Media-Savvy Author: Setting Your Media Goals

Setting your media goals isn’t just a mental exercise. It’s how you come up with the plan that will set you up to build your career as a writer. And it starts before you even have a book deal. That’s right! It’s never too early (or too late) to start planning out your media goals and creating strategies to meet them. 

Launching a book is thrilling. Lots of time, energy and thought goes into planning it. But that’s not the only day you should be thinking about.

You’re going to have that book for a long time. So although launch day is important, the real question is: How do you keep the book in the minds and in the mouths of people all over the world for a long time? It all starts way before your book is even written.

Before you’ve even written a book, you can start by building a platform. This is how your future readers will find you.

Building a platform means putting yourself out there so the people who need to hear your message can find you. That means pitching as a subject matter expert. I did this a lot before my first book, Listful Thinking, was published. It meant I could back up my expertise when I was trying to find a publisher. And it meant I was ready to share my book when it came out.

When you’re building your platform, think about where your audience is likely to be—and go there. Pitching traditional media is important, but so is social media. And don’t forget about blogs, podcasts, and live-streaming shows! You can actually create an editorial calendar to keep yourself accountable. 

Celebrate! This is a big moment. Then it’s time to sit down and set your media goals. It can often take a year or more from getting a book deal with a traditional publisher to the day of your book launch. You’ll need that time to plan a detailed strategy to connect with readers. 

A year seems like a long time. In some ways it is—you can fit a lot of events, media, and content into a year. But it can also fly by if you don’t start planning. One year out is a good time to identify the outlets you want to be featured in. It’s also a good time to think about media training. It might take a little while to find a media trainer and actually get started, so you want to give yourself plenty of time. Or you could take a training course like mine called Media-Ready Author to get ready at your own pace. 

You’ll also want to start doubling down on your content calendar. Make a plan and stick to it! 

Think about what kinds of support you’ll need for the launch, such as a publicist or social media manager. Those people will help you start securing event dates for the launch period—both virtual and in person!

During this time, you’ll keep up your content creation schedule. It’s a good time to revisit your strategy. Where are people really engaging with your message? What posts aren’t getting as much attention? Use that feedback to tweak your strategy.

[Media-Savvy Author: How to Hire Professionals for Your Book Launch.]

Keep creating videos, blog posts, and social media content. This is the solid foundation of your author platform. Now is also the time to get more serious about pitching traditional media in conjunction with your book launch dates. 

Start thinking about your wardrobe, makeup, and overall presentation for your book launch events. Venues for your launch events should be booked at this point. Make sure to promote those events via your social media platforms. And start getting excited!

The countdown has arrived. Self-care is key one month before your launch. You’ll want to keep up your schedule of interviews and content, but don’t neglect your basic needs. Get plenty of sleep and eat a balanced diet (which can be tricky if you’re traveling for events!). 

Speaking of events—if you’re traveling a lot, now is the time to concentrate on your packing and prep strategy. Layers, items that don’t wrinkle, and back-ups of everything you need are key. 

Take a moment to breathe and take it all in. This is a big day! Bring yourself back to your “why” — the reason you wrote your book in the first place. Remember, sharing your thoughts and ideas with the world is a public service. Thinking about it like that can be very useful for the promotion process.

When you’re in the book launch phase, you’re really invested in the book itself. That’s only natural. It should be the focus of attention at this point! But once your book is a few months old, you have to shift your focus and start to consider how your book can support you as an author and expert—not how you can support your book.

This does not mean you shouldn’t talk about your book. Of course you should! You just need to find new ways of framing and contextualizing how you talk about your book. The attention needs to be on how your knowledge (and by extension, your book) can solve problems or shift people’s mindsets.

The relationships you build with journalists, reporters, and producers are some of the best resources for you as you consider your post-launch strategy. Thank you notes (paper ones—yep!) go a long way in demonstrating your appreciation.

These really do make an impact on fostering positive relationships between you and members of the media. You can then leverage those relationships to pitch again from a new angle. 

You might be wondering what exactly you should pitch—how can you use your book as a jumping-off point that inspires the next stage of your media strategy?

Well, here’s a little secret: Everything you talk about doesn’t have to be in the book. In fact, it can actually be counterproductive to limit yourself to only things you covered in your book. You are an expert on a topic that includes what you talk about in your book. You can absolutely pitch on related areas within your expertise that didn’t fit into your book—and you should! This is essential to any sustainable media strategy.