Book Marketing Plan

It is very important for any author who has written or plans to write a book, write a Marketing Plan.  

A Marketing Plan is your road map to the success of your book.  Either, you can spend hundreds of hours going to a business school, college, or a university, go to the library, and read, or buy all the marketing books and study them. I want to give my audience a short-cut.  By using this simple outline, you can adapt it into your specific book's Business Plan.  Any author who wants to be signed up with a major publishing company must have a clear understanding of their Marketing Plan.  Those that include this in their Business Plan have a greater chance of being picked up by literary agents or publishing companies.  Check it out below, study it, print it, play with it, and use it.  Follow the outline below and adapt it for your work.  When you are finished, please contact me and let me know how it goes!  Enjoy!  ~ Cindy ~

Marketing Plan

Components of the Marketing Plan:

I.  Situation Analysis:  Where are you now?

A.  Historical Background: nature of your book, sales, profit history, and current     situation.

B.   Consumer Analysis:

1. Who are the customers you are attempting to serve?
2. What segments exist?
3. How many consumers are in your target market?
4. How much do they buy, and why?

3. Competitive Analysis:  Given the nature of the markets: size, characteristics, competitive activities, and strategies – what marketing opportunities exist for your book?

II.  Marketing Objectives:  Where do you want to go with your book?

1. Sales Objectives:
1. What level of sales volume can you achieve during the next year? 
2. During the next five years?
2. Profit Objectives:
1. Given your sales level and cost structure, what level of profits should it achieve?
2. How are you going to reach those profit levels?
3. What is your structure plan?
3. Consumer Objectives:
1. How will you serve your target market customers?
2. What do you want to present about your book?
3. What do you want potential customers to think about your book?

III. Strategy:  How are you going to get there?

         A.  Product Strategy:         

   1.  What goods/services should you offer to meet the customers’needs?

                     2.  What is their exact nature?

               B.  Pricing Strategy: 

                     1.  What price to set the book?

                     2.  What specific prices & price concessions are appropriate?

                C.  Distribution Strategy

                     1.  What channel(s) will be used to distribute your book?

                     2.  What physical distribution facilities are needed?

                     3.  Where are the distribution facilities located?

                D.  Promotional Strategy

                      1.  What mix of personal selling/advertising/promotional activities are needed?

                      2.  How much time/energy should I spend using what themes with what media?

                      3.  How much money should I spend using what themes and what media?

               E.  Financial Strategy:   
                      1.  What will be the financial impact on my plan during the first year?

                2.  How much money do I have allocated to marketing and promoting my book?

                3.  How does my projected income compare with my expected revenues if I do not implement this plan? 

Well, that's it.  Use it to your benefit.  

How to Track Social Media Traffic with Google Analytics

Being an author, it is very important that I set up a Marketing Plan written specifically for my book.

Part of my marketing plan contains a way to monitor my social media traffic.  

For more information, you can go to the Google Analytics Official Website.


However, I found an easier web site for which all the information is broken down into simple steps on:  Social Media Examiner

Check it out.  Play with it, and let me know how it works for you!

Cindy

*** Update on Austrian Literary Agent ***

E-mail from my Austrian Literary Agent:

Dear Mrs. Sandor!

Thank you for keeping me informed. You are doing a lot of communication and networking for the book. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a big publishing house in Austria. They have the online version of "Through Innocent Eyes" and maybe there is a chance to get a German version of your story.

best wishes
M.H

Being considered as a contributing writer for a magazine........

I just submitted this to be considered as a contributing writer for a magazine.  I would like to hear your thoughts. 

My passion is writing and my personal area of expertise is the life span development of German/Austrian Country Service girls raised during WWII. With the pervasiveness of television and the proliferation of technology today family role models are continually influenced by forces outside the home.  The main emphasis of "Through Innocent Eyes" focuses on the moral character development which is positively influenced by inductive discipline. This involves the use of reasoning and focuses the adolescence girl’s attention on the consequences their actions have on others within their family, group, and community.  I stress the importance of how their behavior, thinking, and reasoning, contributes to developing their identity.  However, this goes beyond other aspects of character development.  I provide the reader the opportunity to become one with the main character, Gertrude Kerschner, and a look into her behavior and thinking.  My twenty-three years of intermittent research into the European upbringing of children, inclusive as how my mother raised me, is written throughout "Through Innocent Eyes.”  Here, I want to teach self-awareness, self-discipline, self-reliance and to build one’s self-worth and self-confidence with integrity. 

