How to Build a Book Marketing Plan You’ll Actually Stick To

I’ve been called the queen of admin by other editors, so I’m all about systems and processes, checklists, and plans. However, I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

But if you have a book to market, then you’ll need some kind of plan. I recognize an extroverted nonfiction author with 5,000 newsletter subscribers is going to build a very different plan than an introverted debut novelist starting from zero.

So I can’t really tell you what to put in your plan, but I can tell you that you need one, and you should start thinking about marketing at least three to four months before your publication date, and ideally even earlier than that.

Most marketing advice comes as one giant list of forty things to do, and that can make marketing feels impossible to so many authors. You stare at it, feel overwhelmed, and do nothing.

A phased plan fixes this because it tells you not just what to do, but when. Instead of doing forty things at once, you’re doing the right five things at the right time.

I break mine into four phases: groundwork, pre-launch, publication, and post-launch. Each phase has a different job.

One planning distinction saves a lot of confusion: Your publication day and your launch date aren’t the same thing.

Your publication day is the day you hit publish on your platforms. But you don’t announce that to the world yet. Only your launch team knows you’ve published it. Your launch date is when the book actually goes public. I know it’s confusing that launch team is notified about publishing date, and launch date is when it’s to the public. The idea here is you want to generate sales, reviews, and buzz with help from your launch team before you announce to the public that your book has been published.

That way when the public launch happens, your book already looks established instead of brand new with zero reviews.

Decide on these two dates before you build the rest of your plan. Everything else gets scheduled backward from them.

Before you start, take stock of your needs. If you’re overwhelmed, pick one channel and commit to it for three months before adding another. If you’re introverted, lean into written content over video or in-person events. If you have no audience yet, twenty to fifty engaged early readers is genuinely enough to start with.

With that in mind, create a plan with tasks for each phase.

This phase is about building the infrastructure your marketing will run on.

To build this part of your plan, ask:

• Where does my ideal reader already spend time online?
• Do I have any way to collect email addresses right now?
• Who would want to be on my launch team, and how will I find them?

From there, pick two or three foundational pieces to build, not ten. A newsletter signup and a launch team invite list is plenty to start. You can always add more once those two things exist.

Example tasks: setting up your email platform, creating a launch team signup form, drafting your author website copy, creating a one-sheet and/or pitch email for future outreach.

Now you start reaching outward. This phase is where your launch team gets an early copy of your book, and where you start knocking on other people’s doors: podcasters, bloggers, fellow authors, asking for a little bit of their audience’s attention.

To plan this phase, think in terms of asks and timing:

• What am I asking people to do (read an ARC, share a post, book me on their show)?
• How far in advance do I need to ask, given how busy that kind of request usually makes people?
• What podcasts or other media opportunities are right for my book?

This is also when ARC (advance reader copy) distribution starts, whether through your own launch team or a paid ARC service if you don’t have one yet.

Example tasks that live here: sending ARCs to your launch team, pitching a handful of podcasts, scheduling preorders, collecting reviews for your launch.

This is the shortest phase on the calendar but the busiest in execution. Your soft launch happens here, followed by your public launch a couple of weeks later.

Decide:

• What happens the moment the book goes live for your launch team?
• What happens on launch day itself?
• What’s your one big “announce it everywhere” moment going to look like?

Example tasks that live here: sending launch team members their review with instructions on how to post, hosting a launch party, creating and turning on ads.

Too many authors stop here, and that’s why their sales stop too. A book keeps selling when you keep showing up for it.

Plan this phase differently than the others. Instead of a countdown, build a rhythm: What will you do weekly, monthly, and quarterly to keep your book in front of new readers?

Example tasks that live here: entering book awards, pitching bookstores or libraries, keeping your newsletter going, posting about it on social media, reaching out to more podcasts, applying for promos, seeding your book (giving your book away for free) to strategic people, asking for reviews from people who’ve read your book, applying for and setting up vendor tables.

Once you’ve thought through each phase, put dates on it. Take your launch date, count backward, and drop each task onto an actual calendar. A plan that lives only in your head isn’t a plan.

If you want somewhere to keep all of this, the tasks, the deadlines, the budget, all in one place instead of six sticky notes and a half-finished spreadsheet, that’s exactly what I built my author management tracker to do. You can create your phased marketing plan, but it also tracks the drafting, the self-editing, and the publishing steps as well as your budget. You can learn more about it here. It costs $29, but if you buy one of my books, you get a coupon code to get it for half off.

If you need help creating your plan, I recommend forword.io, created by ghostwriter and author Jonathan Jordan. You enter in your book details, the platforms you’re on, and information about you, and it creates a phased plan for you.

It’s free to create 30-day plans for up to two books. Or you can sign up for a subscription plan.

Author: $9/mo, 1 book with a full 90-day plan, unlimited 30-day plans

Author Pro: $19/mo, unlimited 90-day play

Marketing demands a plan. You can add or remove tasks from your plan as you go, but you need a plan to get started.

As you go through your marketing, especially in phase 4, don’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. Your book may take longer to gain traction, your tasks may be more long-term wins than short-term.

Just keep chugging along. If you believe in your book and don’t stop marketing, you will find some measure of success.

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I’d love to hear from you. Comment below using any of these prompts to guide you:

• What questions do you have?
• What tasks have moved the needle the most in your marketing?
• What part of marketing scares you the most?
• What is one thing you did professionally or personally today that you’re proud of?