If you’re a content creator, you know how challenging earning revenue from your work can be. While you can do several things to promote your work as an independent creator, all your efforts will fall flat without a marketing plan.
Ask any successful entrepreneur, creator, or author, and they’ll tell you the same thing: you have to treat yourself like a business. That means creating an author brand, establishing an audience, and turning out content.
None of that is possible without a plan. If you want to sell a book (or anything you’ve created), this marketing plan lays the foundations for success.
Your marketing strategy must be unique to you, your goals, and the type of content you create. No single answer will magically help sell your book. This guide provides best practices and tools for your marketing efforts.
You might only need some tactics in this guide. However, a thorough understanding of an effective book marketing strategy will guide you to success.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts, here are the stages of the marketing plan.
Okay, let’s dig into these six stages with more details!
Before you dive into market research, start by answering these three questions:
Unless you’re writing entirely for enjoyment, your audience will be the first and most important consideration. The best way to imagine your audience is by creating personas. I suggest taking some time to develop a few personas. Each should define a segment of the audience you’ll be marketing to.
Learn to create detailed reader personas using demographics and generative AI. Then put your new personas to work growing your creator business!
Now, consider your genre. Using your personas, you can define your niche—take that information and go to the bookstore. You want to find as many popular books that fit your genre and niche as possible. Read them. Take notes about what you like, what works, and what doesn’t.
While not looking for content to copy, you should consider any gaps those books don’t cover. That might be the perfect topic for your book to cover!
Finally, you’ll want to look at your publishing options. Map out the customer journey to understand where your potential readers like to shop. Pair that knowledge with the publishing options that best meet their needs while ensuring you earn the most revenue.
For most creators, going the self-publishing route will give you the most options and control. Self-published authors usually follow one (or multiple) of these paths:
Sell books on your Wix, Shopify, or WooCommerce website with Lulu Direct.
Or use our Order Import tool for your next book launch.
Sell books on your Wix, Shopify, or WooCommerce website with Lulu Direct. Or use our Order Import tool for your next book launch.
Your market research has two essential goals:
The first point I covered—you need to research similar books, understand your niche, and speak to the unique problem you’re an expert in. You’ll naturally learn about your ideal audience as you research other creators and their books, but there are a couple of vital steps you can take now to set yourself up for long-term success.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves understanding how people search online and then creating content that is more likely to appear in their search results. This includes carefully evaluating the copy on your website, in your online store, blog content, and any other content channels you use. That includes things like YouTube (the title and description matter!).
The other side of SEO is the data you collect, the most crucial of which is your fans’ email addresses. No joke, email is consistently the best marketing channel for return on investment (ROI). Collecting email addresses through a signup form on your site or selling directly to your readers allows you to share new offers, content, and updates.
Your email list is your most valuable resource for today’s content entrepreneurs (which you are if you’re creating and selling content to make money). During the planning and research phase, take some time to learn how to develop and nurture a mailing list (this will be crucial for the next step!).
Like most things, there are many options for market research tools. Here are a few that are free to use and effective for learning more about your potential readers.
Unless you’ve already got thousands of email subscribers or tens of thousands of social media followers, you must build your audience.
The most critical audience you’ll develop is your email subscriber list. I know I just mentioned that in the previous section, but email is so important it’s worth saying again. When someone gives you their email, they tell you they want the content you create. That’s a pretty big endorsement.
Email isn’t the only way to build your audience, though. There are many ways to build a name for yourself while connecting with new fans. These include:
I touched on SEO in the research section. We don’t need to belabor the point, but you should always consider how your content will rank when you publish a new blog post, video, podcast, or website update.
Paid search is a trickier game. You shouldn’t use paid search and advertising until you’re comfortable developing content that organically performs well. Paid strategies will work best once you’ve identified a target audience and have a wealth of valuable keywords and search terms to use.
Social media is your go-to for word-of-mouth marketing. You don’t need to be a viral TikTok influencer to reap the benefits of social media.
In fact, creating content for social media is one of the least important parts of your social media strategy. The most significant benefits of social media will come from Facebook groups or similar pockets of highly interested fans who have self-identified the kind of content they want.
Social media marketing strategies can vary wildly based on your goals and the social media platforms you’re focusing on. The one common thread is the need to connect with your followers as a person rather than a brand or business. Answer questions, respond to comments, and generally be available to the people you want to buy your products.
Here is a quick, three-step plan for establishing a presence on most social platforms:
Learn the basics about using the most popular Social Media platforms to market your brand and your book!
You should look for opportunities to display your expertise and promote yourself. Lean into the kind of content creation that works best for you and is most appealing.
Guest blogging is a great way to reach a new audience. Platforms like Medium and Substack have lots of publications looking for content.
You’re building a network of consumers for your books and establishing a following of content consumers. People love content.
Another medium to consider is podcasting, a growing medium with many opportunities to find guest spots in your niche. And YouTube still has a vast audience and plenty of channels looking for guests.
These could be in-person events or digital. The goal is to land a speaker spot, but the first step is to attend some events. Events are an opportunity to connect with other creators (leading to collaborations) and to learn the best practices that work for successful entrepreneurs.
As you develop a brand for yourself, having a cadre of peers to ask for help or even commiserate with is crucial. Once you earn a speaker spot, you’ll have the attention of a room full of people—all of whom hope to achieve similar goals. This is a huge opportunity to promote yourself.
Finally, bring your book to events! Your book is like a business card, only infinitely better. Give away free copies to other creators. If they like it, there’s a good chance they’ll recommend you to their following, helping expand your reach while building relationships that will prove vital as you grow your content business.
Keep your marketing budget separate from any funds you allot for editing, design, and publishing. You must also set aside funds for website hosting, printing, and ecommerce services, but those are still separate from your marketing budget.
Your marketing budget will need specific book sales targets. There’s no one answer because every indie author has a different goal. But you should base your expectations on your audience size and goals.
Here’s a simple marketing plan template to estimate revenue from your book sales:
| Pre-Publishing | 1 Year Goal | 2 Year Goal | 3 Year Goal | |
| Revenue | $0.00 | $5,000 | $7,500 | $9,000 |
| Sales (units) | 0 | 2,200 | 3,000 | 3,500 |
| Email Subscribers | 50 | 400 | 800 | 1,100 |
| Facebook Followers | 300 | 1,000 | 1,500 | 2,000 |
Once you establish your initial marketing budget, you can plan your book launch!
How long you plan to prepare and market your book before launching it can vary, but you should allow at least three months to get the word out, get some reviews, and publish your book.
Your timeline allows you to break down the big and complicated task of marketing your book into smaller, achievable individual goals.
Search engine marketing is not a requirement or necessity for all authors. If you’ve got a large audience already, you may forgo paid ads and rely on your emails, social posts, and SEO to drive traffic to your book’s product page.
Social Media Marketing will play a massive part in your initial launch. Although you may get less sales through your social channels, using social media to spread the word about your book launch is still essential.
Your email strategy is the most critical marketing tactic, period. Email subscribers are the most interested and engaged of your followers, the most likely to meet the ‘true fan’ definition. And we all know that true fans—who buy most if not all of your products—are key to sustainable income as a creator.
Paul is the Senior Content Manager at Lulu.com. When he’s not entrenched in the publishing and print-on-demand world, he likes to hike the scenic North Carolina landscape, read, sample the fanciest micro-brewed beer, and collect fountain pens. Paul is a dog person but considers himself cat-tolerant.
