Category writers

Oct 30 2013

Book Reviews, Interviews, Guest Blogs, & Author Support

Cool Books

I see many bloggers doing book reviews, author interviews, guest blogs, and supporting authors in several ways. That’s awesome! 🙂

I’ve been wanting to do such things for some time now, but the main hurdle has been something that I often preach on my blog:

  • Gear your content toward your specific target audience.

If you write a sci-fi book, for example, a blog that attracts sci-fi readers is the best place for a book review or author interview. Much of the content on my blog, in contrast, is of general interest to many different kinds of authors.

As you may have seen in a recent post, I finally thought of a way to help provide a small measure of support for specific authors and books in the context of my usual content. I plan to make more posts of this sort in the future, including:

  • Demonstrating what is marketable about specific books.
  • Illustrating marketing strategies that specific authors are employing.
  • Showing specific book covers that work well.
  • Discussing marketing features that specific author websites are utilizing.
  • Describing specific books, authors, or websites that provide good examples of some marketing, publishing, or formatting concept.

I feel that specific examples can be instructive, and by featuring a specific book or author, I would be supporting fellow authors in a small way.

Note that I will only mention books or authors by name that I feel are doing something well. Although it may be instructive to point out mistakes, I won’t point out any mistakes of specific books. (When I do point out common mistakes, which can be useful, I do it in general terms, not in reference to any specific books or authors. Well, I may point out my own mistakes, but that’s different.)

Another way that I plan to provide a little support to fellow authors is with some new pages. You can see one of the new pages already, called Cool Books (look for it on the index at the top of the page or in the sidebar to the right). It just has a few scary books right now, but I’ll be adding to it as I get the chance (keep in mind that I’m also working on the Read Tuesday stuff).

If you have an author interview or guest blog in mind that coincides with the publishing or marketing content that I often provide on this blog (e.g. you want to discuss your publishing or marketing experience), please feel encouraged to contact me with your proposal. 🙂

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 29 2013

Book Proposals for Indie Authors . . . WHAT?!

Proposal

One of the advantages of self-publishing is that you can spend more time writing your book instead of investing much time and effort writing and sending query letters and book proposals.

However, it is still beneficial to indie authors to learn how to write a book proposal and apply it to their own books.

I don’t mean to actually sit down and write a detailed, lengthy proposal.

I do mean to consider the ingredients, think how you would prepare each part of the proposal, and do the research that it would entail.

Why? Because it can help you with your marketability and marketing.

When you write a book proposal, you’re trying to convince a publisher that your book is marketable. Writing a proposal will help you better understand how to improve your book’s marketability and how to market your book.

Here are some examples:

  • A book proposal requires you to identify your specific target audience. You need to pinpoint your audience, justify it, and research numbers. The publisher wants to know that the audience exists and how large it is. Why do this? When you design your cover, write your blurb, and choose categories and keywords, you will know who you are trying to sell your book to.
  • You need to make lists of current competitive and complimentary titles when you write a proposal. The publisher wants to see proof that books similar to yours can succeed, to know if your book fills a need, and to determine if the market is already saturated. Why does it matter to you? First, you should share these same concerns. Second, checking out similar titles will help you see what kinds of covers attract your target audience and show you what kinds of formatting are common in your genre.
  • Your experience and expertise are important when proposing a new book. Not only that, but you must present these in a way that will show that you’re the best person to write your book. Why bother? If your author biography is effective at convincing customers that you’re well-suited to you write your book, this can be significant.
  • A query letter must catch the editor’s or agent’s interest while also briefly describing your book. So what? Well, doesn’t a blurb basically achieve this? Your blurb shouldn’t read like a query letter; they are two different things with different objectives. However, they do both need to catch attention and briefly describe what to expect. A little practice trying to sell your book with a query letter may help you see your blurb from the perspective of marketability.
  • You must research marketing options and prepare a promotional plan as part of a book proposal. Publishers want to know what you will do to help sell your book (not what you’re willing to do, but what you will do—if you ever write a book proposal, this distinction will be important). Why worry about marketing? Because, unfortunately, books generally don’t sell themselves. It’s better to learn about marketing before you publish your book than afterward. You should do pre-marketing, such as building a following and creating buzz before you publish. You’ll want to have a concrete marketing plan in place when you do publish.
  • A proposal also requires you to prepare an outline, sample chapter, and chapter summaries. If the editor becomes interested in your book, this will help the editor see your project in more concrete terms. Why does it matter? The sample chapter of a book proposal should sell the book to an editor. Similarly, the Look Inside sample of a book must sell the book to a buyer. The outline and chapter summaries can help you see the structure of your book, make connections, and keep things in order. It can also be a useful planning tool to authors who like to plan things out before they write. Authors who write by the seat of their pants might still find it helpful afterwards.

If you go through the trouble of trying to get published and get rejected or change your mind, use the experience of writing the query letter and book proposal to help you with marketability and marketing.

Note that Candace Johnson at Change It Up Editing has a 10-step article in progress on how to write a compelling nonfiction book proposal.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 27 2013

An Example of Successful Nonfiction Marketability and Marketing

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Today, instead of discussing marketing ideas in general terms, I will provide a specific example.

I think this will be quite useful. This post features a specific nonfiction book, which has many instructive marketability features, and its author, who has done some wonderful things in the way of marketing which are accessible to most authors.

The e-book is currently number #1 in Happiness at Amazon, and was in the top 1000 in paid books in the Kindle store when I checked on it last night. This is a result of the book’s marketability combined with the author’s marketing. I will try to reveal many of the instructive features that have made this book successful, with the hope that doing so may help other authors.

I plan to do a future post on a fiction book, too. I also have one in mind that features a specific website with instructive marketing and publicity features. If these work out well, I’ll consider preparing posts like these more often.

The book I selected is Happiness as a Second Language by Valerie Alexander. This book is available as a paperback, e-book, and audiobook. I happened to discover Valerie’s blog several months ago and immediately bought the book because it strongly appealed to me. (I have several books from my fellow bloggers, and you can bet I’ll be a happy shopper on Read Tuesday.)

I recommend checking out the paperback edition on Amazon. Explore the book’s detail page and the Look Inside. There are specific features that help its marketability. I’ll refer to these; if you see them for yourself, it will be more instructive. The Kindle edition has the much better sales rank presently, but the paperback edition has some nice formatting that I’ll mention in a moment.

What makes this book so marketable?

Several things:

  • The concept: Who doesn’t want to be happier? It’s a hot commodity. But it’s not just happiness: It is teaching happiness like it’s a foreign language (which correlates with experience).
  • Cover appeal: (1) Yellow is a happy color, which fits the theme. I like the ‘A,’ because it sends out good vibes. I feel happy just looking at it. (2) Three color rule: Mostly yellow, contrasting with black and red nicely. (3) Easily readable, yet the font is interesting and seems to fit the theme. A large title is common in nonfiction. (4) Grabs the attention of the target audience quickly. (5) Simple yet effective. Didn’t make the mistake of being too busy.
  • Effective blurb: It’s concise and clear. It comes right out with the best stuff. What’s really nice is that it presents ideas that seem foreign, so you feel like there is a lot of material you can learn, but it also makes everything seem like it might be easy to understand (“happy colors” isn’t technical jargon, but sounds easy to learn and apply).
  • Formatted blurb: Note the occasional use of boldface and italics, which can be done through AuthorCentral.
  • Emotion: Check out Valerie’s bio. She experienced life’s challenges and overcame them with the techniques that she explains in her book. It’s a moving success story. Notice that she just briefly mentioned her low point in her bio, instead of going into detail her. Wise decision, I think.
  • Smile: Her author pic shows a nice smile, which it must, because she’s selling happiness. The photo is appealing, which is important.
  • Professional Look Inside: This is very important. Once the cover and blurb entice the reader, the Look Inside has to close the deal. The copyright page shows that it was published by Goalkeeper Media, Inc. Look at the bottom of the copyright page where it lists people who took the author photo, designed the cover, did the cover layout, and designed the interior; you’ll find similar information in many traditionally published books.
  • Design marks: The design marks on the first page of each chapter and the page headers look professional (I’m referring to the paperback edition). Note that the page header marks are light so as not to call too much attention from the reader (and distract from the reading). If you can find any of the tables or textboxes, they are well-formatted, too (maybe try searching for “Pop Quiz” in the Search Inside feature). Professional touches make a big difference.
  • Editorial reviews: A few of these on your book’s detail page can be helpful.

