Your Book Marketing Plan – How Much Should You Budget to Promote Your Book?

While it's possible to promote your book on a shoestring budget, especially if you focus on online book marketing, you will still need a marketing budget. The amount you should budget depends on your book marketing plan.

Here are some expense categories to consider and some money-saving tips:

Blog/Web site: Web site design and hosting fees. If you build your website on a blogging platform like WordPress or TypePad, you'll minimize the costs for online book marketing. See this page for
blogging resources for authors.

Graphics: Design of web site header and graphics, design of printed materials, purchase of stock images for blog/web site, and a photo shoot for your author photo.

Printing: Business cards, bookmarks, postcards, flyers, and posters for personal appearances. In addition to local printers, check prices for online printers such as Printing for Less.

Copywriting and Editing: You may want to hire a professional copywriter to help you write effective sales copy for your sales flyer, website and other online book marketing materials. It's also a good idea to have an editor or proofreader review your website and other marketing materials.

Email Marketing: You will pay a monthly or per mailing fee to the company that manages your opt-in mailing list. Some services, like Mail Chimp, waive their fees until your list gets to a certain size.

Review Copies: Printing, packaging and postage for review copies sent through the mail.

Publicity: There are a number of free online press release services, such as PRLog and Free Press Release. To get wider distribution for your most important releases, you will need to use a paid service like PRWeb.

Learning: Lots of blogs and newsletters offer helpful book marketing information. But don't forget to budget funds for books, teleclasses and other opportunities to get a more in-depth education about publishing and book marketing, and for dues to writing and publishing organizations. You'll be more effective at promoting your book if you know how to do it properly.

Professional Services: You may need help in implementing your book marketing plan, especially if you have a day job. There are a number of virtual assistants who specialize in working with authors. You may also want to invest in consulting services from a book marketing coach to help you develop your book marketing strategy.

Other Expenses: Additional expenses may include travel, book fairs, book award entry fees, advertising, and administrative expenses such as postage.

The best way to develop a budget is to assign a projected cost to each element in your book marketing plan. Then you can break down your expenses by month, to arrive at a monthly budget.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing and several other book promotion guides. For book promotion tips, visit
The Savvy Book Marketer blog. Get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips e-book when you register for her free book marketing newsletter. For more book marketing tips, follow Dana on
Twitter or visit TheSavvyBookMarketer.com .