Do you have a book to promote? If you have a published book, you have a book to promote. As you’ve probably learned, if you aren’t promoting your book, it isn’t selling.
I mentioned taking your book to book fairs in yesterday’s blog post. This is a good way to sell books and to get exposure for your book. (I plan to write a blog post about exposure tomorrow—so stay tuned.) But there is another good reason to take your book to book fairs and book festivals and that is to learn to talk about it.
You’ve probably heard professionals suggest that you should be able to describe your book in one sentence. You probably struggled with writing a synopsis for your book. Maybe, along the way, your mentor, an agent or a publisher asked you, “What is the purpose of your book?” and “Why did you write it?” And these are also some of the questions that will come up at a book festival.
Potential customers will ask, “What is your book about?” In order to inspire interest, you need to be prepared with a succinct, tantalizing response.
Not everyone who comes by your booth will stop, nor will they ask you any questions, so you must learn how to engage people in conversation and create an interest in your book.
It’s also important to learn when to keep talking and when to stop. I’ve seen authors inadvertently talk potential customers right out of buying their books.
After attending several book festivals, you’ll learn that not every sales pitch works with every potential customer. This is why you must engage the customer—to find out what concerns, thrills, interests, tickles, entices or soothes him or her, for example. And use what you learn about this person to turn him or her into a customer.
You might start out by asking someone who has stopped at your booth or who is passing by, “Do you know a child who loves to read?” Or ask adults who are walking with children, “May I read a passage from my book to your child?” This is a way of engaging a potential customer.
If someone stops to look at your book cover, you could say, “Do you like good mysteries?” If the answer is yes, then tell a little about your book. This way, you have engaged the potential customer.
When someone stops at my booth and either looks at or picks up my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, I will ask, “Are you an author?” I then ask them about their book. It becomes easy to segue into my sales pitch. If the visitor says, “I’m looking for a publisher,” I talk about the large section in my book featuring publishing options and the pros and cons of each. If they tell me that they have a book and are trying to promote it, I direct them to the book promotion chapters. Let the customer guide you in selling them your book.
Some people will ask questions. Note the types of questions they ask about your book on going green in Idaho, a wild horse rescue in modern times, how to make a smoother career transition or your young adult novel, for example. These are the things you will include in your spiel to other potential customers and that you will incorporate into your future speeches.
Get a booth at a book festival, sit silently behind your display of books all day without ever speaking out to a visitor and you will probably sell very few books. You won’t learn much about your potential customers, either. And you will certainly not gain any public speaking skills.
Go to the book festival with the idea of getting exposure for your book—raising awareness that it even exists—and with the idea of learning something about your customers and what they want to hear, and you will gain incredible insight, tools and skills that you can use to promote your book forevermore.
If you need personalized help with promoting your particular book(s), consider signing up for my online Book Promotion Course.
https://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm
Learn more about book promotion and, in particular, how to work a book festival in my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html