Marketing Plan for Fiction Novel?

polkabeast said:

Does anybody know where I can find a good template for or example of a marketing plan for a fiction novel?

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polkabeast, do you fully understand what you're letting yourself in for by trying to market your own novel? ("Novel" means it's fiction, btw.) Fiction is very, very, very, very hard to sell yourself. Those stores you hear about self-published authors who hit it big are 1) usually not true when you research the facts and 2) extremely rare when they are true, which is why they make the news. Most self-published fiction flops. (Try this experiment: Go to your bookshelves. Count up how many commercially published books you have. Count up how many self-published books you have. If you don't buy self-published fiction, what makes you think lots of other people will buy yours?)

If you're still interested, try the Conventional Self-publishing and POD boards here on AW.

Marketing isn't limited to self-published books.

Agent Sheree Bykofsky and former editor Jennifer Basye Sander wrote The Complete Idiots Guide to Getting Published. It has whole chapters dedicated to real world marketing strategies for your book.

Marketing a novel

My hubby is my self-taught PR guy, and he swears by "The Complete Guide to Book Publicity" by Jodee Blanco. I think she has suggestions for both fiction and nonfiction, but it's an excellent resource.

Hi, polkabeast! Here's a link to one that I posted on another thread. This is a marketing plan that we, as the authors, gave to the publisher. Hope it helps!


http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=217831&postcount=10

There are a few worthy book marketing books out there...

Just to reiterate: never say "fiction novel". A novel is by definition fiction.

- Victoria

According to Donald Maass's book, Writing the Breakout Novel, and other sources, such as this article, and this article, a publisher's marketing efforts are not as effective as one would think, and that word of mouth is what really sells books, especially for first-time authors. I've come to the conclusion that a book's success has little or nothing to do with how much $$ publishers spend on marketing (or advances!) and everything to do with how much people like it and talk about it to their friends. Am I off base here? Is it that initial "you've got to read this" book push that makes spending marketing dollars worthwhile? Why do publishers bother with marketing if it has so little effect for most books?

azbikergirl said:

According to Donald Maass's book, Writing the Breakout Novel, and other sources, such as this article, and this article, a publisher's marketing efforts are not as effective as one would think, and that word of mouth is what really sells books, especially for first-time authors. I've come to the conclusion that a book's success has little or nothing to do with how much $$ publishers spend on marketing (or advances!) and everything to do with how much people like it and talk about it to their friends.

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I think you have to remember that "marketing" in this context means something quite specific--basically, a set of extras that publishers may or may not give their authors, such as tours, special bookstore displays, special advertising, setting up interviews and signings, generating media coverage, etc. Many (perhaps most) authors don't get these perks at all, and for those who do, they may or may not be effective (I totally agree that word of mouth is vital, and can make all the difference).

However, there is also a basic level of marketing that commercial publishers provide to all their authors, no matter what. This marketing goes on mostly behind the scenes prior to publication, and without it a book is DOA (one of the reasons POD publishers and other small presses rack up poor sales is because they can't, won't, or don't know how to do this kind of marketing). Uncle Jim gives a full description in this post.

- Victoria

polkabeast said:

Does anybody know where I can find a good template for or example of a marketing plan for a fiction novel?

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The word "novel" implies fiction, incidentally.

As for marketing, I suppose the best thing is to be ready to assist your publisher and agent after your book is sold.

An enthusiastic new writer who's willing to make TV or radio appearances, and to attend signings and such, is a big help to publishers and their marketing plans. Just be sure to let them know you're ready to help as much as possible.