Your Key Contact List ...

... Is Your Best Marketing Tool: As you begin to work on your book, you should be building your "key contact list." Divide your list into four categories, as follows:

1. Contacts Who Will Receive a Complimentary Book Automatically: Keep this list short, reserved for contributors and the occasional person who you know will do your book some good in some way.
2. Contacts Who Will Receive a Press Release and a Review Copy Request Form: Include logical book reviewers, experts in your field who might might give quality referrals to your book, potential bulk purchasers, textbook adopters, media contacts who might interview you or request an article from you or ask you to do a presentation, etc. After your book is printed, you will send them a press release accompanied by a review copy request form. If they request a book, you have identified someone genuinely interested in your book. Send them one. Then follow up to make sure they received it and ask them when they will be looking at it and when then might review it (or whatever). This list can be as long as your contacts are good. However, keep the emphasis on quality--contacts who have a logical interest in your book and the capacity to help you in some way.
3. Contacts Who Will Receive a Press Release Only: This list is for contacts who should know about your book but who, for whatever reason, are both unlikely to buy a copy or do something useful with a review copy. (This is somewhat of a catch-all category for contacts who don't fit into categories #2 or #4.)
4. Contacts Who Will Be Sent a Flyer, Postcard, or other Ordering Device: This list is for anyone you know who might actually order a copy of your book.

Creating this list is worth whatever effort you can put into it. Begin to create it as soon as you start thinking about your book. The Publishing Pro, LLC.