Creating Goals

When it comes to book marketing success, the first step is to define your goals for your book. Until you define what publishing success means to you, you can’t possibly figure out how to achieve it—or gauge how close you are to achieving it.

Every author has a personal vision of what constitutes publishing success. For one author, publishing success might be signaled by receiving a review in their college alumni newsletter. For another author, publishing success will never be achieved until they have made the New York Times bestseller list.

You will want to ask yourself by what benchmarks you will gauge your book’s success—or, conversely, its failure. Now is the time to be very honest and very detailed about just what you hope to achieve through the publication of your book. By doing so you can best determine what publicity, marketing, and sales efforts it will take to achieve your vision.

As you consider your personal vision of publishing success, many factors may come into play—ego, reputation, finances, professional standing, altruism, personal legacy, etc. You might want to consider your goals as falling into one of three categories: personal, financial, or professional



Possible Book Goals/Achievements


PersonalShare my knowledge with the worldEntertain readersBe considered an accomplished author
Financial
Recover my publishing costsMake a profit from my book salesBe able to retire from the profits of my book sales
Professional

Earn a reputation as an expert in my fieldIncrease my visibility among potential clienteleStand out from my competitionBenchmarks are your way of gauging if you have achieved your goals. In other words, what does achieving your goals actually look like?
Possible Benchmarks

Receive a specific number of positive reader reviews on Amazon.com.Reach a certain number of copies sold.Appear on a specific television programBook speaking engagements related to your book’s topic.


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