In my How-To book for authors, I recommend using a weekly checklist with your Team of advisors to help you continuously market your own books.
This checklist is set out below. Feel free to share it with your co-authors and friends. The references in brackets are to the book Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales, where each engagement action in your book promotion efforts is explained in detail.
I hope this helps you market yourself (as author) and your books!
Check my Amazon author site for more information on the Small Steps book: https://www.amazon.com/author/glennashton
And check the bottom of this article for details on how to get your very own Word document with the checklist, and other valuable free gifts for authors!
Weekly Engagement Checklist:
Prepare your Weekly Engagement Checklist, and discuss it with your Team, and, later on, your Clan and Ambassadors.
Revise it every time you and your Team decide on new or better engagement methods.
Every week, go through the Weekly Engagement Checklist and carry out the engagement tasks (small steps) in it.
Note: Not every task will be done in each weekly check; some tasks will be done every few weeks.
For starters, your Weekly Engagement Checklist will include the following tasks (references are to the Task number and paragraph numbers under each Task in this book):
1. Thank your Team members for their help (Task 1 para 1 or 1.1)
2. Set the Agenda for any Team meeting using Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales (1.5)
3. Test with your Team the promotion messages to be sent out this week (1.6)
4. Consider revising or adding to your Editorial Content Plan (1.7)
5. Make any changes to the composition of your Team that are needed (1.8)
6. Check whether any Brand Touches to be made this week are consistent with your Author Brand (2.3)
7. Consider using free samples and free ebooks for your Target Readers (3.4)
8. Consider changing the features of Rebecca Random (3.10)
9. Ask your Target Readers for help in fleshing out your Target Reader Personas (3.12, 3.14, 3.23(r))
10. Check this week’s messages against your family of Personas (3.17)
11. Do some role-playing with your Team and your Target Reader Personas (3.18)
12. Talk to your Target Reader Personas (3.19)
13. Consider a Survey of your Target Readers to find your Lost Tribes (3.21)
14. Consider Joint Surveys of readers along with Indie Community members (3.22)
15. Check for Affinity Groups as potential Clan members (3.23(w), 3.24, 3.25)
16. Ask your readers to become Clan members (3.29)
17. Ask Team to think of relatives and friends who could become guinea pig Clan members to kick start the Clan (4.11)
18. Recognize any person who comments or interacts with your Facebook page, blog posts or other messages; and thank them (4.12)
19. Check this week’s messages to make sure they meet the three primary motives of social media players (4.13)
20. Join conversations on Twitter, Facebook, forums (4.16)
21. Involve with the Indie Community (4.18(c))
22. Decide how to work with others to design and award Indie Recognition Awards (4.19)
23. Check for new types of rewards to be used to recognize your readers (4.18(e))
24. Follow people on Twitter and explain why (4.18(f)
25. Ask people on Follow Friday to follow those new followers of yours (4.18(g))
26. Include a Quote Gift on your blog post this week (4.18(i))
27. Prepare your Author at Work Peeks for rewards (4.18(j))
28. Ask your Target Readers for input into your next book (4.18(k))
29. Test your Guinea Pigs on items they have agreed to be involved in (4.18(m), 4.18(n))
30. Prepare your Newsletter (4.18(p))
31. Issue your Newsletter (4.18(p))
32. Prepare Checklists are Rewards for your Target Reader Personas (4.18(q))
33. Prepare Interviews with Clan members (4.18(s))
34. Brainstorm with your Team for more WOW in your messages and rewards (4.18(s))
35. Prepare Goodies for the diplomatic pouches of your Ambassadors (4.23)
36. Ask 5 Clan members personally to spread Ripples (4.26)
37. Track social network of potential high-intensity Ripplers using social metrics (4.27)
38. Consider writing new lessons for your Indie Ambassador 101 lesson series (4.28)
39. Cooperate with other Indies in setting up joint Indie Ambassador 101 lessons
40. Roll out new lessons in your Indie Ambassador 101 series (4.28)
41. Check the rewards set out in 4.29 to reward Influencers to see which ones need tending this week (4.29)
42. Ask your Target Readers for UGC (User Generated Content) you can use (4.30)
43. Jot down new ideas in My Bloggy Book (5)
44. Discuss with your Team whether you are meeting your Author Blog goals (5.5)
45. Ask your Target Readers to give you ideas for better headlines for a future blog post (5.12)
46. Add some Headlines that Hook to My Bloggy Book (5.12)
47. Acknowledge the contribution of others to your Blog comments (5.14, 5.16)
48. Follow some commentators on your author blog (5.15)
49. Study the comments on the blogs of some of your competitors to gain hints on what is trending (5.17)
50. Dip into Blogger Stats to check your blogging progress (5.20)
51. Write some Evergreen Posts for future Author Blog posts (5.23)
52. Research 2 other bloggers (5.25)
53. Check forums for ideas for this week’s blog posts (5.26)
54. Apply the Three Bites Rule to your blog posts (5.27)
55. Ask your Target Readers for ideas for future blog posts (5.28)
56. Consider what needs to be done with the ideas in 5.33 to 5.51
57. Prepare a blog post for your Guest Blogging & Blog Swap (5.52, 5.53)
58. What steps do you need to do this week to prepare for your future Blog Tour? (5.67)
59. Check if you are using the Facebook tips in 6.5
60. Create an Event for your Facebook (6.6, 6.14)
61. Check how to improve your Facebook presence (6.19)
62. Consider posts in your character Facebook pages (6.20)
63. Consider a contribution to your Indie Community Facebook page (6.21)
64. Prepare your Fan of the Month selection (6.24)
65. Prepare a special Facebook post for your Custom Facebook List (6.26)
66. Consider a poll for your Facebook page (6.27)
67. Consider a contest on Facebook (6.28)
68. Consider fresh entries on your private Facebook Groups for your Writers Club, your Clan and your Ambassadors (6.32)
69. Enter conversations in the Amazon, CreateSpace and Kindle boards (7.3, 7.9, 7.10, 7.12, 7.13, 7.14)
70. Search Amazon Communities for new communities that would fit your outreach messages strategies (7.7)
71. Start a conversation using Google+ Communities (8.1)
72. Prepare a Google+ Hangout for your Team (8.4)
73. Prepare a Google+ Hangout for your Clan (8.4)
74. Prepare a Google+ Hangout for your Ambassadors (8.4)
75. Prepare a Google+ Hangout for your Writers Club (8.4, 8.12)
76. Check the Google+ Ripples of a competitor (8.6)
77. Polish your Google+ Circles (8.7)
78. Prepare for your Google Hangouts on Air event (8.9, 8.10)
79. Post pictures on Pinterest (9.4)
80. Ask your Target Readers to post their pictures on your Pinterest Board (9.7)
81. Post pictures and ask your Target Readers to post their pictures on your Indie Pinterest Board (9.9)
82. Post pictures on your Clan Pinterest Board (9.14)
83. Follow some book bloggers on Pinterest (9.17)
84. Check your Twitter Lists to see if they need revising (10.2)
85. Consider using some of the ways to use Twitter as an author in 10.18 and 10.22
86. Check the Twitter hashtags set out in 10.24 and 10.30
87. Mention a few Clan members on Twitter (10.33)
88. Join and talk in some Twitter Chats for writers (10.37, 10.38)
89. Retweet some of your Clan member tweets (10.46)
90. Check the influence of some of your Clan member Twitter accounts using Tweetgrader (10.49)
91. Check your own Twitter influence using Tweetgrader (10.49)
92. Nurture some of your Twitter followers this week (10.52)
93. Follow some Tweeters who have followed you (10.53(3))
94. Follow on Twitter some bloggers (10.53(4))
95. Ask your Target Readers who you should follow on Twitter (10.53(5))
96. Discuss with your Team setting up a Debate on Twitter and your Blog about some topics in your book (10.53(7))
97. Check whether you are using your Twitter Follower Lists effectively (10.54, 10.56, 10.57)
98. Research the Tweet Clouds of some of your competition and discuss your findings with your Team and send a message to your Target Readers about your findings (10.61)
99. Plan some future Tweets using Tweetdeck (10.62)
100. Bounce your planned weekly Email message(s) off your Team to make sure your goals are clear and are met by the message content (11.4, 11.25)
101. Research other Newsletters for hints for your own Newsletter (11.23)
102. Review with your Team your Email success metrics and take improvement actions if needed (11.26)
103. Review with your Team your Email segmenting efforts to see if they need fine-tuning (11.37)
104. Brainstorm with your Team new kinds of Calls to Action for your Email messages (11.40)
105. Review your Email Drip Marketing Campaign with your Team (11.50)
