How to Create Your Book Marketing Plan: The 4 Ps of Marketing

Someone asked me recently, how do you create your actual book marketing plan? The answer is this--your book marketing plan should address the 4 Ps of marketing (product, price, place, and promotion) and how you plan to tackle those elements of selling your books. 

The How to Sell Thousands of Your Self-Published Book e-book addresses the 4 Ps of marketing, to help you develop your own book marketing plan:

1) Product (see chapter 1) - is your book packaged properly for selling?

• Is the book properly edited? Don't let poor grammar or spelling be the one thing that causes others to pass on your book- does your book fill a NEED for a reader, whether it is entertainment value or to teach someone "how to" complete a task? (see chapter 3 as well)
• Is the text easy to read? If it's the wrong font or too small you could lose that sale. also, distributors and wholesalers might reject your book based on poor formatting alone
• Does the book have a great ending if a novel, and is it well-outlined and easy to follow if it's a non-fiction book? Will someone come away with a clear plan of action for how to start implementing those ideas today?
• Is the book packaged correctly? would you stop and pick up the book if you saw it in a store?
• What about your back cover text--does it draw the potential buyer in (advice on how to write your back cover text included as well)

2) Price (see chapter 6) - are people willing to buy your book at the price you've set?

• Why charging $20 for a short paperback book may not be the best idea
• A discussion on how PODs can limit your selling potential due to the requirement that you set high retail prices
• How to set a reasonable price for your book that will still allow you to make a reasonable profit

3) Place - where exactly are you going to sell your books?

• Do you have your book website up? Is it attractive, easy to find online, and easy to navigate? (see chapter 7)
• Information on getting hooked up with a distributor or wholesaler (see chapters 2, 18, and 19)
• Selling your book in face to face scenarios (book signings and even street signings) (see chapters 15 and 16)

4) Promotion - what advertising and promotional strategies will you implement to spread the word about your book?

• Suggestions on how to get the word out about your book. Ponder this question: do you want people to know your author name or the book name? (see chapter 13)
• Do radio and text ads work for books? (see chapter 12)
• How to get media attention for your book using press releases (including how to write one) and other promotional tools (see chapters 9, 10, 14, 17)
• How telling your PERSONAL story as the AUTHOR is the key to grabbing interest in your book (see chapter 5)
• Creating ads for your book (see chapter 3)
• How to promote your book online (the wave of the future) (see chapters 7, 8, 20)

The How to Sell Books ebook also addresses how to narrow down your target market and then figure out how exactly to REACH them. (chapter 3)

All of this information will help you form a rock solid book marketing plan.By the way, here are a few resources you can use to help you format your own book marketing plan:


QuickMBA Sample Marketing Plan


BusinessTown Sample Marketing Plan


You can tweak them to your needs -- just make sure you include and focus on the 4Ps as described above.


Bookmark (CTRL+D) and visit this How to Sell Books Blog frequently for even more ideas and tips for how to sell books and fine tune your marketing plan.

Penelope Thompson is a book marketing consultant with close to 10 years of experience in self-publishing. If you need help composing a custom book marketing plan for your new book, click here to find out about Penelope's services.