Woohoo, we’ve reached the final post in a series of posts about building an awesome marketing plan to go in your novel’s proposal. Just to clarify, this plan is something you’re going to put together before your book is even contracted! Once a publisher has contracted your book, you’ll likely take this plan and expand it even further. But the goal for now is simply to wow the agents and editors you’re pitching to with your stellar marketing expertise.
In case you need to catch up on earlier posts first, you can check them out here:
Part 2: Media and Speaking Engagements
Part 4: Libraries and Launch Teams
Part 5: Cross-Promotional Opportunities and Events
Today, we’re going to tack on Printed Materials and Bonus Material, plus I’ve got a quick note about endorsements.
Printed Materials
Yep, when it’s time for your book to release, chances are your publisher will help you out with printed materials like bookmarks, postcards, promotional fliers or posters. Every publisher is different and what they’ll provide likely varies. BUT in this section your goal is to say, hey, whatever you provide, I’m going to a) supplement if possible and b) make sure I’ve got a good plan for distributing it.
So in my marketing plan, I made it clear that I would make in-person stops at local libraries, bookstores, coffee shops, basically any place I could think of that might be willing to display bookmarks or the like. It was as simple as adding two or three sentences to my marketing plan but it let my prospective publisher know I not only had ideas for printed materials, but I knew what I was going to do with them.
Bonus Material
Bonus material is anything extra you can think of related to your book that you can use to promote it. Things like: deleted scenes, fun character profiles, discussion questions, artwork, maybe even a short story or novella related to a side character…anything you can provide on your website or in an author newsletter that you plan to use to help promote the book. Extra points if you’ve already written or come up with this material! But if you haven’t, that’s no problem. As noted above, the goal at this point is to acknowledge things you want to and are willing to do to help market your book.
And a word about endorsements…
I’ve seen a variety of different novel proposal templates and styles. Some include potential endorsements in the marketing section of the proposal. Others keep them separate. Regardless, if you have authors who have already agreed to endorse or consider endorsing your book, you’ll want to include that somewhere in your proposal, whether in the marketing section or as its own section. As an aside, one thing I don’t suggest doing? Listing authors’ names without actually talking to them first. 🙂
So there we have it, all the different pieces of a stellar proposal marketing plan.
To emphasize the note I made above, this is the plan you’ll include in your novel’s proposal. When it comes time to prepare for your book’s release, you’ll likely take each section from this plan and expand on it in detail…coming up tasks and to-dos and even more ideas. But the goal right now is to let your prospective publisher know you’re willing to play a role in getting your book into the hands of readers.
Do you have any questions about your proposal’s marketing plan?