What should I do to plan my publication?
As Christmas looms, I’m going to keep this newsletter short and to the point! But if you are working on a book, or planning to write one, aside from the details of planning what’s in it, I urge you to consider these things long before you publish it:
How will you market the book? Whatever your route to publication, you need to think in advance about how you will attract attention to it when it’s out (and ideally beforehand). You might use Amazon advertising or other online options such as Facebook or Google ads; you might advertise in magazines, or in email newsletters like this one (there are often cross-promotions that can be arranged); or you might go old-school and print promotional flyers or bookmarks, as long as you have somewhere in mind for them to go, where potential readers will see them. You might do all of these, or something far cleverer: but you need to be focused on this. And a separate issue is planning advance for things like press coverage, perhaps sending out advance information sheets, review copies, press releases and so on.
How will you distribute the book? You might well be planning to use the distribution networks of Amazon or Ingram with a print-on-demand book; but if not, how will you make it available to bookstores or customers (e.g. via your own website, or a dropshipping service, or a book distribution company). But sending out individual copies yourself is time consuming: so what’s your plan?
How will you print the book? Again, print-on-demand with Amazon or Ingram, or via other services such as Lulu, Blurb or Draft2Digital (or there’s Bookvault/Printondemand-Worldwide or Clays in the UK), is an option; but if you want more control over paper, binding and formats, you’ll need a specialist printing firm – and then you need a separate plan for distribution (as well as having to pay for a print run upfront).
I mention all of these because often authors come to me with a book ‘ready to go’ – but not having thought about where it will go. Do make time as early as you can for these considerations!
That’s it from me for this year: I’ll be back in January. Have a great Christmas season and good writing/publishing!
This week’s link: Here’s a writer’s useful list of tools for reporting, researching and writing.