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How to develop a Marketing Plan as an Indie Author

Nov 16, 2022

One of the biggest challenges facing Independent authors is marketing. So many of us like to write but shy away from self-promotion and marketing. Unfortunately, if you are an Indie author a solid marketing plan is as important as the book itself. No one is going to buy your book if they are not aware of it. 


I have set out below how I have approached developing a marketing plan for my upcoming book Badgeland. I started putting this plan together three months before the launch of my book. I think in retrospect I should have put this together much earlier and thought about how I would market the book at the very start of the writing process.


 1. Audience

 

You need to understand the audience for your book. I started writing my latest book for my grandchildren. I didn’t really think about who might buy the book. It was only when I finished writing that I reflected on the potential audience. Ideally you would think about this a lot earlier than I did.

 

My book is a blend of memoir, politics and social history. My thoughts on the potential audience included:

 

  • People who grew up at the same time as me, and particularly those who were also in the Labour Party Young Socialists and wore the same protest badges. 
  • People interested in politics, specifically Labour Party and left politics in the 1980s. 
  • The book is set in Swindon, the University of Bath and in the Greater London Council. Thus it might also appeal to people who live in Swindon, who were or are students at the University of Bath, or who worked at the GLC. 
  • The book is a memoir and might also appeal to people interested in coming of age stories. 
  • Finally, the book is about social mobility and my transition from a working-class lad in Swindon to a London graduate and ultimately an entrepreneur. So it might appeal to people interested in these topics.

 

 

2. Where does your audience hang out and what do they read?

 

If you are to get your book in front of your audience you need to know where they hang out. 

 

Each of the five audiences I have listed above might hang out in different places. After some searching I found there is a niche Facebook group for people that were in the Labour Party Young Socialists in the 1980s. I also found much bigger groups interested in Swindon and Bath University. On Reddit there are many communities dedicated to the Labour Party which might be interested in my story. On Twitter I managed to search and find people who were also active in the Labour Party in 1980s and a few who also worked at the GLC. I am planning to post or advertise to these audiences to see if I can tempt them to try my book.

 

The audience for my book will include the readers of similar books such as ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ and ‘No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy’. Thus one option is to buy Amazon ads and ensure my book appears alongside those books. 

 

A large section of my audience will read left publications such as The New Statesman, Left Foot Forward and Red Pepper. Thus I will pitch my book to them and seek a review. 

 

It is highly unlikely but I will also pitch my book to major publications and newspapers. If you don’t ask and all that.

 

One section of my audience will probably read the Swindon Advertiser, while another may read the Bath Echo or Bath Chronicle. Thus it will be worth pitching my book to these publications for review.

 

3. Core Marketing messages 

 

Once you know your core audience you need to draft key marketing messages that will appeal to this audience. This starts with the title and particularly the sub-title of your book. 

 

You can review the book descriptions of similar books and analyse what keywords and phrases they use. 

 

One way to sharpen your focus is to write the Amazon book description and back cover blurb for your book. Ideally this should be 200 to 250 words. It needs to start with a hook to draw the reader in and finish with a paragraph which explains what the book is. It’s core purpose is to sell the book, not summarise it. I have written a separate post on how I developed my book blurb. 

 

You can also read reviews on Amazon and GoodReads to see how reviewers describe the book. 

 

4. Keywords

 

What keywords are your audience likely to search for? This is closely linked to your core marketing messages.

 

I started by reviewing reviews of similar books and considering the words and phrases they use. Some of the keywords I identified were Labour Party, working-class, social mobility, coming of age, 1980s and memoir. 

 

I drew up a shortlist of possible keywords, Amazon allows you to use seven, and then I analysed these using Publisher Rocket to assess how many times they are searched for each month and how competitive they are. Publisher Rocket uses a scale from 1 to 100, with a 100 being the most competitive. The results for my keywords were as follows.


Based on this analysis I ruled out keywords such as Thatcher and Socialist which had less than 100 searches a month and were quite competitive. 

 

 5. Launch team 

 

The best advice I received when thinking about marketing my second book is to put together a launch team. It was something I neglected to do for my first book. 

