Writing a Book's Marketing Plan for Maximum Profit

Much has been written about book proposals. But less has been written about book marketing plans. This is wrong!

What happens after your book is published has a great deal to do with whether you become published and profitable? or just published.

A book proposal is a direct-marketing document intended to persuade publishers to edit, print and distribute your book. It's a sales piece intended to communicate the inevitability of your book's success.

Your book's marketing plan, however, is intended for an audience of one - You! It's not intended for your publisher. Rather, it's intended to identify the revenue streams that you will develop after your book is published.

Your marketing plan should describe profits you will earn above and beyond royalties from sales of your book. It should describe in detail your market and the steps you will take to earn this income.

The reason to prepare your marketing plan now, before you sign a publishing contract or write your book, is that the success of your marketing plan depends on the way your book publishing contract is negotiated.

Coaching and consulting

Let's assume, for example, that you plan to use your book as a way of enhancing your visibility and credibility among your target market. At the simplest level, you will want to include your web site address at several points in the book. Knowing this goal, you can insist that the publisher agrees in writing to include your web site address in specific locations in your book.

Remember: promises don't make it! Let's take the worst case scenario. You and your acquisition editor agree that you can include five mentions of your web site address in the book. However, as often occurs, the acquisition editor, after signing the contract, fades out of the picture.

The new development editor then informs you that author's URL's can only appear in one place, in the author biography hidden toward the rear of the book. When this happens, what happens to your coaching and consulting plans?

Likewise, you may have planned to buy books in case lot quantities for resale and/or distribution to your prospects and clients. Understanding this before you sign the contract, you can include the right to purchase books for resale at trade discounts in your contract, ensuring your 'book pipeline' won't get turned off.

If you know you want to offer telephone coaching at $75.00 a call, for example, you can negotiate written permission to promote this service within the body of your book.

Remember: promises are written on air. Only written agreements count!

Other back-end profit opportunities based on your book's title include:

  • Articles, columns, newsletters

  • Yearly updates

  • Special Reports

  • Teleclasses and seminars

  • Speaking and training

  • Audio/video recordings

  • Choosing a web site address based on your book's title

  • Free downloads of sample chapters from your web site

  • Fee-based web site services

The possibilities are endless, but nothing can happen if, after signing the contract, the publisher limits your ability to promote your business and your website in your book.

Thus, it's imperative that you start by preparing a marketing plan that analyzes post-publication profit opportunities and describes the steps needed to make them happen. Only then are you in a position to decide if the publisher's 'boilerplate' contract meets your needs.

The stronger your book proposal and the more experienced your agent, the more likely you'll get what you want (need) in your contract.

Jay Conrad Levinson says the first volume of his Guerrilla Marketing series earned him thirty million dollars. But only about $35,000 came from the book itself. All the rest came from back-end profits.

That's how important this issue is!

About The Author

Roger C. Parker is the $32,000,000 author with over 1.6 million copies in print. Do you make these marketing and design mistakes? Find out at www.gmarketing-design.com

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Book Marketing Information:

Related Articles

Dont Clone your Book or Business Marketing
Remember that the miracle of cloning sheep has its drawbacks. The main one--dying young.
Writing a Book's Marketing Plan for Maximum Profit
Much has been written about book proposals. But less has been written about book marketing plans.
Publicity for Buzz Marketing for Authors
Congratulations, you've written a book and even gotten it published! Now, all you have to do is get people to buy it.Getting people to actually enter a bookstore with the purposeof buying your book is not easy because you're not a "brandname" yet.
Quiz: Will Online Book Marketing Help Sales?
Most authors sigh a sigh of relief when they finish their book. Then comes the awesome task of marketing the masterpiece.
Make your Book Stand Out From the Crowd: Know your Audience
Most authors say, "Everyone will want my book, and when I take it to Oprah, it will sell millions, and I'll make millions, too." Not exactly true.
Promotion - Credibility Extras
For many of us, marketing our titles is one of the most tedious tasks of being an author. Even authors who published with large New York houses are expected to take part in marketing and promotion.
4 Questions to Answer Before Contacting a Book Agent
Obtaining agency representation is your first step toward getting profitably published. Most publishers won't even look at unsolicited manuscripts.
Never Pay Full Price for a Book!
Are you an avid reader? Are you trying to instill a love of reading in your children?My whole family loves to read! Right before bedtime every night, every one of us can be found with our nose in a book!It would be very easy for us to spend a fortune every month on books. But, since we don't have a fortune to spend every month, over the years I've found several ways to get good books and never pay full price!1.
How to Self Publish and Promote Your Own Book
If you are reading this article then you have already toyed with the idea of self publishing. You may be unsure at this point and without a doubt, the decision to self publish, should not be taken lightly.
The Booklet Journey Opening a New World
1991 was a pivotal year in my life. My professional organizing business was 8 years old.
Why Write Articles to Promote your Book?
Reach 15,000 to 100,000 targeted buyers every week Online. That's the best reason I know to write and submit how-to articles to opt-in ezines and top web sites.
Best Sellers Aren't Written - They're Made - It's All About Promotion
Writing a book is becoming more and more of a trend these days. In fact, an estimated 5,000 mystery books were published last year in the United States alone, and that number is expected to grow.
Online Book Marketing: How to Sell Your Book Even If You Are Not a Salesperson
What you do after you have written your book is as much, if not more, important than the actual writing of it. You can take a great book and poor marketing and have very poor results.
Best Selling Book Cover Design
To get a book cover design may be expensive and painstaking one. Book cover and the layout of the inside pages should catch the eye of the readers in today's market.
Get Rich Writing Fiction
Some of us write simply because we can't not write. Ideas grabus, move us, and demand to be written.
The Lecture Experience: Part I
During the past year or so, I have done nearly a hundred talks about my book, "LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities." It's about the First Ladies - the OLD First Ladies, Martha through Mamie.
FAQs about Book Signings
Since I self-published my first book, "101 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills Instantly," in 1998 and began doing book signings shortly afterward, many people have asked:1. What do you get paid to do a book signing?It depends on where the book signing occurs.
Five Tips To Consider When Choosing A Publisher
Choosing a publisher probably seems like a complicated task, however, you may find the process somewhat less challenging if you consider the following five suggestions.Research the legitimacy of your prospective publishers.
Plain Speaking - 4 Secrets For Getting Your Book Purchased
What can be more infuriating to a potential purchaser of a non-fiction book than chapter headings which give no clue as to their contents? After all, if someone is looking in the non-fiction section of a book store, it implies they want facts, not a fancy and "clever" table of contents! Here are 4 sure-fire ways to make your text grab the reader's attention:1. Make sure the text on the front and back covers is compelling.
Why Should I Buy your Book?
How would you like to have countless people clamoring for your books and willing to visit your Web site to buy them? Most entrepreneurs wait until their Web site is designed before they think about marketing their products on it. What a shame! When someone asks you about your book, maybe you've said, "My book is about?.