The book looks professional from cover to cover. This is so important. Combine this with content that appeals to a large target audience a book will have amazing potential.

That’s what readers want. They want books that appear professional from cover to cover and on the product page, where both the content and packaging appeal to them. Isn’t that what you want when you’re shopping for a book?

What did the author do to market this book?

Note that these are all observations that I have made on my own. I did contact Valerie to get her consent before preparing this post, but I have based everything on my own observations.

Like just about everyone else reading this post, Valerie has a blog. I checked out her Speak Happiness blog and the archives date back to January, 2013. I checked her Kindle and paperback product pages, and her publication date is April 30, 2013. Therefore, I see that she started building an online following and creating buzz for her book 3-4 months before she actually published it. Premarketing is very important.

You can see from her blog site that she—like many authors—is also active on Twitter and Facebook. Her headers are effective, too. They help to brand an image from her cover.

She doesn’t just have the social media going, she’s also an active and supportive member of the community. I know this firsthand from my occasional interactions with her on both of our blogs.

Creativity can be put to good use in marketing. Check out the Reader Gallery on her blog site. You see pictures of readers holding her book up. This was a clever idea, and Valerie succeeded in getting participation.

One of the best things, in my humble opinion, that Valerie has done in the way of marketing is to get visibility among her target audience in high-traffic areas. This can be huge. She achieved this by publishing articles that relate to her book’s content. This is a very valuable resource that most authors don’t bother with. There are so many places online and offline that need relevant content that it gives you a chance to succeed in getting an article published and mentioning next to your name, Author of My Book Title.

Valerie published multiple articles with the Huffington Post. You can’t do it if you don’t try. Valerie tried and succeeded, and it greatly helps with exposure.

When I first contacted Valerie to mention that I enjoyed her book, months ago, she had asked very politely if I might be interested in doing a blog interview with her. At the time, I said no. As you know if you follow my blog, I don’t presently do book reviews or blog interviews. But it shows that she was contacting bloggers to help gain exposure. From a recent comment she made on one of my blog posts, I learned that she’s had some recent success with bloggers featuring her book. (Yes, today, months later, I have featured her book. I still don’t do interviews or book reviews so-to-speak, but I am testing out the idea of preparing posts with useful marketing ideas that feature a specific book.)

I think it’s very notable that she didn’t price her e-book at the bare minimum. Her original e-book price was $6.99. I’d say that most of the books in the 99 cent to $2.99 price range (but note that I myself have some for $2.99) should actually be in the $3.99 to $5.99 range instead. Exceptions might be the first book in a series or every book in a really long series, for example. I know some authors with marketable books whose sales actually increased when raising the price from $2.99 to $3.99. Many readers who get frustrated with a 99-cent or $2.99 e-book purchase shop in the $3.99 to $5.99 window, hoping to get what you pay for. (On the other hand, they still want value for their money. A short story can be a hard sell, but pricing a short story in the higher price range might not work out.)

You can create the perception of value. First, the price itself helps to establish this. Next, personal interactions with your target audience add value to your book. If you’re providing quality service like this and you have a marketable book, you don’t have to price at the low end of the spectrum.

Also note that a higher price may actually help your sales rank if you can succeed in generating sales at  the higher price. If a 99-cent e-book sells 100 copies per day, a $5.99 e-book that sells 50 copies per day actually makes more profit for Amazon. So Amazon should (for Amazon’s own benefit), and seems to, factor price into sales rank.

