So You Wrote a Book! (Now what??!!)
Congratulations, new author!
In the summer of 2017, I started writing down a few of my most-asked questions as the Marketing Director at Wise Ink Creative Publishing. I thought maybe I’d answer 10 or 15 of them on a Facebook page for our authors, to help them with some of their immediate marketing concerns.
Do I hire a publicist?
What timeline should I be following?
Do I need an audiobook?
The result of this exercise was a document far longer and more comprehensive than a simple Facebook post. On the surface, these questions are simple and should have simple answers. But the reality is far more complicated. Hiring a publicist depends on many different moving pieces. Timelines are subjective. And audiobooks? Well, maybe.
By the time I got through answering about 30 questions, I realized I had created a really useful tool for our authors. But when the founder of Wise Ink, Dara Beevas, took the manuscript on a vacation with her, she realized there was much more potential for the book. She added questions, added anecdotes from her personal experience, and by the time she was through, we had a solid first draft of Buzz: The Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing.
One of the most important tips we give our authors is this: know thine audience. For us, the audience for Buzz is any author who has taken the joyous leap of expressing themselves in the written word and asking themselves, “Now what?” Buzz is also for the author who is looking for some unique ways of engaging with potential readers, and also for authors who take seriously the work of using their book to promote their business, idea, and agenda. We tried to keep authors at all stages of the journey in mind as we created our checklists, questions, and examples.
Marketing your book is a marathon, not a sprint. The authors who are most successful are the ones who pace themselves, are strategic with their outreach, and most importantly, find a way to make the marketing work fun and fulfilling.
Buzz: The Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing in our store!
-Roseanne Cheng is a teacher, author, and Marketing Director at Wise Ink Creative Publishing