Author Pre-Pub Checklist

Before You Finish Writing the Book

Current Publishing Wisdom Says: Book promotion begins well before you finish writing your book. Don’t wait until your book is published. Get set so you’ll be ready to roll when your book is.

But you probably know that. The question is, what exactly can you do while you’re deep into the middle of a novel? When you’re not really ready to promote it? You’re not even sure how your book is going to end? What can you do now? What can wait ’til later? The answer:

Position Yourself as An Author – Here’s Your Checklist

This is what you can do now. Build your Web assets and your Web equity.

Set up the following; then nurture them along.

• Website: Get yours up, with a blog attached; make sure you can manage it and make changes to it yourself (has a CMS, Content Management System such as WordPress and is professionally optimized [SEO])
• Facebook personal page
• Facebook public (like) page, with feed onto your Website
• LinkedIn, with blogfeed in
• Twitter, with feeds to reduce workload
• Feeds in general: explore all the ways you want your status and comments to flow; look into your favorite options to help: Socialoomph, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite. And get those feeds going.
• Google Profile
• Organizations: Join appropriate ones, set up profiles, with links to your Website.
• Your target readership: Explore who will be reading, who will be buying, your book. This information determines much of what you’ll be doing to promote your book.
• Amazon: Set up account, review books, give out stars as you see fit.
• Goodreads: Set up a profile, explore. This may work for you. (Also, explore genre-specific sites.)
• Register your blog in online blog directories.
• YouTube: Set up your account. Got a video already? Upload and embed on your site
• Flickr: Still viable if you are photo-rich, for SEO-building.
• Press Kit: Get started and fill in as you go. (Yes, this is old school stuff, but it’s still part of today’s promotional mix.)
• Visit blogs, comment and delve into building relations in all social media.
• Build a database for any possible e-mailings you may have.

With these assets and track record in place, you’ll be ready for the next phase of promoting your book: getting book reviews, virtual book tours, readings, media exposure, and – well, that’s another blog, another day. There’s more. And lots of it – you’ll have to trust me on this – is fun!

Every phase of your book’s life and of your work as a published writer brings in its own set of specific tools. They build, one on the other, until your Web presence is working for you. You’ll know when that day hits because that’s when new readers will discover you because they just ran across your book, or heard about it, or, well, they just can’t remember why, but they know your name.

Want this checklist in a pdf? Here’s a link.