Her relatively higher e-book price also helped her achieve some recent success. Valerie placed multiple ads (BookBub, Book Gorilla, and others) for a special, one-time promotional discount of her e-book. Happiness as a Second Language is presently 99 cents, which is a huge savings. The promotion ends on Halloween, so you still have a chance to take advantage of this if the book happens to interest you. (I wasn’t asked to say this. I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.)

Valerie is just doing one huge promotion this October, and after that her e-book will be permanently priced at $4.99 (a discount off the original price, but nothing like 99 cents). I’m fond of this strategy. She went all-out to promote the daylights out of her book’s sale. She makes it very clear that it’s a one-time deal, which provides a sense of urgency. After the sale, nobody will be thinking to wait until the next sale.

I really like that she isn’t giving her book away for free, yet she is making highly effective use of a one-time sale. She’s getting ample exposure while still drawing royalties. Unlike freebies, since people are paying for the book, they’re probably actually reading the blurb to make sure it’s something they want and they are more likely to actually read the book once they buy it.

There are a couple of marketing tools that Valerie has used, which many authors don’t. One is a book trailer and another is an audiobook (there is a significant market for audiobooks, especially among truck drivers; if your target audience is in this market, it may be helpful to do).

An important note about Valerie’s book trailer is that she shot the video on her iPhone. You don’t need access to a professional movie studio to do this. If you need a little help, try contacting the film department at the nearest university. There is a good chance that a film student would be interested in earning a little income to help you out.

When I showed Valerie a draft of this post, she mentioned that she sees her shortcomings more than what she may be doing right and compares herself to other authors who seem to be doing everything right. If you feel this way, as many authors do, there is something you can take from this. Even authors who seem to have achieved various degrees of success struggle with doubts, find faults in themselves, and see greener grass on the other side. In a way, this can be good and help to keep you humble. It may be helpful to other authors to realize that even successful authors experience these same issues.

I hope you got something useful out of this article. In the past, I haven’t done interviews or book reviews. This is as close as I’ve come. I feel like I’m providing useful marketing content while also helping another author at the same time. Please let me know how you feel about this, as feedback will help me decide whether or not to try it again in the future.

Let’s offer a big THANK YOU to Valerie for allowing me to feature her book in my post.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 25 2013

What Motivates Me to Market My Books?

Market Pic

This is what you need to find for yourself—an idea that will motivate you to market your books. You’re unique. I can’t tell you what will motivate you. Consider a variety of alternatives. Try to understand marketing in different terms. Search for a reason that will make you—that’s right, you—market your books.

I’ll offer a few ideas at the end of this post to help get you thinking. In the meantime, I’ll share my story of what motivates me to market my books. Maybe this will help you with your search for a motivational tool.

My story unfolds by showing what is commonly done (that’s what I did, too), instead of what should have been done. After this, I’ll show how I found my motivation to market my books.

We all struggle with this. I did. When I published my first book in 2008, fortunately, I had a few things going for me starting out:

  • A Ph.D. in physics. This expertise was invaluable for my math and science books.
  • Experience formatting lengthy, technical articles for professional publication. I had also been making and formatting worksheets for several years before I ever published my first workbook.
  • Several years of teaching experience. This is helpful for many of my books which aim to provide instruction of some sort.
  • Much passion for writing and teaching.
  • Ten years of sales experience working my way through school; mostly at a department store, but I had even sold second-hand books for a few years. This helped me understand marketing and marketability, but I was initially focused only on the latter.
  • CreateSpace was relatively new in 2008; many authors hadn’t even heard about it yet. There was much less competition. (Note that my books weren’t on Kindle back then, and even now I sell about 8 paperbacks for every e-book, largely because of the nonfiction content I write—many of the books, such as workbooks, aren’t even suitable for Kindle.)

However, at the time, I lacked one very important ingredient: the motivation to market my books.

Most new authors similarly have a few things going for them—probably different things, but your strengths, whatever they may be, can help you succeed. Most new authors also lack the key marketing ingredient. Both marketing and marketability are highly important (noting that you can include having a great idea, good storytelling skills, editing, cover design, effective blurb, and such in marketability).

