Dual-Use of Meta Content Pt 6: The Marketing Plan

/ P. H. Solomon

Good morning everyone, PH here with you today sharing a a few more tips and ideas you can use in your writing career. This year I’ve been spending a lot of time on world building and marketing as I work toward the release new books. Just below, you’ll find a list of related posts from earlier in the year to discuss some of topics that I referring to. Please check those out if you need more specific information, because you shouldn’t be wondering what comes next when your book is ready for publication.

ListDual Use of Fiction Meta-Content Part 1

Dual Use of Fiction Meta-Content Part 2

Dual Use of Meta-content Part 3: Reader Guides

Dual Use of Fiction Meta-Content Part 4: Newsletters

Dual-Use of Meta-Content Part 5: World Building

Today, I want to talk about bringing everything together between the book and the rest of your story, the part unseen. As a summary, dual-use and meta-content are about creating marketing content as you develop book. This notion gives you the chance to create your marketing content well ahead of time so that you’re not struggling for content to share for your book launch. You’ll likely create more than enough information to share in various places, but that’s good to have because you may find that your launch is bigger and more extensive than you anticipate.

How do you make it all work together? At some point you’ll have the book ready to go and all of your content for marketing lying around waiting for you to launch the book. One way I suggest that you approach this is by having a list of your marketing material in a simple catalog that’s categorized, so you know what you can draw from without thinking too much. That list of material will empower you almost as much as possessing all the content since you know what type and number of categories you have.

The rest is developing your marketing plan in relationship to your content. Most of us already have an idea where we want to make appearances on blogs. You should already be planning the progression of your newsletters as well. You can begin sharing specific information in your private groups earlier than other venues.

Of course, your marketing plan may be much wider than appearances and your newsletter, including what promotion services you may want to use. With these, you will find it much easier to schedule what you need without worrying what to provide for your marketing. There’s less struggle and less anxiety about making those schedules, knowing you already have that marketing material. If you’re scheduling a paid blog tour, you can easily tailor all the appearances in the tour according to your content, especially if there’s some sort of progression that you want to convey to readers. Likewise, if your schedule is running with a lot of advanced communication, you will have plenty of content to schedule and share in your newsletter, private groups, etc.

The main idea here is:

  • You have plenty of content ready to use.
  • You marketing content is organized.
  • You have a marketing plan ready to plug in your material.

There are a number of ways that you and approach your marketing plan, and our own Craig Boyack has shared his checklist for self-publishing. There are also a number of different resources on the web which provide a good template for an extensive marketing plan, some that even begin months in advance of your launch. This is where an extensive catalog of marketing content can help you think a little bit bigger than you might otherwise as well as considering how long you want to launch your book. Personally, I like to stretch my launches over a long time so that there’s a good trickle of information going out to the public which can create fairly constant for a solid sales history.

However you want to approach your marketing plan, the power of dual use of your meta-content provides you flexibility and insight into developing your marketing plan to suit your needs. If you started using the concept of dual use meta-content in developing your book, how has it affected your planning? What other ideas have you come up with because you have this concept?

Thanks for stopping by Story Empire today and reading this post. If you found this information helpful please share it on social media and re-blog it so others can read it too. Please leave your answers and thoughts in the comments section and I’ll reply as soon as I am able.

P.H. Solomon

24 thoughts on “Dual-Use of Meta Content Pt 6: The Marketing Plan”

  4. Reblogged this on The Write Stuff and commented:

    Check out Story Empire’s post of the day: P. H. Solomon is back with more on Dual Uses of Meta Content. Today, he’s focused on using it to help you market your finished book, and I’m definitely taking notes on this one. I’m sure you’ll enjoy Part 6 of this series, and will want to share it far and wide, so others can learn some new tricks, too. Thanks, and thanks to P. H. for such an informative and helpful post! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. I think most authors dread the marketing part of what we do, but it’s a necessary evil. I also think with each book publication we’re able to gauge better what works and what doesn’t work, or doesn’t work as well. It’s always good to have a marketing plan in place prior to launch. My publisher always submitted a plan to me. Now, as an indie author, I need to work on developing my own!

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    • I need to work on those details myself. I have definite ideas on my approach. I think making that schematic now helps me develop the book and marketing content together. I just need time to put into the overall project.

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  6. Am saving all these posts on Meta Content, P. H., in order to study them in more detail, especially this section on using the gathered materials for marketing. Like everyone else, I think most marketing is a pain in the patoot. I say most, because I do a lot of local events and have built a nice following in this area, and I dearly LOVE doing them. Talking to readers face to face is the very best part of marketing, because it’s just, plain fun! The rest? Not so much.

    I know I have to get better at other aspects of the game, though, and this series has given me a lot to work with. Thanks!!

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      • I can see that, but one method is a lot more fun for me than the other. I get to talk to people about Florida wildlife, chat before and after the program about my books, and then sign said books for folks. And we laugh throughout most of the event. A LOT. But I’ll try to apply those principles to the other marketing chores. (And if my husband wants to know what I’m guffawing at in here, I’ll give him your contact info! 😀 😀 😀 )

        Seriously, you’ve discussed some valuable things and I do plan to refer to your posts going ahead. Thanks.

        Liked by 1 person

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