Do you have an opportunity antenna? Are you aware when a publishing or book promotion opportunity comes your way?
Sometimes we stay so busy and focused on what is in front of us that we don’t even notice when an opportunity arises. For example, you attend a social event or business meeting and someone asks you what you’ve been doing lately. You might say, “Oh, I spent a few days at the beach with my kids,” or “I’ve been shopping for a new sofa,” or “I worked in the yard yesterday.” Instead, why not use this as an opportunity to promote your book.
Say, instead, “I just picked up a few boxes of my brand new book on vegetarian cooking last week,” or “I’m planning a book signing for my novel Friday night—here’s an invitation, please come,” or “I’m speaking next week to a group of businessmen about the history of our city—have you seem my new book in local bookstores? Here’s some information about it.”
I see authors at book festivals and writers conferences with their antenna down. A magazine editor might introduce herself and hand the author a card. This would be a great opportunity for the author to ask who their audience is and if they do book reviews or if they solicit articles from freelancers.
Librarians, booksellers and educators stop at the SPAWN booth at book festivals and speak to our authors. Some of them neglect to see this as a possible opportunity to get their books in libraries, bookstores or schools.
I once watched as the program director for a radio station tried to engage a couple of our authors in a conversation about their books and the authors just gave their usual spiel. It didn’t occur to them to pitch their book for a radio show.
And this is the very reason why so many authors leave a book festival feeling as though it wasn’t worthwhile. When book sales are your only measure of success, you may miss a lot of good opportunities. No, book festivals and conferences are full of opportunities and it is up to the author to develop and use his or her opportunity antennas.
It’s bad enough that authors stop seeking opportunities to promote their books. But when they avoid or ignore opportunities that look them in the eye, this is a sad, sad situation.
Can you think of an opportunity that you missed because you weren’t alert enough or that you accepted because you were paying attention? Would love to hear about them. PLFry620@yahoo.com
In the meantime, have any of you checked out my latest book at Amazon.com? It’s Talk Up Your Book. As it is now, you have to type in the book title AND my name in order to bring up this book at amazon. I hope that changes.
You may find, as I have, that there are many glitches and much waiting when a new book comes out. It seems to take a while for all of the ducks to be put in a row so that the book is available in print and Kindle/Nook, etc., so that you can easily order it from the most reliable sources, and so forth. The book cover for this book changed in midstream and the publisher hasn’t even posted the correct cover on his site, yet. I’ve asked about this twice and am told the request has been made.
In the meantime, I am working on getting the book on my site. I am eager to start promotion, but will wait until those ducks are all lined up.