 

At its most basic level a launch team are friends and family who will support your book launch. Ideally they will read an early draft of the book and give you honest feedback. At launch they will buy the book, post reviews, spread the word on social media and recommend the book. This should help give you some initial momentum.

 

Joanna Penn recommends having a launch team of 120 people. I am not exactly Billy No Mates but I didn’t have 120 people I could ask to join my launch team. 

 

It is important to keep in regular contact with your launch team. You can do this by sharing updates on your progress, publication date, launch events, sharing ideas for the cover and even seeking feedback on the title, sub-title and book description. You can also provide them with images that they can share on social media or ask them to post pictures of them reading the book. 

 

I intend to provide my team with signed copies of the book and invite them to my launch events. 

 

 6. Author website

 

You need to create an author website if you do not already have one.

I started by buying the domain steverayson.com and put up a simple site using tools from my domain company. This included a homepage, a page about my books, a page about me and a news page.

 

I decided to add a blog. I knew it would be a lot of work but I felt I did have experience as an Indie author that might be helpful to other authors which I could share. It also gave me something to post to social media and include in emails. You are reading one of my first blog posts.

 

You can also claim your GoodReads author profile and add their author widget to your website. On balance I have decided not to do this currently, maybe I will when the book is out there and has reviews.

 

 7. Email list

 

All the Indie authors I have listened to say that the most important thing you can do as an Indie author is to create and develop an email list. 

 

I put together an initial list of the emails of my friends and family who I thought might be interested in the book. I then put a form on my author website offering an early digital draft of the book for those that signed up with their email which I promoted with a LinkedIn post. My intention is to also promote this later on Facebook and Twitter. 

 

Some authors talk about reader magnets to collect email addresses. In essence this is offering something for free if they sign up with their email address. It could be a guide or a bonus chapter of your book. Many authors recommend including this at the end of your book, along with a ‘thank you for reading’ note and a request for them to post a review on Amazon.

 

To manage my email list I signed up to the free version of MailChimp and uploaded my email list to this site. I also created a landing page with MailChimp where people could sign up for my list. I was unsure whether to promote this page. It has the advantages of automatically adding people to my list but on balance I decided to send people to my website where there is a sign-up form. I felt this had the advantage of allowing people to browse my site but this may be unfounded, I am not sure if people browse websites any longer. If people just want to sign up for an advance copy or to join my launch team, it is easier and cleaner with the MailChimp landing page.

 

The advice is to keep in regular touch with your email subscribers but I have been unsure about sending people unnecessary emails. I am thinking of sending an update before Christmas on what I have been doing and my plans for the launch. Then in January  I can send one about the launch events themselves and of course an email when the launch takes place in February.

 

8. Tease the cover design 

 

The cover of your book should entice people to want to read your book. It is important to engage a graphic artist or cover designer. It is essential you do this as a professional Indie author. To me being an Indie author still means producing a book that is as professional as one produced by a publisher. Hence, you will probably need to engage a cover designer, an editor, copy-editor and proofreader, unless you have particular skills in these areas. It should be noted that it is impossible to proof your own writing.


I was really pleased with my cover, designed by the talented Kate Chesterton. It has images of the badges I wore as a young radical which aligns with the title of my book Badgeland. It is visually striking and will hopefully be immediately engaging with people that wore the same badges.

 

Once you have a cover design you can share the cover ideas on social media and with your email list. Seek feedback and try to engage people in the process.

 

 9. Get early reviews 

 

Once your book launches you need to get book reviews, particularly on Amazon. Encourage your launch team to rate your book on Amazon and to post an honest review. As I mentioned above you should also include a tank you note at the end of your book which asks readers to post a review. 

 

You also want to get reviews on GoodReads and blogs/journals that your audience read. I prepared a list of 60 journals, blogs and review sites and wrote to them offering the book for review two months prior to publication. So far four have come back to say they will review the book.

 

There are also a range of paid review sites that will review your book and provide you with a written review. You can use these reviews as part of your publicity and some will also publish the review. I have decided not to pay for a review at this time but I am paying for a Blog Tour where five or six book bloggers review the book. I am hoping to get some useful quotes from these blogs in due course.


