The Ultimate Way To Market Your Book!

We all know that in today's market, getting that book out there to your readers, or really finding a way to impress the editors and agents is the key. We see writers scrambling to find the best method to do this. They take workshops and they read books. They are determined to find that single best way of marketing their books. Well, look no further.

No, I am not selling you Dr. Smith's Magic Elixir. I honestly have the best method of marketing that book!

WRITE THE DAMN BOOK!

No seriously. Write the book!

One of the things I saw a lot of these last two weeks were the number of authors taking every workshop they could get their hands on dealing with social media, marketing techniques, approaches to formatting books, how to create digital copies... you get the idea. What was interesting, however, is that many of these writers still had not finished writing their books. Sure, some were editing or in the "final phase of revisions" (don't ask me how many times I heard people use that line), but far too many were still writing.

I am asked frequently on the importance of "building your platform" and the need to have that in place when submitting to an editor or an agent. Now I will say, if you are writing non-fiction, you should be thinking about that since there is a pretty good chance you are submitting on proposal, but for fiction, it is simply not necessary. We want to know that you are thinking about it, but having it in place is not where you need to be spending your time. You need to be writing.

Think of it this way. You are marketing a product that hasn't been created. When we market a product, we have to think of all the great things the product has that your buyer would be interested in. You cannot sell something that doesn't exist.

In simple terms, there are so many of you that have all of these great marketing schemes, but you never really took the time to think about the product. Look, don't get me wrong! Your marketing schemes are great, but the product  you are marketing needs a lot more work. Take the time to do so.

When I sign new authors, I am always asked if they should start building those websites and creating a platform. I tell them all the same thing. Don't worry about it yet. Sure, it is OK to make some lists, but let's focus first on selling that book and getting that process going first. We want that good project and then we will think about the best method of marketing it!