Principle #1 – Get Prepared

Zig Ziglar says, “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” That’s so true. To be able to leverage and fully benefit from opportunities that come your way, you’ve got to be prepared.

Many successful authors agree that the time to begin marketing your book is long before its release date. As I began the publishing process for my book it occurred to me that launching my book prior to the theatrical release of 50 Shades of Grey would generate buzz because of the movie’s theme and the frenzy of women lining up to view porn. However, I wasn’t prepared to launch at that time and alas, that opportunity was missed. The good thing about life, it deals out multiple hands of fresh opportunities so if you missed your “big break” or “dream job/promotion”, more opportunities will come, but learn the lesson — get prepared.

Principle #2 – Just DO It.

Any time we face something that’s new and scary, the natural response is to retreat — and even worse, we sometimes stop mid-course, where we neither move forward or backwards.

One component of book marketing involves engaging with others via social media. While I’m comfortable with Facebook, Twitter represented a new and foreign landscape that I did not know how to maneuver. I did all the right things to get started. I researched best practices, read up on what to tweet and when to tweet it, and installed Tweet deck on my computer, but when it came time to start communicating with the world, my fingers simply wouldn’t type anything I felt was compelling enough to share. Who’s going to read my tweets? Who’s going to care? If those discouraging voices distract you too, or if you keep telling yourself “I’ll start next week,” push through the fear. Just Do It.

Principle #3 – Pace yourself

Anything worth having takes a little time. It’s so easy to look at others successes and think it happened overnight. In many instances that simply isn’t the case. KFC’s Colonel Sanders was living off of a $105 monthly social security check, sometimes sleeping in his car as he traveled selling KFC franchises – all at the age of 65! Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson pitched Chicken Soup for the Soul to 144 publishers before they got their first deal. Now KFC boasts over 18,000 outlets in 115 countries and territories and Chicken Soup went on to sell 167 million copies worldwide. What if they had given up simply because they lacked the stamina to see it through?

Marketing a book isn’t a sprint, but rather, a long distance run that requires great effort, discipline, and quite frankly, patience. So what have I learned to do? I take my time. For me, I purpose to do something to move the marketing of my book forward – daily. Whether it’s connecting with a potential new partner who might purchase large quantities of my book, speaking publicly to a group of stakeholders/influencers about my topic, or pitching the media, I patiently and diligently keep moving forward, step by step.

So settle in for the journey and enjoy it. Plan your work and work your plan. Just last week someone “favorited” one of my tweets. Finally, confirmation that I can have an impact, albeit a tiny one, in the Twittersphere. One step at a time.