promo planning

I know, promo is one of those words that makes most writers’ hearts sink. We might be creative (with words at least), but we are also often deep-thinking introverts with a horror of pushing ourselves forward into the limelight. Why else would we enjoy shutting ourselves away in seclusion to write?

But as we all know, in today’s modern world, promotional work is every bit as important as the book/ resource itself. Publishers usually want to know the size of your platform before they will consider the quality of your writing. And even if you are fortunate enough to land a publishing contract, you as writer still carry at least an equal if not greater share of doing the promotional leg-work.

When I self-published my first book I reluctantly engaged in promoting it. I had zero budget (apart from the £20 I invested in an experimental Facebook ad that I quickly realised attracted more trolls than actual customers). With my consecutive books I did what I could, and learned a bit more each time, but it was only for my new novel, due for November publication through Broad Place Publishing, that I was given a specific lead-time to consciously plan around.

Now, I know the old Hollywood adage that a person has to see an advert on average seven times before they will purchase. That has helped me get over my initial reticence at ‘bombarding’ my social media followers with promo.
I am also driven by the fact that I am working with a publishing house now, and as they have invested in my book I am more invested in generating sales for their sake – to reward their investment. Because if I am honest, when it was just me taking a risk, I didn’t feel so bothered about the reach of previous books, even though I did and still do believe that God was in the books and wanted to get them out. I’m sorry, Lord!
And most importantly, there is the book’s mission: it’s aimed at a mainstream audience, but contains a clear-but-gentle Gospel message tucked away inside, for all those who may never hear the Gospel any other way. So I REALLY want it to reach further than ever before, and I believe God does too. It’s time to start deploying lampstands and get that light lifted as high as possible. Thankfully, knowing that it’s God’s message that I’m promoting and not myself, makes it that bit less horrifying.
So for all those reasons, promo has never felt so important.

Now, the Broad Place model is to schedule a 6-month run up to publication, to encourage sponsorship and advance book-sales in the hope of covering publication costs. So with my desire for them to be rewarded for their investment, my desire to see the message in my book spread far further than I have attained before, and with my twin loves of spreadsheets and Canva, I decided to draw up a promo plan.

I do love a plan. Admittedly they are usually kept loose enough to be able to flex without causing trauma, but I find if I don’t plan, things don’t happen – or life gets in the way and the things I wanted to do happen later than ideally needed. And with a plan I hoped to be able to take advantage of quieter days for creating and scheduling posts for busier days (and yes it worked – yay!)

So I opened a spreadsheet, gave it 26 rows – one per week, counting down to Publication-day, and five columns – one for each ‘platform’ I typically engage with:
1/ Substack (my monthly ‘writing ministry’ newsletter and first/main point of contact for all my faithful cheerleaders)
2/ My website (this blog, not so much promo, but about more writerly things, specifically for other writers)
3/ & 4/ Facebook and Instagram (ideally these require different styles of promo, but sometimes I replicate very similar ads for both.) Social Media can be discouraging as it has limited reach or value nowadays, but I do still connect with a few people there, so am still present for the time being.
5/ Real Life(!) for all things not covered online – e.g. the in-person book launch.

Once I had drawn up the table, I had to fill it in. That was a challenge, but as I felt it was God’s idea, I asked Him for help. the more I prayerfully brainstormed ideas and moved them around on the table, the clearer things got. Of course there were empty spaces, but I had well over half filled in before I even started, and that gave me a real confidence boost: I could do this. And I trusted that God would help me fill in the rest as the weeks passed.

I didn’t include an entry for every week in all the columns. My newsletter and this blog are only monthly (roughly the first week and third week of the month respectively). I did try to schedule weekly Social Media posts – they might not be brilliant, but they would at least give my project an ongoing presence – and hoped that God could work with/around the algorithms somehow. (I don’t see much value in Meta advertising right now, but am not entirely closed to it if God leads that way at any point.) The fifth, real life, column did not have much activity in the early weeks but as we get closer to publication day things are starting to get busier there.

And today I just felt prompted to share all that here, for anyone who may be needing to come up with their own promo and hasn’t a clue where to start. You may not have a 6-month lead – you may even have your work published already. But if you can sit down with Jesus and ask Him to help you come up with a plan, I believe it will help you to keep going on the weeks when you have little time or head-space to be creative. For me, it was scheduling the Social Media posts in advance that kept me sane this summer when we had a succession of difficult things to manage in real life. Also, keeping it flexible allowed me not to panic when the cover-reveal had to be pushed back.

So I’m going to share a screenshot of some of my spreadsheet below, not because I think I’m the expert – the true experts among you will likely see multiple missed opportunities, I have no doubt. But I hope that those who are new to publishing & promo and in need of ideas, might find it helpful just as a starting point.

And in the meantime, I would love to hear from those who have run their own promo campaigns:
* Do you use a spreadsheet or any kind of planner, or do you wing it?
* What other platforms/ approaches do you schedule in that I have overlooked?
As I mentioned, I really want my new novel, The Doubting Vicar’s Book Club, to reach so much farther this time, and would appreciate any advice that you more experienced published authors can offer. Please share your top tips – I really appreciate it!

Rachel xx

PS This chart is already outdated as P-date has since been moved to a week earlier, but you get the gist!