Are you an author who is running out of ideas for promoting your book? Are you at a loss for fresh blog entries or article ideas? Do you draw a blank when trying to plan a presentation? Why not rely on your audience to lead the way? How?
Listen to what your readers say. Then incorporate these comments into your promotional material, blog posts and articles. In other words, use testimonials to point up your book’s best features. You might consider your book useful to one audience, when there’s another distinct group of people who are also benefiting from it. You might feel that one aspect of your book is most valuable to your readership, but customers are saying something different. If a portion of your audience appreciates the case histories above all else, be sure to play those case histories up in your promotion, for example.
Return to where your audience congregates. Through trial and error, you will learn which promotional activities and which venues attract more of your readers. Use this information to make your marketing plan. Likewise, you’ll soon learn which article and blog topics are most popular with readers. Use this knowledge in planning your promotional strategy.
For example, readers for my publishing-related books attend writing conferences that focus on publishing. My material doesn’t usually resonate with writers who are still working on their style and those who are writing for their own pleasure. My readers (and potential clients) attend book festivals in search of publishing information. Do they attend flea markets? Not so much.
Respond to the questions you get. If you have a nonfiction book on practically any subject, if you are getting lots of exposure and if you make yourself available to your readership, you will get comments and questions at your blogsite and via email. Treasure these questions as they are the basis for blog entries, articles and speech topics. They may even inspire online courses/workshops or even another book.
I have to credit my readers and those who follow my blog, read my articles and attend my workshops with many, MANY of my article, blog and workshop topics. The comments from numerous disheartened authors over a two year period sparked me to write, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. What were the comments? They boiled down to these: “I wish I’d met you before I sunk all of that money into the [pay-to-publish] company.I wish I knew then what I know now. I should never have rushed my project. I didn’t know anything about what I was doing.”
This week, think about the comments and questions you get related to your nonfiction book. Go through the questions that have come to you since you wrote the book. And use them to promote your book to your true audience.
Visit Patricia Fry’s website: study the articles, use some of the resources, consider purchasing one or more books, sign up for an online course, email a comment or question and you may become an inspiration for one of my future books, articles, speeches or blog posts. http://www.matilijapress.com