Have you noticed that we are all so busy promoting that hardly anyone is actually buying?
You send your promo email to potential customers for your book and receive back several promo emails in return. You attend a meeting or event, hand someone your business card and they hand you their promo material. You pay for booth space in order to sell your book at a book festival and other authors, who do not have booths, come up to you with pitches about their books. (I HATE when that happens.) I’ve even seen authors sneak in, set up tables at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, where everyone else has paid nearly $1,000 for a booth, and begin hawking their books. I’ve seen them get busted, too!
I’ve also observed people, presumably from other booths, stand across the walkway from the SPAWN booths engaging the attention of passersby with their spiels and their promo material—distracting them from our booths. And when I see that, I will report them. Hawking like this is discouraged at many book festivals even from outside your own booth—let alone in front of other authors’ and organizations’ booths.
It can become difficult to promote your book when your promotional efforts are not even received, but are countered by, “Here’s my new book/service/product.” How do you handle that? Do you just move on or do you politely express an interest in the other person’s book, service or other product?
I’ve discovered that if you acknowledge the other author’s book by expressing an interest, asking a few questions, looking it over (if in person), visiting the website and then commenting on the book, they will show more interest in yours. Maybe you know someone who could use their book, you do book reviews on this topic for an organization newsletter, you know of a book club that might want to choose this book to read, you have a promotional idea that would fit their particular book. Try either massaging the other author’s ego (“Wow, I love your book cover.”—“What a great idea for a book…”) or provide a solid recommendation for promoting the book and see what you might get back.
Let me know if this is something you already do and how it’s working to your benefit.
If you are just sick and tired of every shred of your promotional efforts being countered by a bombardment of promotion, give this a try. It may actually help your sales and overall exposure. It’s certainly a better approach than allowing yourself to be beat down by the opposition time and time again.
NEWSFLASH
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Article-Writing Course in Progress
I know that many of you are interested in making a little extra money writing articles for magazines. Some of you want to promote your books through articles. Let me show you the way toward success in the article-writing field. I am in the process of teaching the course as we speak. It is not too late to sign up. Learn more about this course here: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm