Research Note: How To Demonstrate Your Marketing Platform And Promotional Plan In Your Book Proposal

The following is an excerpt from RainToday's series on business book publishing. A book proposal is a sales piece, usually around 20 pages long, on why a publisher should accept your book. The portion below becomes a short, but critical, part of your proposal's success with a publisher.

Marketing Platform And Promotion Plan Portion Of A Business Book Proposal

Pages: 

2-4 pages

The Marketing Platform and Promotional Plan can be two separate sections, or they can be combined in one – depending on how much information you have to include (the more the better).

Purpose:

Show the publisher that you have the resources to help them sell as many copies as possible.

This is a very critical portion of your book proposal. In fact, it might even be the most critical. Many editors even say a marketing platform is more important to their decision of whether or not to publish a book than the quality of the content.

Definitions:       

Marketing Platform: Your marketing platform is everything that you have in place currently that will enable you to reach a broad audience and sell books. This includes your website, regular speaking opportunities, articles you write, etc.

Promotional Plan: Your promotional plan can encompass the same tactics as the marketing platform. The key difference is that the promotional plan is everything that you are planning on doing to promote the book specifically. This could include a direct mailing to all of your clients, speaking opportunities related to the release of the book, book reviews you plan to receive, etc.

Demonstrating Your Marketing Platform:          

Include any significant contribution you can make to the promotion of the book, such as:

• Interviews you have given on radio and on television
  
  
• Publications in which you have been quoted
  
  
• Speaking engagements and appearances (for instance, as a panelist) in front of business, professional, or civic groups
  
  
• Workshops or seminars you have facilitated
  
  
• Size and nature of your network of contacts, particularly media contacts
  
  
• Continued on next page
  
  
• Activity on your website
  
  
• Blogs for which you write or contribute
  
  
• Newsletters or e-newsletters you send or contribute to, including their subscription base
  
  
• Any clients or other contacts who would be interested in buying large quantities of your book
  
  
• Associations to which you belong and would be interested in your book

Advice Debra Wishik Englander, Editor At John Wiley & Sons:

I need to know this book will work because of XYZ. So if it comes down to 4 bullet points that are surefire and definite, as opposed to ten maybes, I'd go with the four.

I would probably say that the marketing aspect is 70% of my decision to accept a book proposal or not, and the editorial is 30%, at least in terms of my initial decision. This is only because there are a lot of very well-qualified professionals who could write a book on any number of financial topics.

Advice From Literary Agent Jeff Herman:

You can't really use the book to create the platform; you've got to use the platform to create the book. I used to see a lot of people showing up with a book, thinking that if the book succeeds, they'll be able to ride the coattails of the book and everything else will fall into place. That's not the way to go about it. Publishers don't like that kind of thinking because it doesn't do anything for them.

The writer needs to see the book as a result of all the other work that he or she is doing to create their business, their following, their connections, and their network. The book will be a beneficial result of all the other work that they've already done.