I mailed some high profile politicians about my book and a few actually read it and one gave me some quotes that I could use in my marketing which was fantastic and more than I ever expected.

 

I have written a separate post on seeking reviews as they are so critical to your success.

 

10. Seek interviews and speaking opportunities 

 

You should offer yourself up for interviews to relevant publications, blogs and podcasts. 

 

I also decided to contact local newspapers, to see if they were interested in covering the book. So far I have had one response from a journalist in Swindon.

 

11. Advertising 

 

I set aside some money for an initial advertising campaign at launch. I decided to start with some Amazon and Facebook adverts. On Amazon I aim to target similar books to my own and on Facebook I plan to target specific communities and older people interested in politics.

 

There are whole books written about advertising on Amazon. I think the key to advertising is to try various approaches, monitor the results closely and adapt to what works.

 

12. Social media

 

It is important to have a plan for social media. 

 

You should start by building relationships. Initially you should share the content of your supporters, potential reviewers and similar authors. You should start by thinking what you can do for them? Only once you have actively supported people and engaged with them should you seek their support. 

 

I decided to share my book cover and these blog posts on social media. If my posts were about being an Indie author I decided to use popular writing hashtags such as #indieauthor #amwriting #writerproblems #writerslife #memoir. If the post was about my book I decided to use the hashtag #badgeland. 

 

You should ask your launch team to share the book on social media and recommend it to their friends. Provide them with images that they might want to share and encourage them to use your book hashtag. 

 

Ask them to help with quotes by saying what they enjoyed most about the book. We might be naturally reticent as writers but it is important to ask your launch team how they can help share and spread the word.

 

13. Promotional sites

 

Once the book has launched I will have a look at BookBub and other promotional sites such as Reedsy Discovery. For a fee BookBub offers its large email audience discounted books. Everything I have read suggests that the returns can far exceed the initial fee. It is something I may try once the book is launched. 

 

14. Merchandise

 

I decided to get my graphic artist to help me produce some book merchandise such as mugs, bookmarks and coasters. They make a fun prop for social media images and can also be used at events.

 

13. Videos

 

Many authors swear by promotional videos and produce book trailers. I wasn’t sure this was really me and I haven’t yet produced any promotional videos.

 

14. Book quotes and snippets

 

Identify quotes and passages from your book that can be used as promotional material, such as on social media.

 

15. Keep reviewer quotes

 

Keep a document with all the positive feedback from your reviewers, whether these are emails or reviews posted on Amazon.You can use these in promotional materials, particularly if you get positive feedback from a respected author or reviewer. 

 

Even if you never use the quotes, reading this document will make you feel good on the darkest of days. 

 

 16. Create an author brand

 

Listening to marketing podcasts many authors say you must create an author brand. I find it difficult to think of myself as a brand. I preferred to think of my book title as the brand and I aim to market the book like a product. Maybe in time I will overcome my reticence on this matter.

 

I hope these thoughts on marketing have been helpful.




Political and Protest Badges of the 1980s

19 Dec, 2022
Above my desk I have a cork board that holds some of the badges I wore between 1978 and 1987. The badges were the inspiration for the title of my latest book: Badgeland. Political badges - or campaign buttons as they are known in the U.S. - were very common throughout the 1970s and 1980s. We wore our badges on our chests with pride like twelfth century pilgrims who bought pewter badges to demonstrate their devout status. Below is a brief summary of the badges which graced my denim jacket from 1978 to 1987.
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Two Indie Authors Podcast

08 Dec, 2022
If you are looking for advice as an Independent author I can really recommend the Two Indie Authors podcast. In this podcast the best-selling indie authors, David B. Lyons and Robert Enright talk about about being an independent author. I have found the podcast to be open, honest and refreshing. The authors cover a lot of ground including why they chose to be Indie authors, the tools they use (big shout out to Vellum), how they market their books and discuss numbers (including their costs and sales). The discussions are in-depth, each podcast is about an hour long and there are no adverts that you have fast forward through. Their episodes so far have covered: How they became full time authors How they market their books How they write their books The costs of self-publishing The numbers that matter, particularly advertising costs and returns What to include in your front and back matter Audiobooks In each episode they also interview experts and authors for their tips and advice on being an Indie author. What are you waiting for? Go check it out. Two Indie Authors

Why Indie Authoring?

