My friend and client Rod Santomassimo tells everyone who will listen that “knowing isn’t doing.” That’s even the title of one of his books. Bob Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer called it The Knowing-Doing Gap.
For authors, the problem isn’t that they don’t know they should spend time marketing their books on social media. It’s not even knowing what to do. Knowing isn’t doing.
You can hire someone to do the work for you, but most authors choose not to spend their money that way. Here are some ideas that have worked for me and my clients.
The Marketing Habit
Eat that frog. Ok, you hate marketing. Maybe you think it’s evil, manipulative, vulgar, or just plain hard. Get over it.
People do not simply wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “I think I’ll go buy a book by [your name here] today.” It doesn’t even matter how good your book is. No one will buy it if they haven’t heard about it. Marketing is how they hear about it.
You’ve already developed many habits in your life, some good and some bad. However you do it, establish a marketing habit.
Every Day
Some marketing tasks are small and easy. Comment on other people’s posts. Engage in conversations. Just fifteen minutes a day will do it.
You can schedule it when you block out your day. Or you can attach it to something else you already do. Spend a few minutes being present on social media after you check your email, for example.
Good Posts Take Time and a Process
Commenting will not be enough. You must post something for others to comment on. Establish a writing workflow for those posts.
Create a list of topics to write about or questions to answer. Expand it to an editorial calendar if you like. That way, you won’t need to flop around hopelessly trying to decide what to write.
Create a workflow with milestones for your posts. Determine when you need to decide on a topic, complete research, start writing, revise, and publish. Set up a way to keep the process in mind. Calendarize the steps, set reminders on your phone, or have a friend call you – whatever works for you.
You must market yourself and your book if you want to succeed. Commit to it. Establish a good marketing habit. Then implement it. Knowing isn’t doing.
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Thanks to David DeLong for asking the question that inspired the train of thought that resulted in this post.
