It's almost that glorious time of the year between Christmas and January first when everyone leaves you alone. Well... if you're lucky. It's a great time to slow down and think, organize, plan... How do you plan to use it? Writing? NOT writing? Planning your marketing calendar for 2022?
Here are some ideas...
BOOKS
- Evaluate your covers. Are they hurting your sales? Do they look like the covers of best-selling books in your genre? (they should) Is your genre clear?
- Have you noticed book reviews complaining about your editing? Find an editor and try again. Nothing will hurt your reviews like books riddled with typos!
- Check all your book descriptions. Are they compelling? Do they contain relevant keywords?
- Speaking of keywords, are you using the right ones on Amazon for your book listing?
- Make sure the paperback and ebook versions of your book have the same information/cover
PROMOTION & MARKETING
- Plan a year of promos for the year - you can't book things a year out on all sites (you can on AuthorsXP, FYI), but you can put it on your calendar to book them as they approach!
- Plan your marketing budget
- Make a list of what you know works or doesn't work
- Are there other authors with books like yours with whom you could cross-promote?
- Are you regularly submitting to Bookbub? Only persistence will win with that one!
- Would partitioning out 15-30 minutes a day to put towards marketing help keep weeks from going by without making any progress?
- Have you researched the bestselling books in your genre lately to see why they're doing so well?
- Think about your BRAND. Do you have one? Remember, ultimately, you're selling YOU, not one individual book!
- Think about your readers. Who are they? What do they want? How do you reach them?
- Do you need help? Find it, get it, and do things right!
- Plan on trying something new!
WEBSITES
- Do you have a clean, professional website that actually makes it easy for people to buy your books?
- Check your website for bad links on a broken link checking site like https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/
- Do you have an author's mailing list set up so you can collect emails on your website? Are you actively trying to build your audience?
PERSONAL LIFE
- Think about where you want to be this time next year in your writing career and plan to make it happen
- Write down the books you hope to finish and by what month to give yourself a deadline
- Start making yourself aware of what eats your time. Is there a better way to do things?
- Does the spot where you write make you happy and comfortable?