24 Nov, 2022
I initially became an Indie author through my own impatience in the summer of 2020. I had written a book about Labour's catastrophic performance in so-called Red Wall seats at the December 2019 UK election and was keen to get it published. When I spoke to potential agents and publishers I was amazed that even though the book was written, it would take up to two years to get it published. I was convinced the book was of the moment and there would be far less interest years down the line. Determined to get the book out to the world I read about Amazon KDP publishing. It seemed it was possible to publish the book on Amazon as an ebook and as a paperback almost immediately. Enthused I purchased a licence for Vellum (software that formats and produces your book in the correct format for both ebooks and physical books), imported my Word document and learnt how to use the software in a day or so.  I asked my favourite graphic designer to design me a cover and uploaded all of my files to Amazon. After a short review and approval process my book was available to buy on Amazon. I did a little of my own marketing, sending the book to various blogs and journalists, and paid for some very limited Amazon marketing. To my surprise the book quickly became the bestseller in its category, selling four thousand copies. In retrospect despite employing a developmental editor, I should have engaged a copy editor and/or a proofreader. I am now a little embarrassed at some of the typos that crept in, though I did update and upload the files when I came across errors to correct them. In my rush to get the book out I didn't do enough rigorous editing. Thus when it came to my second book, a political memoir which wasn't time critical, I decided to rectify these mistakes and gave myself almost a year after the first draft was complete to edit, review and improve the book. I sent the book to over twenty friends to read and review, many of whom picked up various errors. I also employed an editor and a proofreader to ensure the book was a professional Indie book. Professional Indie Publishing I think I first heard about professional Indie publishing from James Altucher. While replying to a post on Quora he explained why he had chosen to Indie publish his book and why it was important to be a professional Indie publisher . One of the major roles played by publishers is to provide some form of quality control over books. The danger with Indie publishing is that people can and do publish some very low quality books. However, when the Indie publishing is done professionally it is impossible to tell the difference between a book from a traditional publisher and a professional Indie book. I agree with Altucher when he says that being professional means employing editors, copy editors, proofreaders, and graphic artists, and investing similarly in marketing. The Benefits of Professional Indie Publishing Speed to publication. The additional layers of quality control from research to editing to proofreading do add time to the process but Indie publishing is so much faster than traditional publishing. Control. You have more control of the whole process including matters such as the cover design and the final content. Revenue. You receive a much higher share of revenue. For example, if you go exclusive on Amazon Kindle you receive 70% of the revenue. Challenges of Professional Indie Publishing There are challenges of self-publishing. Fundamentally you are responsible for publication, quality control, marketing and accounting. Publication involves the formatting of your book. This can be done with existing software tools. As I mentioned I personally use Vellum which produces ebook formats for Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc., and ready to print paperbacks and hardbacks. Professional quality control requires you to employ an editor and a proofreader at a bare minimum. Please do not make the mistake that I did on my first book of thinking you can proofread your own work. In the case of my second book Badgeland, I worked with an editor on the first draft. I then had over 20 beta readers review the edited book. They were not proof reading but they picked up many issues. For the proof reading I created a style guide based loosely on a guide for Pluto Books, which produce political books, for example percentage numbers were formatted as 30 percent, dates were formatted as 16 March 1987, film, book and song titles were italicised, and newspaper headlines were contained in single quotes. I engaged a proofreader to spend two weeks on the book before making my final changes and uploading the files to Amazon. Amazon also allow you to produce a proof copies of the paperback to check before finally publishing the book. Marketing is the biggest challenge for most Indie authors. Publishing houses will have marketing teams who will seek to get your book in front of the right reviewers, organise your book launch etc. As an ex-marketer I personally loved the challenge of marketing the book but it doesn’t suit all Indie authors. I have provided some guidance and advice in my blog post about developing a book marketing plan. The key things are: Build your own email list of friends and supporters. Over time this will grow and allow you to keep in touch with your supporters. You can incentivise people to give you their email by providing them with bonus chapters or updates. Ask people to post reviews of your book on Amazon, you can also do this at the end of your book itself. You can also look at review sites such as Independent Book Review or Reedsy Discovery . Offer the book to relevant blog and review sites in advance of publication. Create an author website where people can read about your book, find out more about you and sign up to your email list. Test advertising on either Amazon or Facebook or both. It is essential that you understand your target audience. For example, if you know what books they read you can post your Amazon adverts next to those books, or if your demographic is women over 50 you can target them on facebook. The Key is to start small and review how well your ads are working. Look at promotional sites such as BookBub where they may promote your book after publication as part of a discounted promotion. You can submit your book for a featured deal.

