A Stranger's Perspective

Being organized isn’t just a nice idea when it comes to a book marketing project. Given how many touchpoints there are, and the extended period of time it takes to complete them, it’s essential. This is especially true if you’re trying to balance book marketing with writing and other more compelling creative tasks.

The best way to strike that balance is to piece out the hours of your week, pivoting back and forth between the two. The only practical way to accomplish this is to write up some kind of marketing plan before you tackle anything else. 

Getting to know your own work from a stranger's perspective can be one of the most nerve-wracking exercises a writer can take on. Fear not. It’s something you’ll get used to doing, and you will discover that, ultimately, it’s both emotionally rewarding and really helpful in setting up your marketing plan and for your writing. It’s a two-for-one!  Positioning is a detailed description used to make creative and other decisions about going to market.

As you consider presenting your book to others, we strongly suggest you write down a list of words that you can use later. A lot of times this might be a one-liner or “elevator pitch” version. No creative professionals that I know especially like reducing their hard work down to a simple slogan, but as a creative person, sometimes you have to do things you’d rather not. This said, it can be a surprisingly fun process. It’s really just a matter of keeping your perspective in mind.

There are at least two ways to look at categories.  BISAC (Book Industry Standards And Communications) categories support standardization. You can read more about BISAC on their website, or drill down through their taxonomy yourself. Amazon categories is the other way and is often changing. 

Outlets like Amazon (and even search engines like Google) are actually quite good at detecting search intent and matching readers to books they’ll be interested in. A great way to help this along is to select a list of several genres for your book. Don’t be afraid to mix and match between seemingly disparate categories. These days it’s not unusual to see hybrids like Cowboy/Sci-Fi, Urban Romance, or even the Cashier Memoir . New entrants appear all the time, like Quit-Lit and Cli-Fi. Don’t feel bound to categories of genres your parents or grandparents will understand. 

Another powerful part of positioning your book is identifying books like yours already in the market. We call these comparable titles. Some of you are rolling your eyes, no doubt. The thought of comparing your unique and brilliant voice to others isn’t what you signed up for when you decided to put your mark on the world with your book release. But the truth is, that’s exactly what professional book editors and traditional publishers have been doing for hundreds of years. There’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s the only rational way to prioritize all the decisions you’ll have to make throughout your marketing plan.

This actually may be really easy for you. You’ve likely already thought about it, even before you began writing your book. Maybe you have literary or intellectual heroes that inspire you. Make note of who they are in your positioning document. But you’ll need to go further than that.

Browse through the best-sellers in or near your categories, and note which books are doing well. You can then Google each one and track what they’re doing in their marketing plans. Are they appearing in specific blogs or podcasts you didn’t know about? Doing this carefully and diligently puts you well on your way when the time comes to reach out during promotion. It can even help when doing cover design, social cards, or creating other assets.

---

And now a fiction break:

A Fish Tale

Harry died. Harry was my daughter Briana’s first pet, a goldfish. Pets are supposed to be good for children.  They teach them about empathy and the cycles of life, which for Harry was very short. Harry lived with us for just eight days. Briana had wanted a pet and, unfortunately, our entire family is plagued with pet allergies. Although truthfully I am a bit squeamish about fish, we figured the allergy factor was very low so Grandma bought Harry for Briana for her fifth birthday. Then Grandma promptly left town. 

When I was pregnant with Briana, even the word fish made me queasy. I would flee from supermarkets if I got too close to the seafood counter.   Waves of nausea were ichthyological revenge. I never recovered. I had to brace myself for the pre-school trip to the aquarium. And I couldn’t eat or cook fish with any real enjoyment anymore.

I might be able to politely choke down a piece of salmon at a luncheon, or swallow sand dabs if they were swimming in lemon and butter, but fish, live or dead, were a problem for me. So, when we got Harry I told myself Briana would take care of him. Harry was her pet and I would still be fish free in my own mind.  

Yesterday, Harry began swimming strangely. I know I said I wasn’t going to pay attention but it’s hard to ignore your own child’s pleas to come look. Harry was swimming on his side and, occasionally, upside-down. He looked kind of jaunty, like he was playing with us. Then we noticed his belly was distended. Briana came to the happy conclusion that he was a she and with child, or rather, children. When I was about to give birth I felt like swimming sideways so why shouldn’t Harry. Harry was fine. Fine. Better than fine. Harry was going to have little Harrys. I was beginning to have feelings for Harry. If anything could make an animal lovable, this was it.

My newfound love for Harry lasted until Briana’s bedtime. When we said goodnight to Harry I noticed he wasn’t fine at all. He looked sick. I don’t know exactly how he conveyed illness but I think it was something in his eyes. It dawned on me that fish lay eggs. Fish make nests. Harry was not pregnant.  When Braina was asleep I ran to my computer and Googled “sideways swimming goldfish.” After some weeding through, I was able to eliminate Ick, Fin Rot, and Dropsy as Harry’s disease. Then I found it. Harry had Swim Bladder Disorder.  I’m no vet but this is my understanding — goldfish use their bladder to swim straight. Farm-born fish are usually fed a vegetarian diet. Then they go to a pet store and are bought by people like us. We feed them dry (and in my opinion weird) food, which they consume very quickly because they are the only ones in a small tank with nothing to do. The dry food swells up in their intestines and causes Swim Bladder disease, which results in sideways swimming. The cure seemed to be fasting for three days then giving the fish a diet of one or two mashed-up peas for the rest of its life. Sometimes goldfish recover from the disease and still swim upside down or sideways. I guess they discover they like it.

I didn’t think Harry had three days in him. So, I took two peas from the freezer, defrosted them underwater, mashed them in my hands, and fed them to him. I woke up several times through the night to check on him. No improvement. I Googled “putting your fish to sleep.”  I found putting them in the freezer (a la peas) was the most human way. I didn’t need to do it. Harry was dead by morning. 

 Briana took it all very well. She planned a nice informal ceremony over the toilet to start when she returned from preschool. In the meantime, I took the fish to the pet store to confirm my diagnosis. The pet store guy would neither confirm nor deny my conclusion of Swim Bladder Disorder. He just poked Harry a few times, declared him dead, and gave me a coupon for a new fish. 

As we gathered around the white porcelain toilet bowl, I felt torn. The funeral was lovely, with heartfelt words from Briana. But as she spoke about sending Harry off to the ocean, my heart ached. Did my impatience contribute to Harry’s death? Should I have waited the three days? But then she flushed him away and I couldn't help but feel a tinge of guilt. 

Rest in peace, dear fish friend, wherever you may be now.

Author’s note: Liz Dubelman writes both the fiction and marketing tips