106. Review your Listmania lists and use of those Lists and update them (12.2)
107. Approach more Amazon Book Reviewers to ask them to review your books (13.13)
108. Ask others to review your books (13.14)
109. Write some reviews for books on Amazon (13.16, 13.17)
110. Search for other non-Amazon book reviewers and ask them to review your books (13.18, 13.19, 13.21)
111. Check for new lists of book reviewers (13.32)
112. Search for new forums for your book genre (14.1)
113. Self-promote yourself and your books on Amazon’s Meet Our Authors Forum (14.1)
114. Write posts for selected Forums set out in Task 14
115. Test some messages with your Guinea Pig Group from YourBookAuthors (Task 16)
116. Nurture your LinkedIn Groups (17.3)
117. Search for new LinkedIn Groups for your to join (17.9)
118. Prepare a Book Video or Author Video or a Podcast (Task 18)
119. Prepare 2 tasks for this week to boost the Indie Community (Task 19)
120. Review and revise your Small Steps Plan (Task 20)
And, above all, remember to do two things: have fun, and help independent self-publishers to market their own books!
How You can get some very useful Bonus gifts:
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As soon as you sign up, you will be eligible for more bonus, free gifts from me. These will come to you over a period of about a month, and at intervals after that, as long as you have not unsubscribed from my email list.
Two of the bonus gifts you will get will be especially interesting to you, and worth a great deal to you as an author.
The first one is a copy of Chapter 25 of Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales – this is a copy of the Small Steps Plan template.
The template is in the book itself, but because you will get both a Microsoft Word and an Excel spreadsheet version of it, you will at once be able to use it for your very own Small Steps Plan for marketing your own books.
You can change these copies to suit your needs.
You don’t have to type out the template in the book because this is already done for you.
The second useful bonus gift is Chapter 26 of Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales – the weekly engagement checklist of 120 items that you can use to make sure that you are doing your best to market your books in places where your readers are.
This is a Word document that you can change to suit your own needs.
Your author friends:
If you like the Small Steps template and the weekly engagement checklist emailed to you, please pass them on – free of charge - to your author friends for them to benefit from using them.
We all, as self-published authors, should help develop the Indies, as talked about in Task 19 of Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales.
Your own Journey as an Indie self-publisher:
I welcome emails from you about your own journey as an Indie, using your own Small Steps Plan.
My email is smallsp.telus.net
My author blog is at http://glennashton.blogspot.com
And my Amazon author site is at https://www.amazon.com/author/glennashton
Up the Independent Self-Publishers Revolution! Indies Unite!
excellent suggestions!!
keep writing!!
m
The essence of the Small Steps Plan is that you tailormake it to suit your needs. YOU decide how much time you want to spend trying to reach readers, and when you want to do it. The Small Steps weekly engagement list gives you a menu to choose from.
Spamming is a no-no; the Plan recommends contacting only those who have indicated that they want to be contacted.
As to whether my books are worth reading, the readers will judge that (check some of the Amazon reviews for some views); and I believe they are.
The acid test is simply this: Do I have fun writing? Yes!
And do I think a plan to market your books is better than no plan, and that the Checklist and Small Steps Plan can help writers grapple with promoting their own books? Yes, again.
Thanks for your comments.
You also seem to require a lot of social networking that, to my mind, is mostly just an extension of what used to be called, chat rooms, basically for people with nothing better to do. With all the targeting and continually sending advertising to your key people, some of what I see seems to be spamming.
But does all this activity make you a better writer or are your books worth reading? That is a question unanswered. From what I read here, as a creative writer who is retired from day-to-day drudgery to make money, I find your list more drudgery than enlightenment.
Ron