Choosing the Right Amazon Category for your Book

17 Nov, 2022
The one thing we all want as Indie authors is that Amazon orange 'bestseller' tag. It not only does wonders for your self-esteem but for your marketing and promotion. To give yourself the best chance of achieving the this accolade you need to choose the right Amazon categories. In this post I look at how you can analyse the Amazon categories using Publisher Rocket. Publisher Rocket is a software tool that costs around $100. Having seen it recommended by many authors I decided to take the plunge and buy the tool. I am pleased I did, as it has helped me to choose the Amazon categories for my next book. Choosing the right category is critical to your chances of achieving that coveted 'bestseller' tag. As an Indie author you can only choose two categories initially, though it is possible to add more categories later. I was looking at categories for my memoir about coming of age as a young socialist in the 1980s. The obvious category was Biographies and Memoirs. However, according to Publisher Rocket I would need to sell 4,700 books a day to be a best seller in that category. I am generally an optimistic person but selling over 4,000 books in a day is out of my league. I decided to leave that category to Prince Harry and Michelle Obama. I then searched for relevant categories for my book. Below are the results.
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Writing a Book Blurb as an Indie Author

16 Nov, 2022
The aim of a book blurb is to sell your book, not to describe it or summarise it. You don’t want them thinking TL:DR - too long, didn’t read. To prepare the blurb for my memoir, Badgeland, I read lots of articles about writing book blurbs, reviewed lots of Amazon book descriptions and even bought a Kindle book on writing blurbs. The consensus from my research was that a blurb should be kept short, around 200 to 250 words, and have four parts. It should also be easy to read and fun. The structure of a book blurb What I took away from my research was that a blurb should have four paragraphs as follows: Para 1 - The hook. This is where you seek to grab attention and encourage the reader to keep reading. Para 2 - Where you introduce your character. Stories are about characters. Where you set up the conflict and show what’s at stake. This paragraph should end on a cliffhanger e.g. the challenge they face or have to overcome. Para 3 - Where you set out what is going to happen as a consequence of the second paragraph. Set out what other complications may prevent the protagonist achieving their goal. Again end with a cliffhanger. Some people argue this should always be presented as a question. Para 4 - Explain what the book is and why a reader should buy it. Below is my attempt at a drafting a book blurb following this guidance Para 1 - Hook Steve Rayson believed working-class people had everything to gain from socialism. The only problem was they didn't agree with him. I have introduced the main character in para 1 rather than in para 2. Many hooks are much shorter but I feel this sets up the story. Para 2 - Introduction, stakes and cliffhanger In 1979 Margaret Thatcher was threatening to change Britain forever, and not in a good way. Determined to defeat her, Steve joined the Swindon Labour Party, pinned protest badges to his chest and marched against mass unemployment, apartheid and nuclear weapons. His radical generation was going to change the world but he would learn the hard way that the popularity of the Clash and the Jam was not a good predictor of General Election results. I am conscious I don’t really end on a cliffhanger here but hopefully the humour helps to pull the reader along to paragraph three. Para 3 - Complication and cliffhanger Bewildered by Conservative election victories in the 1980s, he had to reassess what he had been taught by his badgeland comrades. What do you do as a young socialist when your dad’s mates in the working men’s club buy their council houses, drive Austin Metros (a British car to beat the world), read The Sun, and vote Tory? He would come to realise that politics isn’t all it seems at seventeen. I hope this gets across the core complication in the book, namely that the world was more nuanced than the black and white way I saw the world at seventeen. The memoir is fundamentally about coming of age and how my view of the world changed as I grew older. Para 4 - The explanation, the story, the benefit Badgeland is an insightful, warm and frequently hilarious memoir about coming of age, politics, class and social mobility in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a deeply personal account of loss and renewal that will resonate with everyone regardless of the party they support. My draft blurb is reasonably short at 207 words. I am hoping this leaves room for improvement and also for some quotes about the book. I am conscious that on Amazon only eight lines appear on the book’s page. This is followed by a ‘read more’ button, which reveals the rest of the book blurb. It is the old equivalent of the text that appears above the fold. In my case I estimate this means the blurb will finish with my line about top ten records by the Clash and the Jam not being a good predictor of General Election results. Final Amazon Book Description My final book description for Amazon was as follows: "Steve Rayson believed working-class people had everything to gain from socialism. The only problem was they didn't agree with him. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher was threatening to change Britain forever, and not in a good way. Determined to defeat her, Steve joined the Swindon Labour Party, pinned protest badges to his chest and marched against mass unemployment, apartheid and nuclear weapons. His radical generation was going to change the world but he would learn the hard way that the popularity of the Clash and the Jam was not a good predictor of General Election results. Bewildered by Conservative election victories in the 1980s, he had to reassess what he had been taught by his badgeland comrades. What do you do as a young socialist when your dad’s mates in the working men’s club buy their council houses, drive Austin Metros (a British car to beat the world), read The Sun, and vote Tory? He would come to realise that politics isn’t all it seems at seventeen. Badgeland is an insightful, warm and frequently hilarious memoir about coming of age, politics, class and social mobility in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a deeply personal account of loss and renewal that will resonate with everyone regardless of the party they support."
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Lessons from self-publishing 'The Fall of the Red Wall'

