This week, we’ve been talking about the five P’s of successful authorship. Today I’m going to give you the last one. You may ask, “Which ones are most important?”
The answer, of course, is all of them. One is no more important than the other and all of them must be addressed during your writing and publishing journey if you are to succeed with your project.
To recap, we discussed:
Planning
Preparation
Proofing
Publishing
Today’s let’s concentrate on Promotion.
Don’t even consider producing a book for publication if you do not have the money, time, experience, interest, enthusiasm for and/or knowledge about book promotion.
In order to sell copies of your book, you must turn practically all of your attention to promoting it. This means identifying your audience, locating them and finding ways to effectively approach them with information that will entice them to purchase your book.
There are numerous ways to approach book promotion and, in my articles, courses, workshops and books, I outline various activities for each type of promoter—the bold and the bashful. Do not expect to sell books without promoting them. Your book will not sell itself. (Don’t laugh. I’ve met authors who believe that their books will do just that.)
One of the things you will learn from studying the publishing industry is that the competition for books is fierce. You may have already noticed that everyone is writing a book. Did you know that nearly eighty percent of all published books sell fewer than 100 copies? (You may have noticed that this statistic has gone up in the last several years.) And lack of promotion is only one reason why so many books fail. What are the other reasons?
• Lack of appropriate planning.
• Improper preparation.
• Inadequate proofing/editing.
• Ineffective publishing methods.
• Lackadaisical promotion.
Put your P’s in a row before you even put your pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and you will have a much greater chance for publishing success.
To properly do your planning, adequately prepare, effectively proof, successfully publish and participate in the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of publishing—promotion—be sure to read my latest books: Order your copies of Publish Your Book and Promote Your Book today at Amazon or at my website: http://www.matilijapress.com