We talk often about various aspects of book marketing here at this blog site. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I do my best to warn new authors about the huge job ahead—the work they will face AFTER their book is published. Promotion! Selling copies of their books.
I wrote my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book for two main reasons:
1. To help educate hopeful authors about the publishing industry before they get involved and make some of the most common (and costly) mistakes.
2. To help them to understand and accept the responsibilities that come after publication.
Way too many authors enter into publishing without a clue as to what comes next. Well, what comes next is that no matter which publishing option the author chooses, he or she is responsible for promoting his or her book.
Sure, a traditional publisher will do some promotion through channels he has available to him. But it’s highly unlikely that he’s going to send you on a book tour, create massive posters to display in bookstores, have your book placed on the front counter or center aisle of bookstores nationwide, schedule your appearance on Oprah and get your book reviewed in the New York Times.
You might pay your pay-to-publish (self-publishing) company for one of their promotional packages. I wish you wouldn’t. I have never heard that any of these have been at all successful for authors.
Rather, I would like to see you accept full responsibility for promoting your book—look at it as a job. Take it seriously. Pursue it daily. Here’s what you’ll need:
• Ideas and creativity.
• Leads—lots and lots of leads. When promoting my cat stories book, I seek out appropriate directories listing, for example, businesses that sell cat books, reviewers of animal-related books, sites that sell and/or recommend books for cat people, cat shows where I could have a booth and sell books, etc. You’ll also seek out single leads—it’s very time-consuming, but oh so necessary to the health of your book sales.
• Persistence.
• Tons of energy.
• A willingness to try new things—such as public speaking, negotiating with booksellers, hiring a publicist, etc.
• A sense of follow-through.
If you want to sell copies of your book beyond your family and friends, you are going to have to launch a serious promotions plan. And this brings us back to the beginning. Before ever writing this book, know who your audience is and where they are. Define the purpose of your book and make sure it is valid and not frivolous. Explore your path of promotion before ever writing the book—certainly before publishing it. And be very honest with yourself about what promotion entails.
Do yourself a favor, if you haven’t done so already. Join SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network). You’ll have access to monthly tele-seminars with experts related to publishing and promotion. And you’ll have access to the monthly SPAWN Market Update as well as years of archived copies and this is where you’ll learn absolutely volumes about promoting your book. This newsletter is filled with ideas and resources for authors.
http://www.spawn.org
The only way to succeed as an author is to be highly proactive in the promotion of your book. There’s no other way. If you want individual help promoting your book, consider signing up for my online book promotion course.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm