A Note to Readers
These are the book notes I took while studying “Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book (2nd Edition)” by Tim Grahl and listening to his audiobook. Tim’s book is the best book on book marketing I’ve ever read, and highly encourage you to purchase it and the audiobook, especially if you enjoy of my book notes!
In most cases, I have paraphrased and included my own personal thoughts I recorded while studying the material, and aimed to properly mark all direct quotations, but writers please consider that these are “notes” not a research paper. My goal is to share what I’ve learned and apply the skills, and not to write a scholarly article. So if something doesn’t make sense, leave me a comment, or better yet grab a copy Tim’s book! You won’t regret it. And if you want to keep receiving great content like this signup for my newsletter and as a bonus you’ll receive my Scrivener Starter Novel Template for free!
Chapter 1: What is Marketing? — Changing our Marketing Mindset
What is the goal of this chapter?
Tim’s goal in this chapter is to redefine how writers think about marketing and ultimately change our mindset from a negative view to a positive view as we learn a better definition of marketing.
Core Ideas
I identified 7 cores ideas and a question in the first chapter of Tim’s book. I think we often undervalue the importance of mindset when we set out to do something. Our thoughts turn into our actions, and if we have the wrong mindset we can find ourselves rapidly going into the wrong direction.
- Most writers hate the idea of marketing.
- Think sleazy car saleman
- Marketing wasn’t part of the “writing” dream.
- Think web design tweaking
- Managing Social Media
- Running and launching Book Marketing Campaigns
- PERSONAL NOTE: I expected the publisher to handle all the marketing.
- Marketing is not the reason why we started writing books.
- In fact, it was probably the last thing on most of our minds.
- Marketing is a necessary part of the author journey “if” we want to have a successful at writing and publishing books.
- In other words — if we want to be have a profitable career as a writer.
- Personal Notes: this doesn’t describe all writers. Not all of us are in it to make money, but you want still want to reach people regardless and marketing is still necessary if you want your book to reach your readers.
- Traditional Publishing is getting harder and harder to break into.
- And even if you do land a contract you’ll likely still get asked about your author platform.
- If you indie/self-publish your book, then obviously the marketing falls entirely on you—the writer.
- Many of us often pursue self-publishing out of a fear of rejection, but it clears to me that marketing and having an author platform are crucial to success in the writing industry.
"My definition of marketing is this:
The act of building long-lasting connections with people and then A focus on being relentlessly helpful and adding value to their lives."
Question:
How do I succeed in marketing without losing my soul and writing time?
The first step is is that I must change how I view marketing. I have to stop thinking of a sleazy car salesman trying to trick me into buying something I don’t want. Marketing is not about tricking people.
Instead, I need to start imagining myself as a relentlessly helpful expert in my field who is aiming to add exceptional value to my customers’ lives!
Tim’s definition of Marketing is two fold:
- The act of building long-lasting connections with people, and then
- A focus on being relentlessly helpful and adding value to their lives.
And Tim promises that if writers focus on living that definition of marketing consistently over a long enough timeline you will find success. My job is to make sure that every strategy, tactic, and idea falls under this new definition of marketing. If all goes well, I’ll know I’m succeeding when I start building a base of superfans.
Takeaway
I need to stop thinking of marketing as begging or coercing people into buying my novel. Instead to focus on making long, lasting connections by by being relentlessly, helpful and adding more value to lives of my fans.
Tasks
- Create a Scrivener Project to manage my platform so I can be more helpful and create content that adds value to the lives of my fans.
Results
I have created a preliminary “author platform” project in Scrivener. It’s still in the early stages of development, but I imagine with time it will become a very powerful tool in mantaining and managing my author platform.
Final Thoughts
The fun doesn’t stop here. Where possible, I will be implementing and posting the results of the strategies in future posts. If you want to continue to receive great content that’s going to help you take your author journey to the next level make sure you signup for my newsletter and get yourself a free copy of the Scrivener Starter Novel Template!
Sources
Grahl, Tim. Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book (2nd Edition). Story Grid Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition. Grahl, Tim.