16 Nov, 2022
When I published my first book The Fall of the Red Wall on Amazon in 2020, we were in the middle of a pandemic. I gave very little consideration to the idea of a book launch. I uploaded my ebook file to the Amazon KDP platform, checked it over in the Kindle preview tool and clicked publish. There was no launch party, no book signing events and not even a virtual Zoom launch event. I did send a PDF of the book to a few journalists at smaller blogs and publications. Most ignored my email but a number of kind souls did review the book. I also asked friends and family to buy the book and to post a review on Amazon if they liked it. To my amazement within a few weeks I was the number one bestseller in my category, albeit the category was books about political parties. I was lucky, following the 2019 General Election there was huge interest in the so-called Red Wall. Mine was the first book published about Labour’s loss in 2019. Speed is one of the main advantages of Indie publishing. Within a year there were other books published by the Labour strategist and pollster Deborah Mattinson and the Financial Times political correspondent Sebastian Payne. However, by the time their books hit the shelves I had been interviewed by Times Radio, sold over two thousand copies and was riding high on Amazon. Over two years later the book is still doing well, it has had 181 reviews, an average rating of 4.3 and is still ranking in the top ten for books about political parties. Albeit behind Seb’s book which was named political book of the year by the Times, FT, Guardian and Daily Telegraph. Still while at the time of writing his book ranks 44,000th on the Kindle store mine is a creditable 71,000th and above Deborah’s, which is ranking 250,000th. The first lesson from the publication of my first book is that speed and timing can be everything when it comes to non-fiction books. The second lesson is that getting the 'Bestseller' orange tag for your category helps you to generate momentum. Thus choosing the right Amazon category is critical, as you want a category where you have a reasonable chance of becoming a bestseller. I also learnt that getting early sales and reviews on Amazon enabled me to build momentum. I think it was that momentum which attracted the attention of Amazon's algorithms and promoted the book. For Indie authors I think that getting initial momentum is important. My understanding is that long pre-sales periods can harm this momentum as Amazon tracks the number of sales each day. I would therefore recommend a short pre-sales period, if any. For the first month you need to generate a consistent level of sales. I did some Amazon advertising during the first few months which I think helped to build the momentum. Amazon later ran a Kindle promotion on my book where it was discounted for a few weeks to 99p and promoted to their readers. This drove a very high number of sales and in future I would also consider doing a discounted countdown sale myself to see if it drives up sales.
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