Do you have a marketing plan?

Once you’ve written your book, how do you plan on marketing it? Today’s publishers will be asking about your following, various platforms that you use for promotion and sales. This is part of the process that will be part of your advance from publishers. The better your marketing plan the more money, it’s that simple.
An author must wear several hats in today’s publishing environment. The author is marketer, PR person, promoter, and book seller. It is up to the author to do all of this today. The publishing houses won’t. In fact, they may not work with you at all if you don’t have some platform in place.

You will also have to begin establishing a following before your book is completed. The time to begin promotion and marketing is before you begin writing your book. There are social media sites where you can begin, but consider creating a website for the book and promote the website everywhere you can. Network with people; establish relationships, and market, market, market without being pushy of salesy.
Welcome to the publishing world. Bet you didn’t know that you need to be a salesperson as well as an author, did you?

You must also ask yourself if you want to go the route of a publishing house of self-publish. This is the author’s decision. There are numerous places to self-publish or POD to get your book on the market.

Amazon has be playing hardball with printing houses as far as having a buy button for your book if the particular house doesn’t want to follow Amazon’s rules; Amazon also has their own publishing brand.

One of the problems with self-publishing is how much the author is willing to spend for an editing package. Also, some of the publishing houses for self-publishing create books that are sub-par in design, illustration, formatting, and printing. The books are easily recognizable as self-published and that will make them hard to sell in bookstores.

Whoever you chose to publish your book, make sure you have a marketing plan and followers to entice the publishing house if you choose to traditional route to publication, and if you choose to self-publish be wary of who owns the ISBN when publishing via this route. The person that owns the ISBN technically owns the printing and how/when the book is published.

Good luck with your book.