Many new authors feel the way that I did back in 2008:

  • If a book has merit, it should eventually sell on its own. (Problems: getting discovered; difficult to overcome slow sales rank; hard to get reviews until it sells—and if you have reviews, but no sales rank to support it compared to the publication date, that will make buyers leery.)
  • I didn’t feel comfortable asking people to buy my own books; I didn’t want to toot my own horn. Except for my mom, I didn’t even ask family or friends to buy my books—instead, I sent them free copies. (Problems: initial sales help your sales rank; you need to promote your book to help it get discovered; if you don’t feel strongly enough about your writing to tell others about it, why should they read it?)
  • I didn’t do any pre-marketing. I had no website, no blog, and wasn’t even building buzz for my books. (Problems: pre-marketing helps stimulate early sales and reviews; early sales help to build early customers-also-bought relations; exceptional pre-marketing can land a book on various bestseller lists, which can greatly improve exposure.)

As too many authors do, I just had my books out there, hoping they would survive on their own. I was very fortunate. Some of my books had enough marketability to get discovered and sell on their own (keep in mind, there are many, many more books on the market now in 2013 than there were in 2008—so if I were starting out today, maybe I wouldn’t have had the same good fortune).

Even so, sales were very slow for the first seven months. I published several books starting in July, 2008. One was a “real book,” while the others were stat and log books. I had had the foresight to publish the stat and log books, which related to my hobbies, golf and chess, using worksheets that I had previously made for my own personal use, knowing that this would give me some needed experience in formatting and publishing before I published my main book, which at the time was The Visual Guide to Extra Dimensions, Volume 1. I managed to get these stat and log books and my extra dimensions book ready for publication at the end of the summer of 2008, and that’s when I self-published them.

Sales were dismal from July, 2008 thru February, 2009. That was a long stretch where my conviction to self-publish was strongly tested. Like many other new authors, I got through that by working on my next book, The Visual Guide to Extra Dimensions, Volume 2.

When I released Volume 2 in March, 2009, sales exploded. My two extra dimensions books were ranked around 5,000 for a couple of weeks. Sales slowly dropped, but then I began publishing math workbooks for my Improve Your Math Fluency series that summer, and my overall sales have improved tremendously every year without exception. (My extra dimensions books are no longer among my top-selling books.)

A big factor in my improved sales is that I finally found my motivation to market my books. The three keys to success are:

  • Develop a good book, including the idea and writing—both the big picture and the details.
  • Have marketability that will sell your book when it gets discovered (cover and blurb that attract the right audience, content from cover to cover that will satisfy that audience).
  • Market your book effectively to help it get discovered and branded. This step requires motivation and patience.

Motivation for this third step eluded me for quite some time.

The first part of my marketing motivation came from the big boost in sales that I had in March, 2009. Also, a couple of strangers had contacted me to thank me for writing my books (even more amazing is that I hadn’t provided my contact info, and didn’t have a website or blog—they searched online, found where I taught, and discovered my email address the hard way).

This gave me confidence. Prior to this, I had felt tentative. Afterwards, I felt confident that I could write content that would please a significant audience and create marketability that was good enough to attract that audience.

Think about this. My books hadn’t changed. From July, 2008 thru March, 2009, the first volume of my extra dimensions book was exactly the same. What changed was my confidence. Confidence is something that you can change internally. You don’t need to wait for external factors to build your confidence.

When you’re tentative, you’re much less likely to get the sales that you want to gain the confidence you’re looking for. When you’re tentative, you’re also less likely to put the effort into the book’s marketability to give your book its best chance for success.

If you can start out with confidence (but not overconfidence), this can make a huge difference when you’re getting your book ready to publish and when you release your book.

Confidence was just the beginning, though.

