Book Proposal Review: The Reluctant Marketer
What I did for my, sigh, Marketing Plan
Alrighty, friends. Here’s a topic I think most prospective book authors dread as they write their proposal, I sure know I did: The Marketing Plan.
Excuse me I am a WRITER. A SERIOUS JOURNALIST. A CEREBRAL, DELICATE FLOWER. I KNOW NOTHING OF THIS “PROMOTION” BUSINESS.
Some of my thoughts when I learned just how much I had to think about marketing a book that was nowhere near existing yet.
Those thoughts were fleeting, immediately counteracted by reality, that I, not-so-deep-down, knew had to be dealt with. Of course I’d have to discuss these things. I’d been in journalism for nearly a decade at that point, coming of age in the era of media Twitter and the online news pub boom and bust, trained to fret about follower counts, page views, and conversions — worries that writers of a previous era could luxuriously ignore. It wasn’t actually a surprise that it would be the same in publishing. But it wasn’t exactly welcome, either.
The life of a poster and a nose for the viral never coming quite as naturally to me as they did to some of my peers. I’d done just okay in this metric and online presence obsessed world. Though I’m not, generally, in life, mad about it, because being internet famous seems exhausting and going viral sucks, my lackluster audience numbers made me freak out a bit. Would I stand a chance of getting a book deal? I’d seen follower count “requirements” bandied around the book internet, my panic rising, my brain thinking up ways of increasing my numbers stat (as if that would work). But then someone in the publishing world told me that if you have under 100,000 it won’t sway a publisher anyway so that I should stop worrying about it and finish the damn proposal. That was just one opinion, and who knew if it was right, but I decided to take their word for it.
(Note: from my understanding this is all quite different for fiction writers, so if you’re one, this likely doesn’t apply to you).
But the question remained: how do I present my platform, that dreaded word? What was it even without those big follower numbers? This is where reading a friend’s successful proposal was incredibly helpful, despite being on a completely different topic. Instead of spiraling over contradictory advice online or in “how-to” books, I just used her marketing plan as a template for mine.
Long story short, as you’ll see shortly, it showed me that my entire career was my platform. My bylines, my community, my connections. Nicely packaged.
First, a caveat. Please remember, I am absolutely no book publicity expert. My book isn’t out, and won’t be for a while. I want to share this template for those of you in the throes of working on a proposal now, as inspiration, as just another data point in your journey of getting agented and your book sold. Whether this plan helps with selling my book to readers is anyone’s guess (but please pre-order many copies of my book when the time comes!!!). I will say, however, that it has helped two of my friends write their own marketing plans, and their proposals did help them score agents! (For actual book publicity experts, check out
, , , , , .)Here’s what I did, following my friend’s template and picking the online advice that seemed most sound to me.
[This section followed the Author Bio in my proposal, laying out why I was the right person for the book. I wrote about that part, also not a very fun endeavor, here].
Section title: Marketing opportunities & media contacts (635 words)
First things first: my contacts in the world I am writing about who may be willing to talk about the book.
Because I’ve reported extensively on the online dating industry, I have many contacts in the business, including [A number of actual names went here. This took about a paragraph]
Now, the potential blurbers.
I’ll work to secure endorsements from high-profile thinkers who study and write about recent social history, online culture, and relationships, such as [Some of these people on my list are quite high profile, but I carefully thought about all the different ways I could connect with them, and felt confident they could be reached.] All of these authors and thinkers are within my network of contacts, and I know some of them personally.
Next, my communities. I read somewhere that showing you’re part of groups that are likely to purchase your book or talk about it, even if they are relatively small, is more useful than fairly anonymous, uninvested online followers.
I am part of and active in multiple writer and journalist groups [Names here, with number of members]. I actively participate in several popular cultural newsletter and podcast listener communities [Specifics here]. My college alumni association is a tight-knit community, with its quarterly magazine publishing updates on alumni book authors in every issue.
Opportunities for press:
While working on the book I will continue to publish freelance pieces, many of which are likely to stem from the book reporting. The book chapters can easily become excerpts that can be published in the press. Crowdsourcing the search for subjects could also generate buzz for the project.
And here came what was probably the crux of the entire thing, a section titled “Media contacts,” which was a list of all the editors I’d worked with as a freelancer, former colleagues who were sprinkled around major publications, and simply friends who worked in media who made sense to include. Each was appended with their relationship to me, for example: “friendly former colleague who has edited my work.” I had 17 people on this list. I also added a paragraph with a list of other connections, naming only the publications (“Additionally, I’m friendly with journalists and editors at …”)
The last paragraph of the section was about my website, the domain I purchased for my book, and my combined social media following — when all added up, it didn’t look awful. I also acknowledged the “current fractured social media landscape” and that my following on this and that platform was growing.
Good luck, fellow reluctant marketers!
Very helpful! Thanks for sharing this.