Frankfurt Book Fair - October 9 - 13, 2013 - Germany

*** SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ***

Frankfurt Book Fair – Oct 9 – 13, 2013

My German publishing Agent, Michael Hlatky, with Verlagsagentur Hlatky, will personally be speaking with his colleagues to possibly secure German publishing rights for my book “Through Innocent Eyes – The Chosen Girls of the Hitler Youth” at the Frankfurt Book Fair October 9 – 13, 2013.  In his email to me, he said “Cindy, I have been in the book publishing business for over 35 years and your book is the most authentic book I ever read about the girls in the Bund Deutscher Mädel.”  

About the Frankfurt Book Fair: 

The Frankfurt Book Fair is a meeting place for the industry’s experts and the most important marketplace for books, media, rights and licenses worldwide. Be they publishers, booksellers, agents, film producers or authors - each year in October, they all come together and create something new.

 Discussion Page 

D-Day Conneaut, Ohio - Book Signing Event - August 16-17, 2013 - Overview

D-Day Conneaut, Ohio - Book Signing Event – August 16-17, 2013 - Overview

This was the first time I participated in such a large Living Historical WW2 event - D-Day, in Conneaut, Ohio, overlooking the beautiful bluffs and beaches of Lake Erie.  I portrayed Fraulein Dieter, troop leader of Landjahr Lager based upon my book “Through Innocent Eyes – The Chosen Girls of the Hitler Youth.”  Over 20,000 spectators came to watch over 1000 re-enactors commemorate the 69th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy.

It started on Friday morning with the flag raising ceremony in the center main field and the Sherman tanks firing over the upper eastern bluff.  The event continued with the flag raising ceremony by the Memorial Wall and by noon with the WWII Veteran's private lunch. All day long, rides were being given on the Higgins Boats, which would later be used by the soldiers the next day for the beach invasion. I felt a deeper sense of connection with our soldiers who used similar boats to invade the beaches in Normandy, and those who had lost their lives. As people were mingling around both camps, and talking with the re-enactors, bombers and planes were flying overhead and the Road to Victory Battle took place at mid-park on Grove St.  The ladies were enjoying their morning tea and fashion/makeup class and show, as the vintage vehicles were lining up in the lower pavilion. This was followed by the open house at the future D-Day Museum at the church (corner of Lake Rd and Harbor St.)

The following day, the Veterans told their personal stories as the Allied and Axis camps once again welcomed the tours.  I was in the German PX selling my book "Through Innocent Eyes."  I received many warm welcomes from my readers who stopped by for an autograph first print edition copy and speak with me.  In the afternoon, I had to move my table behind the PX before the Marquis attack/La Fiere-Bridge Battle begun in the lower park. 

As I stood up on the hill, thousands of rounds of blank ammunition went off, with the thunderous roar of the tanks gaining control of the bridge.  As the narrator explained the event over the loudspeaker, the men were fighting and vying for control.  Some 'played dead' as others continued to fight.  I was impressed with their re-enacting skills for one soldier jumped over the creek and landed right smack in the middle.  As he crawled out, his body was covered with mud.  Another was shot in the neck and fell helplessly to the ground.  Tears slowly started running down my cheeks when I watched the soldier grabbed his neck, pretending to hold back the blood as it was gushing out from his neck, draining the life force from his body. His body rolled back and forth from side to side until it slowed and stopped. His arms went limp alongside his body and he was (play) dead. I got chills only to think about our soldiers on the beach sixty-nine years ago, and how the sacrificed their very own lives for our personal freedom!  Afterwards, it took me a little while to regain my composure.  My father fought the Germans in WW2 and I could only image what he witnessed.

