A book marketing plan that fits on one page.
A book marketing plan does not need forty slides. It needs seven answers, written on one page, that you look at every week. This lesson gives you the template, a filled-in example and the budget math.
What you will do after this lesson
- Fill in a seven-box, one-page book marketing plan.
- Set a budget in copies, hours and dollars.
- Put real dates on the plan with the Launch Plan Builder.
Why one page
Long marketing plans tend to list every tactic anyone has ever tried. Then launch week arrives, the author has a business to run, and the plan sits in a folder. A one-page plan works because it forces choices. You cannot fit twelve channels on one page, so you pick the three that reach your reader.
The plan builds on Lesson 1. If you have not written down your one reader, your book's main job and your North Star sentence, do that first. Every box below depends on them.
The seven boxes
| Box | What to write | Test |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Goal | The book's main job and your champagne moment | Could you tell when it has happened? |
| 2. Reader | Two sentences: who they are and the question they keep asking | Could you name five real people who fit? |
| 3. Where they pay attention | The events, newsletters, podcasts, groups and people your reader already trusts | Did readers tell you this, or did you guess? |
| 4. Three channels | The three places you will show up, chosen from box 3 | Can you keep all three going for a year? |
| 5. Milestones | Dated steps from now to three months after launch | Does each one have a date and an owner? |
| 6. Budget | Copies to give away, hours per week, dollars | Is the hours number honest? |
| 7. Numbers to watch | Two to four counts that match the goal | Would a change in the number change what you do? |
Box 3 is where most plans go wrong. Authors list the places they already use (Instagram, say) rather than the places their reader goes. Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride and Human Pride, put it this way: "I don't sell books on Instagram. I sell books on LinkedIn." His readers are retail workers and leaders, and that is where they talk about work (Ron Thurston's story).
A filled-in example
Say you are a supply chain consultant with a two-person firm. Your book teaches mid-size distributors how to cut stockouts. Launch is nine months away. You can give the book four hours a week.
| 1. Goal | Win consulting clients. Champagne moment: a distributor calls because a colleague handed them the book. |
| 2. Reader | Operations directors at distributors with $20M to $200M in revenue. They keep asking, "Why do we run out of the items that matter most?" |
| 3. Where they pay attention | Two industry associations and their annual shows, one trade newsletter, three supply chain podcasts, LinkedIn, and the 60 operations leaders already in your contacts. |
| 4. Three channels | (a) Mailed copies to prospects and past clients. (b) A podcast tour of 8 to 10 industry shows. (c) One LinkedIn post a week drawn from a chapter. |
| 5. Milestones | Month 9: settle Amazon description, categories and keywords. Month 6: invite 40 early readers; start pitching podcasts. Month 3: send advance copies; book the association talk. Launch week: email your list, one launch event, mail the first 50 copies. Months 1 to 3 after: 25 copies a month to prospects, follow up on every one. |
| 6. Budget | 200 copies in the first year. 4 hours a week. Printing and shipping costs from your publisher's author copy price. |
| 7. Numbers to watch | Copies placed with named prospects. Meetings where the prospect read the book. Podcast interviews aired. New clients who mention the book. |
Notice what is missing: paid ads, a sales-rank target, a TikTok account. None of them reach an operations director at a distributor.
Budget in copies and hours
For a book whose job is clients or talks, the biggest marketing cost is usually copies you give away, and the scarcest resource is your time. Budget both before you budget anything else.
The copy budget
Michael Erath, a business coach and the author of Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations, mails 75 to 100 copies a month to targeted prospects. He puts his all-in cost at around $16 a book, sent by FedEx ground in a branded package, and treats it as customer acquisition math: if one book in fifty turns into a client, the cost works out (Michael Erath's story).
Run the same math on your own numbers.
Say each mailed copy costs you $16 all in, as it does for Erath. Fifty copies cost $800. If your average client is worth $25,000 and one of those fifty becomes a client, the copies paid for themselves many times over. If your average client is worth $500, the same plan does not work, and you should give copies only to people already in a sales conversation.
The rule: copies per client won times cost per copy should be well below what a client is worth to you.
The hours budget
Write down an honest number of hours a week. Then cut your channels to fit it. Two hours a week will cover a weekly post and a steady trickle of mailed copies. It will not also cover a podcast tour. The Launch Plan Builder asks for this number and spaces the tasks to match.
The dollar budget
Dollars come last. Common line items are author copies and postage, a launch event, printed cards, and sometimes help with podcast booking. For a book whose job is clients, money spent on putting books in the right hands usually goes further than money spent on ads aimed at strangers.
Put dates on it
A plan without dates is a wish list. Start from launch day and count backward. The rough shape:
- 12 to 9 months out: reader and goal settled, plan written, list of early readers started.
- 9 to 6 months out: Amazon description, categories and keywords drafted (Lesson 3); podcast shortlist built.
- 6 to 3 months out: early reader invitations out (Lesson 4); podcast pitches out (Lesson 5); launch event booked.
- Last 3 months: advance copies sent, interviews recorded, launch week planned day by day (Lesson 6).
- First year: copies to prospects and clients, talks (Lessons 7 and 8).
Build your dated plan with the Launch Plan Builder. Enter your launch date, the book's job and your weekly hours, and it lays out each week's tasks. You can print it or add it to your calendar.
Plans authors kept
These authors worked with Scribe Media. Their results are strong, not typical, and no one can promise them. What they share is a plan small enough to keep.
Ron Thurston built the launch of Human Pride around readers. He teased the book about six months out and emailed a list of a few thousand subscribers every two or three weeks. He asked his LinkedIn audience for pre-readers, chose about a hundred, and had about 20 reviews on launch day (story).
Eddy Arriola, author of It's All About Relationships, set specific, realistic goals and committed to working the book for a hundred weeks, a little something every week (story).
Rachel A. Williamson, author of 30 Days to Running Great Stores, took the reviewer list Scribe asked for and doubled it, and planned exactly who would get free copies rather than sending them at random. Those mailed copies produced a speaking booking and a consulting client (story).
Homework
Fill in all seven boxes
On one page. If a box takes more than three lines, cut it.
Check box 3 with real readers
Ask the five readers from Lesson 1 where they go for advice. Replace any guesses.
Do the copy math
Cost per copy, copies per client, value of a client. Decide how many copies you will give away in year one.
Build your dated plan
Open the Launch Plan Builder, enter your launch date and hours, and save the result.