Reader segments and ranked launch experiments

Ranked, not exhaustive. A list of thirty things to try is the same as no list. Three things in order, with the reasoning, is something you can act on this week.

memoir. Memoir sells through subject rather than genre: the place, the period, the industry, the condition, the community. The plan is built around finding the people who care about that specific thing — local history groups, regional press, a disease charity's newsletter — which generic launch advice never covers.

business. A business book earns as a credential rather than as royalties, and the plan is built accordingly: speaking, professional networks, the book as the thing left behind after a meeting. Bulk and corporate sales matter more here than in any other category.

childrens. Children's books sell through the adults who buy them — parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians — and through school and library channels that most self-publishing advice ignores entirely. School visits are the single strongest channel and are rarely mentioned.

fiction. Fiction lives or dies on categories, keywords and the sample. The plan starts with the least glamorous work — being in the right small sub-category rather than invisible in a large one — before anything resembling promotion.

graphic novel. Graphic novels sell through channels prose does not touch: comic shops, conventions, artist audiences and specialist reviewers. The artist's following is frequently the larger asset and the plan should say so out loud.

non fiction. Non-fiction sells to people looking for its subject, which makes discoverability and authority the plan rather than promotion. Media requests, subject communities and speaking do more than social posting ever will.

poetry. Poetry does not sell like other books and a plan pretending otherwise wastes your time. Readings, magazines, pamphlet competitions and the poetry community itself are the channels, and the economics have always been different.

script. A script is not sold to readers, so 'marketing' means submission strategy: which competitions, which production companies, which windows, and how to approach agents. Entirely different work from a book launch.

textbook. Textbooks are adopted, not bought, and the plan targets lecturers and course leaders rather than students. Inspection copies, conference presence and departmental relationships are the whole channel.

travel. Travel narrative sells through place-interest and through travel media, and the specific place is a more useful category than 'travel'. Regional press in the place you wrote about is a channel most authors never think to use.

Works from the finished manuscript. Particularly useful for uploaded books that are already written and have been sitting unpublished because the author didn't know what to do next.

Most book marketing advice is written for a book that is not yours. Build an email list, be on social media, get reviews — all true, all useless, because none of it tells you which one matters for a poetry collection versus a leadership book versus a family memoir printed for forty people.

A list of thirty things to try is functionally the same as no list, because you will do the two that are easiest rather than the two that work. Three things, in order, with the reasoning attached, is something you can act on this week.

A publicist has relationships — with reviewers, festival programmers, booksellers, radio producers. That is what you are actually buying and it cannot be generated. This tells you what to do with your own hands, which for most self-published books is the whole game anyway.