Maybe after reading this series on marketing and selling MM romances, you are both excited and overwhelmed about everything you feel like you have to do. That’s completely normal. When I started doing my research before launching my first book, I remember feeling desperate at times, like I would never master all these skills that were apparently necessary to sell books, or remember all the information I needed to.

I won’t deny that there’s a lot to learn if you’re just starting out. So let’s talk about that little today. Where do you start?

If you followed this series or my posts on and writing in general, you may have started a little list of things I recommended you do. Start your newsletter, for example. Do author takeovers. Grow your reader group on Facebook. Read books on the craft of creative writing. So you have all these marketing strategies, which sounds like they could help you sell some books. But where do you start?

Pick One Thing

Here’s my advice. Pick one thing that you’re not doing yet and dig into that. Do your research, try it, experiment, look at the results and tweak it, make it a habit until it works. And don’t add something else until you feel you’re proficient enough in this one area to keep at it on a consistent basis.

I think the mistake we all often make is that we try everything at once, which only results in us dabbling in these strategies that could be game changers for us. Dabbling doesn’t change much. It only costs time without delivering real results.

The name of the game here is focus. Focus all your time and energy on one aspect, something you feel could make a difference for you. Spend time on developing that skill and growing that knowledge until you feel you are truly proficient. Keep at it until you can truly see if this works for you or not, if you see tangible results. Only then move on to the next thing.

Obviously, this does not mean you should only do that one marketing thing and nothing else. You should still be writing, just to be clear, just like you should still be editing and publishing. I’m talking about developing marketing skills only. That’s where you need to focus and not try to do everything at the same time.

If you allow yourself the time to develop one skill well, good enough to see it make a difference, it will empower you and encourage you to keep at it. You’ll see results, and those results will keep you going. If you try to do everything at the same time, chances are it won’t have much impact, which will discourage you.

How to Choose Your One Thing

So how do you pick your one thing? That’s a good question and not one I can answer for you. You could try to look at what your biggest weakness is. If, for instance, you don’t have the newsletter at all, that could be a great place to start. If you already have one and it’s growing, albeit slowly, it may be smarter to focus on your Facebook reader group or on networking with other authors. Making sure your cover and blurb are the very best they can be is also a great place to start, as all other marketing efforts will pretty much be useless if those don’t convert into sales.

Whatever you choose, pick one thing and focus on that until you see results. Then work on the next thing. Then you’ll start seeing some real results.