription-based promotional opportunities, book clubs, review and award opportunities along with pay per click advertising all allow authors to reach new readers. The book marketing mindset for Indie authors is recognizing how and when to use these strategies. But there are a lot of authors who don’t understand how to plan an overall marketing outreach involving these and other strategies. They don’t have a master plan or roadmap for where they want to go and the best way to get there. Without proper planning, the opportunity for real growth will be limited. Not to mention the real possibility of wasting a ton of time and money.

Understanding which opportunities align with your goals might be something that evolves over time, but if you begin your project with the right expectations and mindset you will be more successful.  

Here are 5 tips on how to create the right Book Marketing Mindset and avoid the shotgun approach to book promotion.

One size does not fit all

Filter the chatter you hear on which strategies are the best and how many books you will sell using them. Stay in your lane and realize that no two books are the same, and the needs of one author won’t translate to your needs. Start with setting the right expectations and then create a plan that addresses your goals, budget, genre, and target audience. While researching opportunities and asking questions is a good thing, be prepared for conflicting answers.

Think in and out of the box

There are a handful of promotional opportunities that any author can take advantage of. These are what we call ‘surface-level strategies.’ Easy to find, easy to implement. But the challenge is that every author is using the same ones. While these strategies will yield certain results, many other opportunities are being ignored. Be open to any opportunity that will help to promote your book and message, as you don’t know what will work.

Analogy alert: If you want to find gold, you need to dig deep. If you were mining for gold, you might find a few flakes on the surface, but you have to go deep to find the big pieces. The same thing applies to book marketing. You might be able to get some results using a few strategies, but if you want to sell a lot of books you have to implement the right ones at the right time and understand the metrics for why it’s working or how to improve the results.

Be prepared to put the work in 

Book marketing takes years to master. You will need to be active and consistent in your efforts over a long period of time to reach your goals. Like a marathon runner, a good chunk of the time you’re just running. Nothing glamorous.  Just perseverance, mental toughness, and sweat.

Take the good with the bad

There will be times where things are going well and other times where you question what you’re doing. Book reviews, for instance, are a trigger point for mental toughness as a positive review puts you on cloud nine, while a negative one puts you off. If you are staying focused on the long-term, both situations are just a bump in the road. If you have a lot of activity surrounding your book, the next positive thing is just around the corner. Keep moving forward.

Start off strong

Making sure that you have a successful book launch is not only important for building momentum, but it provides a mental boost. It puts you on a good trajectory and helps secure a strong foundation to build on. Put the time and effort into planning your book launch.

Publishing a book comes with a lot of emotions and like anything new ends up being a learning experience. If an author is publishing multiple books, the knowledge learned and experience gained helps them with the next book. (A plug for continuing to write.) Just know that with these experiences comes the foundation and confidence to have more success with each new release. Keep writing!

Rick Lite of Stress Free Book Marketing, stands at the forefront of the ever-changing book industry. He is a seasoned book marketing professional with over 18 years of experience in the industry. Rick’s expertise comes from tirelessly working on new and innovative ways to market his own books and CDs with his company and parent company, Stress Free Kids. Embracing the core values of integrity, innovation, and growth, Rick works closely with authors to create custom, robust book marketing programs. His easy-going manner provides “stress-free” support and comfort to authors going through the book marketing process for the first time. Rick is quick to share his knowledge and “insider tips” for a successful marketing campaign that will lead to increased exposure, awareness, and most importantly, sales.