Nick Thacker's Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan

Kitten Aerobics Instructor

While wandering around the social media sites for no real reason this morning, I came across a marketing plan for the self-published book, which you can find at the link below:

The Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan - LiveHacked

I read through the whole plan, which runs to about 4000 words. It seems like a sound plan, very well organized. I am planning a launch of the ebook edition of Where the Opium Cactus Grows, and it gave me some ideas.

Mind you, launching a poetry ebook isn't quite the same thing, particularly when the real-book form has been on the market, unlaunched and largely unnoticed, for two years. But I think I shall make up a modest marketing plan based on this one.

To find blogs where I might guest post I might start mentioning the possibility on my Sunday poetry posts which are shared on Poetry Pantry. I'm not sure any of those poetry blogs has reach, though. More than just mine alone though.

Another thing I shall do is I intend to make a shorter version of the book--- perhaps call it 'Opium Cactus Greatest Hits Album which shall be made available for free. It will contain the poems from Opium Cactus I've designated as 'shareable'--- the ones on even-numbered pages of my book. I set that policy so I'd have plenty of poems from the book to share, and plenty of poems that the purchaser of the book alone would have access to.

Of course, many enthusiastic would-be indie authors will try the book marketing plan and complain that it doesn't work. Here is why:

1. Spelling errors. Authors who can't be bothered to learn spelling or good English usage will not impress in their social media and blog work. And if they have not paid to have their book corrected before publication, that will scream out 'bad writing!' as well.

2. Clumsy hard-sell book-spam based marketing. Like the sad fellows who join Facebook groups, post a book spam post, and move on to the next group, and then get upset when their post is removed for not following the rules, saying they are so busy with their 'book launch' they can't be bothered to learn the rules of each group they are spamming.

3. Not helping others. You want people to do you a favor and buy your book? What are you willing to do for others? The least you could do is be friendly and interact with them (as best you can, if you have an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger Syndrome).

4. Lousy writing. Nothing will make up for the clumsy, boring, wordy writing of the amateur who hasn't yet seriously studied the craft. The answer: DON'T self-publish until you have a good reason to believe you HAVE learned your craft, at least well enough to start being published. How do you know if you are ready? In my case, it was when my voracious reading gave me the discernment to start noticing really bad books, or bad elements in so-so book, and I was able to transfer this discernment into looking at what I wrote (which some people have a hard time doing.)

What do you think? Have you participated in a book launch--- your own or someone else's? How did that work out?

My Book: Where the Opium Cactus Grows

My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt