Keeping tabs on Marketing

  Many years ago I learned the only way to keep tabs on my marketing efforts (marketing = money out of my pocket) would be a nice little spreadsheet.  I was putting forth many different marketing adventures like setting up book signings, talking with small book stores on carrying my book, different advertisement options, etc… into a word document but trying to find what I was doing became confusing.  I tried using a calendar (I would enter events in a day on where or what I should be doing) but some events last 5 minutes to perform so this became bloated.  These things will easily go out of control if you have no one watching it (especially if you cannot afford a PR person; I wish but again it is all about the Benjamin’s!) especially if it is costing you out of pocket!

  I call my spreadsheet Marketing Objectives (give it an official business name and you will take it a little more serious) and it is forever green a.k.a growing; not green because of the money.  Here I have tabs such as Stores, Book Communities, Events, Internet Offerings, Query, Social Networking and Things to Purchase. Each one I believe is self explanatory.  ‘Stores’ contains all of the local book stores (NOT Borders or B&N) in which I have approached, should approach and have said no, get off my lawn.  This is an important tab and is towards the front of my tab listings since creating a local buzz about your book is more important than getting one anywhere else.  Why?  Because you can get in your car and be there within an hour if they call and say interested in doing a book signing today?  Okay, so this has not yet happened but I am prepared.

  Another one is ‘Query’.  I keep a running tab on every Agent I query to make sure I do not send to them twice in a year.  I also have a list of those I need to send too.  I keep the date I sent the query and if an answer has been returned.  This also helps with follow ups.  The ‘Social Networking’ tab is crazy because it seems like a new social online gathering is created everyday and so I keep this one simple.  If you see it showing up on every blog, wordpress and websites or even on FaceBook it is a good idea to market there.  Stay within the trend and you will gather more followers.

  I live in this spreadsheet just as much as I live in my book.  I keep a small notepad with me at all times just in case a new idea hits me on how to move me along.  As a writer, I have so many different writing adventures in the air so keeping the marketing aspects in a controlled fashion takes one less worry away.