Putting a marketing plan together

Hi kids,

I've been quite busy latley developing a book marketing strategy and I thought I'd share it with you. My journey started out last winter by reading The Well Fed Self Published Writer which is a very good and comprehensive read but is more geared to non fiction writers, but still worth reading. I also read a book called Plug Your Book which is, again, highly recommended. It has copious information on all sorts of nooks and crannies in the internet to plug your book. Then I had the pleasure of meeting Victorine Lieske and Marva Dasef who were kind enough and generous enough to offer very valuable suggestions. Ultimately though, I felt like I was eating an elephant. There was just too much information to digest. However, it seems that all sources say that a website (or at least a blog) is essential to a marketing platform. But websites are a bit like door mats, just because you throw one down doesn't mean you will have company for dinner.

Thankfully, the fates have smiled on me again and I discovered a website called Site Build It which I mentioned in my last post. The problem with domain hosting companies is that they will sell you a domain and may even show you how to build a website but they don't really do much more. Site Build It is a very user friendly service which walks you through the process of not only building a website but of generating traffic to go there. It is not a quick process but it is a proven process and I am currently in the process of determining what kind of site would be best suited to support the sale of my book. Once I have the site up and running, and my brother is done with the cover art I plan to take a page out of Victorine's playbook and publish on Kindle. When last we talked she had sold 50,000 copies. Way to go Victorine! I plan to sell it at the .99 price point which is the same price point that Victorine finally settled on after some trial and error. Then I plan to make myself a regular presence on the kindleboards which, you guessed it, is just what Victorine did.

I will keep you appraised of my progress and would love to hear any comments from anyone else who is going the road alone in Indie Publishing.

Ciao for now.