{"id":2372,"date":"2019-10-28T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T04:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2022-02-07T05:57:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T05:57:20","slug":"finding-what-works-and-doesnt-work-in-your-marketing-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/articles\/2019\/10\/28\/2372\/finding-what-works-and-doesnt-work-in-your-marketing-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding what works (and doesn’t work) in your marketing plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cultivating an active, long-term fan base for your work is key to becoming a successful independent publisher. However, building a substantial body of work is also critical, so you need to develop a balance between time spent growing and managing your fan base and writing time. The challenge is not identifying the things that waste our time (e.g. surfing the net) when we should be writing. We can all identify those\u2014even if we sometimes lack the willpower to stop.<\/p>\n

The challenge is identifying which, among a range of things you can do, benefit your career the most. Lucky for us, we can make this challenge easier if we apply a simple principle humans have understood for around 200 years\u2014the Pareto principle. The Pareto principle, or 80\/20 rule, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This is not some trendy business-speak\u2014we have had a solid understanding of the 80\/20 rule since the 19th century. It applies to human endeavours and many natural phenomena.<\/p>\n

Applied to indie publishing, the 80\/20 rule says that 80% of an author\u2019s success comes from 20% of their efforts. The corollary to this is you waste 80% of your efforts for little gain. It\u2019s quite likely you don\u2019t know right now what marketing activities do benefit you, so over the next two months, I\u2019m going to lead you through a couple of exercises that will first help you eliminate activities that are wasting your time, and then help you identify that 20% of efforts that will maximise your success.<\/p>\n

This month, we\u2019re going to start by conducting a marketing reset.<\/p>\n

Conduct a marketing reset<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want you to stop for a while and complete an exercise for me. Don\u2019t skip this because I bet once you have completed the exercise, you\u2019ll feel a million bucks. We\u2019re going to conduct a marketing reset.<\/p>\n

Chances are, you have tried several things to spread the word about your books and increase sales. Chances are also that most of them didn\u2019t work, or you aren\u2019t sure if they worked. This exercise eliminates everything that doesn\u2019t work for you, so you can concentrate on the things that do.<\/p>\n

Step 1<\/strong><\/p>\n