As I gained confidence in my books, I became curious about the marketing aspect. The more I thought about it and researched it, the more I realized that marketing wasn’t quite what I had made it out to be. Over time, I gained a new perspective:

  • Marketing doesn’t have to be done through advertising, and may even be more effective if it’s indirect. People get interested in your book when they discover that you’re an author; you don’t have to volunteer it. In person, you can wait for people to ask what you’ve been up to; online, you can simply mention your book in your profile.
  • One of the most important parts of marketing is branding. It’s about getting the title, name, or cover seen and remembered by the target audience. I don’t buy a certain brand of toilet paper because the television told me which brand to buy. Oh, but I do buy a brand of toilet paper that I recognize through branding. You want people to think, “I’ve seen this before,” when they see your book, weeks or months from now when they’re shopping for books.
  • People are more likely to develop a strong interest in your book when they interact with you personally and see your passion for your book. Interacting with your target audience is a valuable personal experience that we small-time authors can provide. Reading a book by an author you’ve actually met: Isn’t that a wonderful thing?
  • If you don’t feel strongly enough about your own book to market it, why should anyone want to read it? Are you saying that it isn’t good enough to share? If you don’t know if it’s good, is it because you didn’t put enough effort into it? If you feel that it’s good enough to publish, then you have to feel comfortable sharing it. You have to work on your perspective.
  • Publishers spend months creating buzz for books. They send out several advance review copies. Other authors, including many indie authors, put a lot of effort into marketing their books. There are millions of books to choose from. The books that are marketed effectively are much more likely to be discovered.

I approached this scientifically (after all, I am a physicist). I did research on marketing. I did some marketing experiments. My curiosity about marketing helped motivate me somewhat. I gained some needed marketing experience this way.

But neither confidence nor curiosity were my chief marketing motivators. They helped me along, but they weren’t enough.

My main motivator came when I realized how many other indie authors there are, and how challenging it is to self-publish. On top of coming up with a great idea and writing your book, which seems like it should be the hard part, you also need to:

  • Be good at writing and storytelling.
  • Serve as your own editor.
  • Format your own book.
  • Design your own cover.
  • Illustrate your book.
  • Market your book.

It’s a challenge just to be a good author. It’s more than just a challenge to be a good author, editor, formatter, cover designer, illustrator, promoter, publicist, and public relations specialist. You shouldn’t have to be a pro-of-all-trades (not just a jack-of-all-trades) to self-publish a book successfully. But you either need to be, or invest money where you aren’t (with the risk that you may not recover it).

I strongly support the indie publishing concept. Self-publishing offers so much:

  • Freedom in writing (not unlimited, but now you aren’t forced to give into an editor’s demands).
  • Greater per-book royalties (and you deserve it since you’re much more than just an author).
  • Instant acceptance (no need for query letters, book proposals, rejection letters, or contractual negotiations).
  • Quick to market (skip several months of contacting an agent, writing letters and proposals instead of more books, and a lengthy delay waiting for the publisher to get your book ready).
  • No exclusivity (anyone can publish; no gatekeepers are deciding what is worthy).
  • Access to Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords, and more (the door is wide open). I strongly support the big companies who’ve provided such amazing opportunities to indies.

The more marketable and more effectively marketed books tend to rise to the top, and the less marketable and more poorly marketed books tend to fall to the bottom.

My big motivator came when I realized that I could have a significant, positive impact on many other indie authors and the image of indie publishing. This is something bigger and far worthier than my own books.

It’s not just me, of course. I see many other authors and even small publishers helping indie authors and supporting a positive image for indie publishing. (This helps to provide balance against those who speak negatively, those who fear indie publishing, and bullies and snobs and such.)

One indie author is tiny and vulnerable. Together we can thrive.

By the way, this is the spirit behind Read Tuesday—a Black Friday type of even just for books. It’s a great opportunity for indie authors and readers.

My WordPress blog is geared toward helping indie authors in various ways, especially marketing. It’s not about selling my books. I put ample information up here to provide free help to anyone willing to seek it, and I have organized my posts in an index to make it easy to find. There is a ton of free information here (feel free to recommend the free content). My hope is that it will help others.

It’s not just the how-to part. I also try to help with motivation and putting things in a perspective that may be useful to humble writing artists who are passionate about their books, but who may not yet have the mindset they need to effectively market their books.

