Experience in every genre shows that carefully planning your book publicity and marketing campaign helps it be more effective. When you spend thousands of hours writing a book, you want it to be visible online, covered by the media, and purchased by target readers. When the stakes are that high, you can't be random about planning your marketing. Your book will go up against others with well-planned marketing campaigns, and you need to measure up. Consistency in messaging is a critical success factor you don't want to overlook. It requires compelling ideas to reach the right audience.

The first steps in planning a book marketing campaign are setting a budget and defining your goals. They help your publicist develop a program that will meet your objectives and ensure that writing your book pays long-term dividends. The traditional reason for becoming an author is to sell books, but the paradigm has been expanded in recent years. Business people and self-help experts are now sizeable portions of the author pool because they recognize the promotional value of books. For them, selling copies and downloads may be secondary to earning media coverage and improving online visibility.

Well-planned book marketing programs today also include vital author branding elements. Your author brand is something you can leverage in many ways for professional and financial gain. It allows you to be recognized for thought leadership in your field, to write more books, to give speeches and presentations, and much more. Even if you're competing for a job against other well-qualified candidates, having a book on your resume will help. People afford stature to authors and regard them as experts in their fields – with expertise that rises above others who have not written books. 

Author's websites are essential parts of book marketing programs today. The book gives you a reason to launch a site, and the site, in turn, promotes the book. People who visit your site may be encouraged to buy or download your books. Others interested in covering or promoting your book will check for a place to learn more about you and your work—the two work with your social media accounts, blog, and podcasts. The most influential book marketing campaigns today include traditional media and online elements. Most in the book industry agree you need to have both.