Up Your Platform--Stand Out with a Go-to-Market Strategy

Welcome to part 7 of my 8-part series about writing nonfiction book proposals that get the attention of an editor and agent.  My hope is that I’m giving unique insight that will help you write a proposal that stands out in a crowded inbox.

Today I want to introduce the idea of including a Go-to-Market Strategy in your book proposal.

Most authors understand the importance of a platform. Including information about your platform shows agents and editors that you have an engaged audience who is interested in your ideas.

And most authors also understand that it’s important to have a marketing plan in their proposal, sharing the ways they will reach their audience once the book is published.  A strong marketing plan shows how you plan to leverage your speaking, client work, media contacts, network of influencers, and more to drive visibility for your book.

But a trend that I started seeing over the past few years—and one that always made a project stand out for me—is authors who also include a Go-to-Market Strategy as part of their marketing plan.

A Go-to-Market Strategy shows a publishing house that you understand that you have a big role to play in marketing your book and that you’ve already thought through how you would partner with a publisher to do this. You are showing that you get that your book is a product, and it needs an actionable launch plan.

Where a marketing plan shares ideas by broad categories, a Go-to-Market Strategy actually gives a timeline for how you would market the book. For example, a general plan might include:

9 months from publication

--outreach to key conferences

--start building book website

--grow newsletter engagement around book topic

6 months from publication

--reach out to potential endorsers

-- start posting on LinkedIn about topic

4 months from publication

--reach out to contacts at long lead media

--compile list of top podcasters on topic

--build social media assets for launch

And so on leading up to launch week and beyond showing you are prepared to push your book for the long run.

Obviously, my examples are short and generic. I challenge you to think about the very specific actions you would take and make an actual strategy for executing them. I’ve seen Go-to-Market Strategies that are two to three pages long.

This, as part of a larger marketing plan, shows that you are taking the publication of your book seriously—and in turn, editors and agents will take your book proposal seriously, too.