what do a CMO, musician, chef, and kindergarten teacher have in common?
thinking like them can help you launch your book
I’m constantly in awe of how much goes into getting a book out into the world. It takes a village, and there’s literally no playbook1. As an author, and especially an indie, you’re expected to write, edit, print, sell, market, market, market your book - and you’re probably only really equipped to do one of those things without feeling like pulling your hair out2.
And while outsourcing things like editing or cover art or ARC management is easy, the marketing piece can be a marathon. Budgets are tight, self-funding a book is hard, and most of the time you can’t afford to hire a full time PA or content management team.
I’ve been in marketing forever and a day3 and while I think my job is magical and wonderful, I’m also fully aware that it’s just marketing. Yes, it can be confusing, but at the end of the day, marketing is pretty…repetitive. And, actually, there are some interesting parallels in the way we think about book marketing and other industries. Taking some inspiration from corporate life, musicians, chefs, and kindergarten teachers, here’s how you can think about your book release…
Like a Chief Marketing Officer…plan for a 3 month marketing push
If you’ve ever worked in a corporate environment, you know we live in quarters…3 month plans, 3 month marketing budgets, 3 month forecasts. And so we are conditioned to consume within those timelines, too. When you’re releasing your book4, you want to give yourself enough time to be seen and get on those TBRs, while also playing into the fact that we have the shortest attention spans…like, ever.
Set up your release calendar as a 90 day push. Build up your calendar to be increasingly more frequent as you get closer to launch. Build in repetition and contingencies (what happens if a post does really well? or doesn’t? or another author reaches out for a giveaway on a day you had already planned something?) Print it out and put it up in your office, or pin it to your desktop, or add it as your phone background. The more you plan, the less scary your marketing efforts will feel.
Like a drummer…hit the right beats at the right time
In my experience, there is an order of things for marketing your book. While this isn’t set in stone and sometimes you’re at the mercy of a cover artist or editing schedule, generally speaking you’ll want to announce:
First, your title and release date - get people excited about what’s coming. You can tease a bit about the book at this point in time, too
Next, get that book cover and blurb out there - visually, your cover needs to be seen early and often. If someone is scrolling a bookseller’s site or a social site, they’re more likely to recognize your book by the cover vs the title itself. For your blurb, write your normal blurb and a short one (with tropes!) that you can use in your captions. Like how Meg Jones or Autumn Woods do it.
Then, get readers excited about your tropes/microtropes - I know, marketing to tropes is not ideal. You’ve written a book that’s meaningful and important to you, and it can be tough to reduce it to a simple trope arrow graphic. Keep in mind that readers (humans) don’t like to be surprised. We like to have an idea about what we are getting into and what we can expect. It’s why we have the same conversation about whether romance needs to have a HEA over and over (it does). So pick and talk about your basic tropes. But get creative in your microtropes. I’ve noticed a trend lately where microtropes have become less standard and instead have become an opportunity to highlight the uniqueness of your book.
Back in her indie days, Peyton Corinne had a really unique post on microtropes.
Ruby Barrett’s upcoming release has some fun scenes…that act as microtropes
Set up your preorders as soon as your cover is live! Get those sales in early (and seriously consider a preorder incentive of stickers or character art).
And…if you want more details on the when of a book launch plan, we have a post we did on this here!
Like a sous chef…set your mis-en-place
I can’t confirm nor deny that I recently re-read “On the Line” by Naomi Loud and rewatched season 2 of The Bear (I did)…but we should all think like a good sous and prepare for service. What does that look like as an author?
FX Networks
Spend time after you’re done your edits creating some templates for yourself. Curate your stock-free images (see the last newsletter), create a basic template for reels (like this or this) and a quote (like this) and a more utilitarian post type (like this blurb one or this countdown post or this preorder incentive post).
Set up your calendar - plan to post with increasing frequency leading up to your release day (capture that relevant interest!), switch up statics with reels, plan for any special themed days or celebrations (maybe every Saturday is “Spicy/Sweet Saturday” for a quote, or maybe your MMC is a teacher so you celebrate National Teacher’s Day, or maybe tacos are a favorite food for your couple so you share their best taco recipes on Taco Tuesday).
Write a list of posts you’ve loved from other authors, and keep it handy in case you’re ever struggling for ideas. And, because sharing is caring, here are some common ones:
He/she is a 10, but…
Playlist
The vibes my characters bring to the function
WIP Wednesday
Trope Guest Check
If you like [this book or movie], you’ll love…
Book as a movie poster
Memes
Book settings
The more you plan, the easier it will be to hop on trends when they come up or, you know, enjoy your release!
Like a kindergarten teacher…keep it simple and repeat, repeat, repeat
Ok, this may be incredibly niche but you know how kids shows and kindergarten classes can feel so annoyingly repetitive? It's because that’s how we learn - by rote repetition. And that doesn’t change much when you’re an adult, and it certainly doesn’t change when you’re doom scrolling on the Internet and need something to catch your attention quickly.
Tropes are just one of the ways we simplify our marketing messages for books. You will want to focus on picking those key moments in your book that can be used as hooks (something short and interesting, that draws readers in and is effective at stopping the scroll), and repeat them often.
What makes a good marketing hook?
Emotional appeal: make your readers feel something
Make it snappy: pick a short scene from your book or a quote that your beta readers absolutely LOVED
Relatable: something that lets your readers know what to expect (i.e. “for fans of morally grey heroes who are grumpy to everyone but her”)
Finding the right (clear, concise, simple) hook can be really hard. You can ask your beta or alpha readers to help, or hire someone to do a content pull for you! Either way, it will be worth it to get an external opinion on what really makes your book unique.
Ok there are many playbooks, but they’re like…hard to follow.
It’s the writing!
15 years
This is for my indies…if you’re in trad publishing, your timelines will be much much longer
OK omg I was just telling Rosie the other day how I thought I’d been so clever about my Scenes slide but then no one seemed to share it (which was basically the only metric I used for its success) and then I finally sat down to read this and WHAT DO I SEE?! If Ada likes it that’s all I care about 😍