Usually this bi-weekly One Thing Marketing “column” is meant to give small, practical tips for marketing you and your writing. But I’ve kept having the same niggling marketing thoughts in the back of my head for a couple weeks now and I decided I’d finally let them out. Next time we’ll go back to the usual content as I begin a series on the components of a marketing plan. But for today, like I said, a little something different…

So, there’s something I’m realizing more and more when it comes to marketing: If you talk about it long enough, some wrong mentality can creep in pretty easily. And that wrong mentality basically boils down to thinking we control our book sales. And it usually brings along with it a pesky dose of stress about how the book is doing and worry that we aren’t doing enough marketing work on our end.

Which is kind of funny, really, because you’ll always hear the stat that 80% of book sales still happen due to word of mouth. So unless we’re actually consistently putting words in other people’s mouths (and then hey, while we’re at it, pulling out their wallets and guiding them through the process of buying our books), we simply can’t control what happens on the buyer’s end.

And it’s these thoughts that have had me pondering lately how, really, the most important piece of any marketing plan isn’t social media wizadry or that awesome idea no one else has thought up or the best-looking newsletter on the block or a slew of book-signings. No. It’s this:

It’s prayer. It’s trusting God with your book’s future. It’s a decision to take off the weight of thinking you control your book sales and instead choosing to let go.

Because as far as marketing goes, there comes a point where you’ve done all you can do.

You’ve created a marketing plan. You’ve worked the plan.

You’ve walked the fine line between showing your publisher you’re willing to work hard to get your book into the hands of readers while not overly bombarding your target audience with promos.

You’ve done the usual marketing work—newsletters, social media, press releases, blog tours, Q&As, book-signings—AND you’ve tried your hand at some out-of-box, creative ideas.

You’ve invested time.

You’ve invested money.

You’ve possibly given up things like sleep and exercise and oh, you know, a social life.

You’ve done the work!

In other words, you’ve done the part you CAN control.

As for what you CAN’T control, well, there’s just no point in going there mentally. Here’s the thing I hugely believe:

If God has put a story in you and if he’s given you an outlet to tell it—either through traditional publishing or self-publishing–then he’s also going to be faithful to get it into the hands of the people it’s supposed to.

We either believe that or we don’t.

And if we really believe it, then we can stop obsessing over numbers or, as is usually my biggest hurdle, constantly feeling like I should’ve done more. We can let go and choose not to be weighed down.

Yeah, we need to do the hard work. We owe it to ourselves and our stories (and if traditionally published, then to the publisher who is helping make our book possible) to do our part.

But all the “doing my part” in the world is never going to be as awesome or as effective as when God does HIS part.

 *****

So there you go…a different sort of marketing post today. I hope it was encouraging. Back to the usual fare next time. 🙂