Book Marketing Action Plan—Frequently Asked Questions


What comes after the book marketing action plan; is there a stage 2?
There are a list of points we will do free of charge after the marketing action plan is sent to you. See the list of 7 under heading 'Marketing Activity' on the PMBO website or the AEP website.

There is no official stage 2 because there is no one way to approach book marketing and it will differ from author to author and book to book. In fact, one of the major reasons for doing marketing stage 1 is to determine what can or should be done to promote your book. What we recommend you do won't always be what you agree you want to do. You will get a pile of relevant customised strategies for your book, and then you will go from there to decide what you want to action.

Next, you will be able to decide what you want to do yourself, what you need help from others to do, how much budget you will dedicate to each aspect etc. We also offer a range of follow-up or stand-alone services, as described here.

Will there be steps required of me after going through Marketing Stage 1 in order to promote my book?
Yes, implementing the changes we suggest to your book and/or actioning the plan is vital to your success. It is what gets the book marketed. Our Marketing Stage 1 service is not going to result in much all by itself. There is a lot involved in bringing a new product to market and $500-600 would be nowhere near enough budget to do this.

Running ads on social media, for one thing, would require at least $1,000 to make any noticeable impact. Taking any new product to market is not a set-and-forget type of activity, but an ongoing effort that could take one year or more to result in sales. It really depends on what you do and how charismatic you are as an author.

How many hours will be required by me to go through your Marketing Stage 1?
The resulting Marketing Action Plan document is about 12,000 words long, so it will probably take you 2-3 hours to read it. You might like to allow another hour to go back through and highlight parts you want to action, write notes on the side etc.

How much extra per hour will it cost if we need more one on one time for consultation?
There is an hour included in the Marketing Stage 1. Otherwise it is $80/hr+GST.

Have you worked with a similar style ebook to mine?
It is possible we will not have. There are three staff here performing Marketing Stage 1 consultancy. As books are as diverse as anything in the whole world we cannot be experts at marketing every conceivable kind of book. The strategies in our Marketing Stage 1 are sound for any kind of book, because they particularly hone in on what is your target market, and how to reach them. That is why this service is so powerful. It is not a one-size-fits all, but is a customised plan just for you, and just for your book. If industry connections would be very important for a book like yours, you will find information on networking and social media in the plan pinpointing this.

Is there much difference between marketing a fiction book vs a non-fiction book?
Yes, although there are many areas of overlap such as what selling text will entice a reader, how to build an author platform, how to find reviewers, advertising, social media etc. With non-fiction your connections to the industry and people who need a book like yours is something we will touch on in the plan. You are more than likely an expert in your field and probably have connections of your own to make this book known. In that case our marketing plan is more about what content you present to your connections, and how to make new connections that are relevant.

With fiction we will be able to point you in the right direction for finding reviewers of your genre, places to advertise and ways to think about social media marketing that will be appealing to your target readership. In either case (fiction or non-fiction), book marketing is implemented in two things—by spending either money (advertising) or time (you networking for example). It may seem obvious, but many of our authors don't really understand how to reach their target market with their budget.

What will you actually do as part of Marketing Stage 1?
This is a customised marketing action plan for you and your book. Your marketing consultant will read part of your book, analyse the meta-data (including price, cover design and selling categories) then create the marketing plan training document just for you.

If you have an author website we usually take a quick look at it as part of marketing stage 1. If you only have a plan at this stage we could take a look at that instead.

After the marketing consultant has carefully formed your unique customised Book Marketing Action Plan, you will be sent a PDF to read through. It could be weeks later that you will have phone, email and/or skype conversations with the marketing consultant to consolidate your learning, and ask any questions you need to ask about the plan.

If you want a marketing key info. document created (Word document) with the new meta-data and any selling text written by the marketing consultant, so you can have it to copy and paste or edit, you can request this.

There are up to seven follow-up marketing activities we will implement for you (as listed on the Marketing Stage 1 page). We do these when asked by you. Not all the things are relevant for all people. You will need to go through the plan we create first and discuss with your marketing consultant.



Will you revise any existing meta-data that has been used so far?
More than likely, yes. If we distributed your print or ebook, you get one free change per annum of your keywords, blurb, categories or prices. If you need us to change the title or cover design, or any other content changes to your book, there will be an extra charge for that.

During Marketing Stage 1 our consultants will rewrite blurbs, reassign categories, recreate keywords, recommend different pricing and make many other suggestions. Everything will be considered fair game, because the primary purpose of Marketing Stage 1 is to help you make a good decision about all the selling strategies for your book. Meta-data is a major part of this.

Then it will be up to you to decide whether to use what they come up with or to address the problem in your own way after digesting all the suggestions.


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