Imitate Success

"Imitation if the highest form of flattery."

We've all heard this before and hopefully, you've applied it to your writing. Some of the best writing advice I've heard is to read books that you love and study them to find out why they work. We look for commonalities in character arc, plot lines, & world building. Then, we imitate these successes in our own work.*

*Of course, by imitate I mean incorporate into your own style. We'd never want to become another version of a writer already out there. The world already has that writer.

The lesson we don't hear as often is that we can apply this same technique to our marketing efforts.

We can learn a lot by studying the efforts of successful authors that have come before us. What did they do during launch week? What was their social media presence like in the month before their book came out? How much of their blog content changed to promote their new book?

If you're working on a marketing plan, I suggest studying some of your favorite writers. Do a little historical stalking to analyze what their blog, social media and promotional content looked like in the months leading up to and right after their book launch.

Just like reading bad books can teach us what doesn't work in our writing, studying authors with a launch flop can provide some great marketing lessons. Find an author or two writing in your genre with releases that never really got out of the starting gate. Study what they did (or probably didn't do) and take this into account when planning your own release. 

Marketing isn't a one size fits all strategy. But by studying authors with an audience similar to your own, you can get a better look at what does and doesn't work when it comes to getting your work into the hands of your readers.