Marketing Your Book Starts During the Writing Process

Renee's post on goal setting and a marketing seminar I attended got me thinking about the book marketing process, and one of the problems we often see. I am often asked when the marketing for a book should start. When do you move from creating to marketing? My answer is that marketing the book should start as early as the writing -- and often before-hand.

When you first decide what the book is that you are writing (and what your goals are for the project), it is critical to start thinking about who your specific readers are and what they are looking for in the book. To effectively market a book to your target market, you need to make sure the content that you are writing is focused specifically for that reader. The earlier you have that specific reader in mind, the easier it will be to make sure that your book addresses the needs of that reader (and your goals).

It is always easier to make sure the book fits the needs of your target readers at the time you are writing the book, than to realize after the book is written that there is another potential market for the book (and that it doesn't quite ideally fit that reader), and then trying to redefine the sales pitch and marketing copy to sell your pre-existing book to the market.

And keep in mind that a book can and should have multiple ideal readers -- but the more you can focus the book with specific readers in mind, the better it will be. As a publishing colleague once said, "the book that is written for everyone is really written for no one."