You want my marketing plan?

Yikes. I thought only nonfiction needed that sort of thing.

I was looking at submission guidelines for some e-publishers and got quite a shock. One said they wanted marketing ideas and another said they wanted my marketing plan. Wow. As if I wasn't intimidated about approaching publishers before . . .

Um . . . tell all my friends and relatives? I have a lot of cousins, really!

So what constitutes a realistic marketing plan? I can handle Facebook, blogging and searching out that sort of thing. But really, what are they looking for? Do they want me to tour on my own dime? Call NPR? This is a whole new arena to research. And that is just more time taken away from writing.

That means I have to squeeze into my day time for pay-the-bills work, writing, research on/for writing, blogging and now research on marketing. And that doesn't include eating, sleeping or weeding the garden. Sheesh.

How are other authors doing it? Does someone have a handbook for this sort of thing? I get David Farland's excellent, if occasionally terrifying, newsletter. He has lots of what should be done. Guess I need to go back and read all those newsletters I stashed away for later. Cause later is almost here.

I just started following Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog. She seems like she knows what she's doing. But, oh no, her blog today just said that no one knows what they're doing (to sell books) because the industry is changing so fast.

Arrgh!

OK. I need to make a plan. And I guess the first thing on the list is finish polishing the manuscript. Whew. That's good. I'll just put my head down and write for now. Maybe it will have all changed by the time I'm ready to send it out the door.