First of all, your un curso de milagros is no longer “your baby,” but a business—and as with any business, you must have a Marketing Plan. Number One in your plan should be creating a website that will help facilitate everything else we’ll cover in this article. If you already have a website (business or otherwise), add a banner headline announcing publication on your Home page. If you don’t have a website and/or don’t know how to create one,
Google how to create a website, and plenty of user-friendly links will come up. The point is that your website should showcase your book as the feature, and you should offer the book for sale right there. Sign up for a Pay Pal account, if you don’t already have one (www.paypal.com). This is an easy, affordable way for you to offer buyers a means to pay with a credit card, and that feature alone will help drive more books out the door.
Next you’ll need to develop a Sell Sheet consisting of: a) a summary of your book in 50 words or less; b) an author biography in one paragraph; and c) your field of expertise and how that relates to your book (not always relevant with fiction). Then identify your Target Audience—the “who” you had in mind while you were writing. If you’ve written a novel, will interested readers be male or female, young, middle-aged or seniors, action or romance devotees?
If your book is non-fiction, are you targeting a certain business or profession? Do you already have a client or seminar base that will be a built-in market? If you don’t have a built-in base, what media outlets (radio, television, print) will help you build one, and which will be relevant and feasible? How do you get to Book Reviewers? (Reviews are golden, even if they’re not glowing—and reviews are mandatory for success. Without them, you don’t get interviews, and the good ones become marketing tools.)
Each category and media market, by the way, can be easily researched via the Internet, and each will have to receive a Review Copy of your book. Once your target audience is clear, identify your book’s Position with a single sentence that explains why someone would want to buy your book over others in the same category. This is an extremely important element because, with every Review Copy you send out, you’ll have between 5 and 15 seconds to catch someone’s attention.
Finally (and you’ve probably figured this out already), you need to decide how much money you’re able and willing to spend on your book promotion. Guess who buys all those Review Copies, for example? You’ll also need business cards (focused solely on your book), bookmarks, “Just Published” posters, announcement post cards, travel expenses and so forth.