Exercising Your Author’s Voice
Promotion can be a silent and lonely activity. As an author with a book to sell, you spend quite a bit of time each day/week trying to find readers. (If you aren’t doing this, you should be.) You are building mailing and emailing lists; writing and rewriting press releases and other promotional material; searching for appropriate newspapers, magazines and Web sites to solicit; mailing free copies of your book to reviewers; sending out press releases and so forth.
But sometimes it feels as though you are all alone searching the vast earth for another human being. You are out there shouting accolades for your book and no one seems to hear you. Yes, promotion can be very lonely work.
I speak to a lot of lonely authors throughout the year. All they want is a little feedback and some sales. They need to know that there’s someone at the other end of their efforts. Maybe it’s time that we change our promotional tactics. Maybe we should get back to the dreaded COLD CALL—go face-to-face or at least voice-to-voice with potential customers.
Our neighborhood, like many in America, is representative of the historic cottage industry era. One neighbor sells jewelry from home and another one makes and repairs jewelry. Another neighbor does quilting for customers in her garage. There’s a bookkeeper up the street, a dog trainer and a part-time realtor who all work from home. But the most successful woman of all in our neighborhood is the one who makes cold calls.
Stephanie Wood designs unique completely organic tee shirts with garden themes. And she sells thousands of dollars in product each month mainly through cold calls and by doing gift shows and harvest festivals. She talks to at least a dozen people each day and she gets orders. She says that almost everyone she speaks with is interested in her product line and wants to see it. http://www.canyoudig-it.com
Have you tried the cold call, lately? I think we’ve all become fairly comfortable communicating through the Internet. Most of us don’t want to bother trying to reach people by phone or in person, anymore. But I maintain that it is more difficult for someone to ignore you when you have a solid voice. They might receive your email and click you into the trashcan. But if you reach them by phone, they will listen to what you have to say.
Let’s make 2006 the year we take our voice back and became more visible. This may just be a unique and effective way to increase our book sales.
Let me know how it goes for you.
There are just 4 days left for the prepublication discount offer on my new book: The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Offer ends December 31, 2005. Order your copy today: http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html