There was a reprieve in the events until last seating was called at 2:30 for the main beach landing event.  At 3:00 pm, the epic drama of the Beach Landing Battle commenced as 20,000 spectators watched the invasion. Our camp was completely deserted except for a few of us who stayed behind to watch over each others' camps.  At the end of the battle, the crowd roared in applause.  It was time for the camps to close, and the vendors to start packing up. A few companies remained on site until Sunday.   I volunteered and help to pick up what little garbage remained on the park grounds.  

The evenings were full of excitement with an outdoor showing of the movie "Casablanca," the USO-style dance show, a 1940's Evening in Paris, and the German re-creations show in the Bier Garten.

There were so many more events that I cannot list them all here. Each tent recreated a little part of history based upon the re-enactors own personal interests.  Believe me; I was very impressed with the authenticity.  Some re-enactors spend in upwards of 10’s of thousands of dollars to re-create living history.  Commemorative items were for sale in the military PX tent/building in the upper and lower parks.  I hope each and every one of you was able to walk away with a little piece of history.

Next year, on August 22 - 23, 2014, this same event will commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the D-day landing, which will also be http://www.ddayohio.us 's  - 15th anniversary.  And when that happens, I'll be there! 

I want to graciously send a special thank you to the following people for their continued education, dedication, commitment, and underlying support to make this event possible: 

2013 D-Day Board of Directors:

Betsy Bashore - CEO

Lori McLaughlin - COO

Jennifer Palagyi - CFO

Robert Trumbull - Director Allied Re-enactors

Dan Merzke - Director Axis Re-enactors

Chris Bartone - Director Museum Development

Eric Montgomery - Director - Veterans Outreach

Waye Heim -Director - Media and Communications

Patrick Cavanaugh - Director

Lisa James - Director

Pat Rowbotham - Director

and to all the Sponsors and Veterans.  I also need to thank Lisa James and Dan Merske for the gracious hospitality.  It was also a pleasure meeting Deanna Fleischmann - Assistant Director at Villa at the Lake, Donna the manager of the Railroad Museum, the Conneaut Historical Society, Executive Director, Nancy Pape and her assistant Cindy, from the Conneaut Public Library and to the hundreds of people I met during my two day visit including, Lisa James, Dan Merzke, Molly Hoffman, Nancy Lare, Betsy Bashore, Lori McLaughlin, Heathyr Haskins, Bernadette Crumb, Jeanne Onuska, Christine Albin, Al Parents, Bill, Craig from the OKW group, Unit Commander - Ted O’Sullivan, Jen from Brighter Horizons, Paul Fischer – The German Cultural Society of Erie, PA, Gary Weltlich – VP of Auld Crafters & Associates, and Drew from 1994 Militaria,   I thank each and every one of you for stopping by the German PX and purchasing an autograph copy of my book.  It was a pleasure to meet you and hear your own personal stories about your family!  I look forward to next year's 70th Anniversary D-day event!  Keep up the fantastic work everyone!  God Bless You All!

Cynthia A. Sandor

Author - 

"Through Innocent Eyes - The Chosen Girls of the Hitler Youth"  

D-Day Conneaut, Ohio - August 16 - 17, 2013 - WWII Re-enactment and Book Signing Event ****

**** D-Day Conneaut, Ohio - August 16 - 17, 2013 - WWII Re-enactment and Book Signing Event **** 

Join with 20,000 spectators and 750 WWII re-enactors at this spectacular D-Day Event in Conneaut, Ohio! 

Author, Cynthia A. Sandor, will be re-enacting and lecturing about the Landjahr Lager (Country Service Camp) Girls in the Bund Deutscher Maedel and will be signing her book "Through Innocent Eyes - The Chosen Girls of the Hitler Youth," at the annual D-Day Conneaut, Ohio event. Along with over 1000 re-enactors, Ms. Sandor will be accompanied with a select group of Hitler Youth - BDM girl re-enactors.

D-Day Conneaut, Ohio - August 16 - 17, 2013 Book Signing Event information