Marketing Plan : Part III

Publicize Your Book (Updated): An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves

Here’s part three of a marketing plan:

The Marketing Strategy and Campaign: “The marketing plan addresses how you or your publisher will reach your readership, and will probably require the most time and thought and continual refinement on your part. This section is really the heart of your campaign – the blueprint for how you will reach your target audience.”

Here’s a list of some of the things Deval suggests “to stimulate the marketing side of your brain”:

• “Can your book tie in with a local or national event?”

• Does your book have “a strong spiritual or social message” that might interest religious or community groups?

• If you have a niche readership, “what media vehicles reach that readership?”

• “Can you team up with other writers in your genre?”

• Does your book tie in to a holiday or anniversary? (For example, last year was the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. I remember several wonderful picture book and mid-grade titles released to correspond with President’s Day.)

• “Does your book tie into current social trends and concerns?”

• “Can you host a fund-raiser or other charity event” that connects to your topic?

Sales Handles and Media Angles: “Sales handles are the specific facts that prove the book’s appeal to its market and why the book will do well.”

“Sales convey what’s new and different about your book – your authority as the writer, the marketplace for your book’s topic, its advantages over the competition, and its marketability.”

What does your book have to offer?

Handles for MAY B.: (Some of these might be a stretch. Remember, I’m learning through this process, too!)

• As a mid-grade addressing a learning disability: Though several successful mid-grades address conditions seen in the LD community (RULES focuses on autism, the Joey Pigza series on ADHD), I know of no titles that deal with dyslexia, nor am I aware of any outside a modern setting. (Readers, if you are familiar with mid-grade books that deal with dyslexia, let me know!)

• MAY B. could be read in teacher’s college methods courses, comparing the classroom approach of Miss Simpson and Teacher.

• MAY B. could be marketed to schools as a class novel or literature circle title, with special emphasis placed on schools in the mid-western/plains states.

• MAY B. would be a good fit for state reading lists, with an emphasis placed on lists in the mid-western/plains states.

Another way to think about sales handles and media angles is to “name the three reasons the media should interview you.”

Your Biography: Start thinking about what might appear on your book’s dust jacket.