How to Market your Book

There seems to be almost as many blog articles about how to market a book, as there are about how to write the book.

In my opinion, marketing is just as much a personal choice as writing. In the same way as some authors are plotters, others are pantsers and some a mixture, so too different marketing schemes are suited better to some authors than others. It’s up to each writer to devise a plan that works for them, their lifestyle, their skills, and their book.

Tim Grahl has written a very, very extensive Book Marketing Plan. (https://booklaunch.com/book-marketing-checklist/) He begins with an 18-point checklist, items like a website, podcasting, social media, paid advertising, bonus content and so on, and then moves onto a detailed discussion of each item.

With such a comprehensive guide, each author should be able to pick out the elements that suit them and will work for them, and devise their own plan.

Helen Woodall
Helen.woodall@gmail.com

Mark Coker's 2017 Book Industry Predictions

Each year Mark Coker of Smashwords puts together a very carefully thought out blog on the happenings of the previous year in the book world, and his predictions for the new year. He goes to a lot of trouble and thought in preparing this blog, and it is always well worth reading. His predictions are better than average in accuracy, too.

He's entitled this year's blog, "2017 Book Industry Predictions: Intrigue and Angst amid Boundless Opportunity".

I suggest you take a look at it.
http://blog.smashwords.com/2016/12/2017-book-industry-predictions.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Smashwords+%28Smashwords%29

Highlights of his predictions include that Indie authors will continue to capture greater ebook market share in 2017, that ebooks will face greater commoditization pressures in 2017, that Kindle Unlimited will continue to harm single copy ebook sales in 2017, and that industry consolidation will hit self-publishing. But as I said before, the entire blog is well worth taking a look at.

Helen Woodall