Pointers to publishing | Marketing in the holidays

With just 20 days to go before the big day of Christmas, what have you been doing to take advantage of holiday promotions? You may be asking, "What can be done in twenty days?" You may be surprised! Here is a twenty-day marketing plan to get you blitzing for the holidays!

 

Day one

 

- Take digital pictures of your book as a stand-alone, as well as nicely decorated with a Christmas theme. You can use poinsettias, ribbons, candles, etc. Anything elegant and Christmas-y.

- Take digital pictures of you holding the book, reading in a comfortable chair, with a glass of wine, cup of tea, and in comfortable garments (setting is important). Depending on the type of book, create a setting that depicts that with you and the book included.

In separate shots, get persons who have read your book to also have a similar but somewhat different setting so that it doesn't look staged and ensure that you have their true testimonials either in written or video form.

When taking digital pictures and video, please use a high-resolution camera/phone. You don't want blurry or pixelated output.

- Decide on two to three major social media platforms that you will use. I would suggest LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Create hashtags for the promotions you will be doing. The key is to keep it simple, easy to remember, and fun!

- Create an Amazon Author Central Page. This is important as this is where all your books, or book, you wish to promote over the next twenty days will be centrally focused, and all promos will be pointing in that direction, thereby leading to sales of your book

 

Day 2 to 6

 

- Write two to three blogs per day and schedule them to be posted for every day or every other day thereby, including the writing days. In other words, spread them over the 20-day period. Keep the word count to 150-300 words and ensure that you use the pictures taken as associated images! Use Hubspot's blog generator to come up with ideas for blogs.

- Create shorter posts as teasers and use the links from the post to 'read more' and lead to where your book is published for example, on Amazon or our website, or Authorcentral.

- Create tweets from the blog posts to be scheduled out everyday at least three times per day.

- You will need a platform like hootsuite or tweetdeck or another of your choice to help you manage and schedule the posts and tweets, plus post to the social networks that you agreed on in day one using the hashtags as well as the pictures taken.

- Ensure that you interact with your audience during the 20-day blitz. If you don't, you will lose the momentum and possible sale

 

A SIMPLE PLAN

 

 

Day 7 to 15

 

- Take advantage of Amazon's freebies to authors to do promotions at no cost. Notice that so far, there is no cost to you to do this except time and maybe a larger SD card for photos and video. So check out what Amazon offers for authors and do all of them, including buying the printed version and getting the e-book at half price, discounts using a code, and much more.

Reading and making sure you set this up may take you some time. However, if you get this activity done in a shorter time, use the remaining time to create more content to push out to your audience via the social media management platforms and your website

- Use this time to also create giveaways and contests for your audience. A platform such as Rafflecopter is really cool to work with, and there's a free plan, so take advantage of it.

 

Day 10 to 20

 

- This may be the only time you really spend some money, and it wouldn't be a lot. I would say around US$30.00 for an ad campaign with Linkedin preferably. I would hold back on doing ads with Facebook. It's more social and for being viral, but LinkedIn has professional communities that you want to target and to increase your book's visibility.

- Create more videos at this time and post on YouTube and make sure that you put in a text description with a link back to your book, authorcentral, giveaway, contest, and post. Facebook offers Facebook live video. I say, go for it! This is live interaction with your audience and you can share the link and giveaways or you can combine a giveaway with Facebook live. Play around with the idea to make it fun. It's Christmas after all! Make it a party!

Now, some of you reading this may think it's too much work, while others may go for it. What do you have to lose? Whip yourself into action for the next 20-days, starting today. You may get at least one book sold, and many eyes would definitely have seen and /or heard about you and your book. I know you will see results. Just be consistent, believe, have faith in your work, and have fun with it. The other thing is that this outline of a simple marketing plan for 20-days may seem linear, but many activities are happening at the same time, so there is some juggling involved, but take your vitamins, have a drink of your favourite beverage, and tell yourself that you can do this!

I would be excited to hear the results you get from applying this.

Feel free to email me and/or invite me to get involved in the blitz. Consider it my way of giving back to you, my readers, both new and those who have remained loyal over the years.

Wishing you well!

- Corine La Font is a Speaker, Author, Coach and Self Publishing Consultant. She is also an Award Winning Publishing Resource in the 2013 Small Business Book Awards. Get a copy of her book at http://amzn.to/TFHQka, Subscribe to her Magazine at http://bit.ly/1IDj7pQ tune in to her radio programs at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/helpdeskja and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/youtripping Check out her website at http://www.helpdeskja.com She can be reached at corinelaf@gmail.com