In my How-To Book for authors, I recommend using a weekly checklist with your Team of advisors to help you continuously market your own books,
This checklist is set out below. Feel free to share it with your co-authors and friends.
The references in brackets are to the book Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales, where each engagement action in your book promotion efforts is explained in detail.
I hope this helps you market yourself (as author) and your books! Check my Amazon author site for more information on the Small Steps book: https://www.amazon.com/author/glennashton
And check the bottom of this article for details on how to get your very own Word document with the checklist, and other valuable free gifts for authors!
Weekly Engagement Checklist:
Prepare your Weekly Engagement Checklist, and discuss it with your Team, and, later on, your Clan and Ambassadors. Revise it every time you and your Team decide on new or better engagement methods.
Every week, go through the Weekly Engagement Checklist and carry out the engagement tasks (small steps) in it.
Note: Not every task will be done in each weekly check; some tasks will be done every few weeks.
For starters, your Weekly Engagement Checklist will include the following tasks (references are to the Task number and paragraph numbers under each Task in this book):
1. Thank your Team members for their help (Task 1 para 1 or 1.1)
2. Set the Agenda for any Team meeting using Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales (1.5)
3. Test with your Team the promotion messages to be sent out this week (1.6)
4. Consider revising or adding to your Editorial Content Plan (1.7)
5. Make any changes to the composition of your Team that are needed (1.8)
6. Check whether any Brand Touches to be made this week are consistent with your Author Brand (2.3)
7. Consider using free samples and free ebooks for your Target Readers (3.4)
8. Consider changing the features of Rebecca Random (3.10)
9. Ask your Target Readers for help in fleshing out your Target Reader Personas (3.12, 3.14, 3.23(r))
10. Check this week’s messages against your family of Personas (3.17)
11. Do some role-playing with your Team and your Target Reader Personas (3.18)
12. Talk to your Target Reader Personas (3.19)
13. Consider a Survey of your Target Readers to find your Lost Tribes (3.21)
14. Consider Joint Surveys of readers along with Indie Community members (3.22)
15. Check for Affinity Groups as potential Clan members (3.23(w), 3.24, 3.25)
16. Ask your readers to become Clan members (3.29)
17. Ask Team to think of relatives and friends who could become guinea pig Clan members to kick start the Clan (4.11)
18. Recognize any person who comments or interacts with your Facebook page, blog posts or other messages; and thank them (4.12)
19. Check this week’s messages to make sure they meet the three primary motives of social media players (4.13)
20. Join conversations on Twitter, Facebook, forums (4.16)
21. Involve with the Indie Community (4.18(c))
22. Decide how to work with others to design and award Indie Recognition Awards (4.19)
23. Check for new types of rewards to be used to recognize your readers (4.18(e))
24. Follow people on Twitter and explain why (4.18(f)
25. Ask people on Follow Friday to follow those new followers of yours (4.18(g))
26. Include a Quote Gift on your blog post this week (4.18(i))
27. Prepare your Author at Work Peeks for rewards (4.18(j))
28. Ask your Target Readers for input into your next book (4.18(k))
29. Test your Guinea Pigs on items they have agreed to be involved in (4.18(m), 4.18(n))
30. Prepare your Newsletter (4.18(p))
31. Issue your Newsletter (4.18(p))
32. Prepare Checklists are Rewards for your Target Reader Personas (4.18(q))
33. Prepare Interviews with Clan members (4.18(s))
34. Brainstorm with your Team for more WOW in your messages and rewards (4.18(s))
35. Prepare Goodies for the diplomatic pouches of your Ambassadors (4.23)
36. Ask 5 Clan members personally to spread Ripples (4.26)
37. Track social network of potential high-intensity Ripplers using social metrics (4.27)
38. Consider writing new lessons for your Indie Ambassador 101 lesson series (4.28)
39. Cooperate with other Indies in setting up joint Indie Ambassador 101 lessons
40. Roll out new lessons in your Indie Ambassador 101 series (4.28)
41. Check the rewards set out in 4.29 to reward Influencers to see which ones need tending this week (4.29)
42. Ask your Target Readers for UGC (User Generated Content) you can use (4.30)
43. Jot down new ideas in My Bloggy Book (5)
44. Discuss with your Team whether you are meeting your Author Blog goals (5.5)
45. Ask your Target Readers to give you ideas for better headlines for a future blog post (5.12)
46. Add some Headlines that Hook to My Bloggy Book (5.12)
47. Acknowledge the contribution of others to your Blog comments (5.14, 5.16)
48. Follow some commentators on your author blog (5.15)
49. Study the comments on the blogs of some of yo