This is my marketing motivator:

  • I’m motivated to market my books to show by example things that other authors can be doing and to share my experience with others. I’m not searching for secrets that I can keep to myself; I’m looking for ideas that may help other authors.

As I said, I see many other authors sharing tips that they have learned. I see many other authors helping new authors out. Indie authors are coming together, and we have much strength through this.

Recall what it’s like to be a kid. There are bullies, there are good influences, and there are bad influences. Just think what a positive difference it makes when an older kid takes a genuine interest in a younger kid and serves as a positive influence, like a big brother or sister. Or even when a group of kids the same age band together and support one another in positive ways, keeping one another on track, and helping to motivate one another. Great things can come of this. Indie publishing isn’t so different.

What motivates you to market your books? That’s the million-dollar question. Most likely, money isn’t the answer. The best motivator for you is something you’ll have to work out for yourself. There are many possibilities. Following are a few examples:

  • Are you sharing something valuable to others? This could be how to lead a healthy lifestyle, help learning a foreign language, or a novel that will help preteens deal with peer pressures.
  • Will your book improve people’s lives through entertainment? It may be a fantasy world that people will fall in love with, an adventure that people want to experience but couldn’t in real life, or a travel guide that will help tourists make the most of their vacations.
  • Do you have a story that needs to be told? Maybe it will draw out emotions from readers, give people hope, illustrate the strength of the human spirit, or help others in similar situations.
  • Does your book support a noble cause? Perhaps the royalties are donated to charity, the book promotes a worthy cause, or spreads awareness about how to prevent one of life’s problems.
  • Have others told you that you couldn’t succeed as an author? If you’ve ever been told that you’ll never be a successful author, that your writing isn’t suitable to publish, that self-published books don’t stand a chance, or if you’ve received several letters of rejection from publishers, you may be able to use this to help motivate you. Where there is a strong resolve, there is a way to overcome the naysayers.

You must first sell your book to yourself and convince yourself that marketing your book effectively is beneficial to others before you will be properly motivated to help your book get discovered.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing); but you can find an abundance of free material on my WordPress blog. 🙂

Oct 24 2013

A Writer’s Health

Heart

Writers have several health hazards to contend with:

  • Anxiety. Will they love it? Will they hate it? Why have my sales stopped? Will that bad review kill my sales? Should I have posted that comment? Did I spend too much on my cover?
  • Indigestion. Stress is a factor for common digestive problems such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Diet is important for good digestion, so writers need to work a good eating plan into their busy schedules.
  • Heart health. All that time sitting down at the computer writing needs to be balanced with some exercise.
  • Vision. Reading and writing several hours each day can cause eye strain.

Stress is a big problem. It’s easy to get, hard to get rid of, and can have a big impact on your health. Stress is a factor in many common chronic health conditions like asthma and IBS.

It’s easy to say, but hard to do. But to help reduce stress, you need to not let things get to you. You also need to avoid things that can increase anxiety like checking sales reports avidly, checking reviews frequently, responding to reviews, or setting unreasonable expectations. Find things that you can do or people you can interact with which make you feel more comfortable.

Regular exercise is important for your health, and may even help you release some stress. At the very least, exercise for a few minutes multiple times each day. Force yourself to get up from the computer periodically and take an exercise break. Surely, you can spare a few minutes here and there.

There are probably times where you are stuck in your writing—great times to get up, stretch your muscles, and move your arms and legs around with some exercises. When you find yourself just checking one more thing online when you really don’t need to, or checking stats that you had just checked a few minutes ago, force yourself to get up and exercise for a few minutes.

Something like an elliptical is handy because you can move both your arms and legs actively for a few minutes. If you have asthma, exercise in spurts instead of lengthy workouts if longer workouts are more likely to trigger your symptoms. Even if you don’t have asthma, working out more frequently for shorter periods might be easier to fit into your schedule. There may be health benefits from longer workouts, but shorter workouts are better than nothing.

Swimming is another great way to exercise your limbs, if you have access to a pool. But you don’t need to invest in an elliptical or swimming pool to exercise. All you need to do is invest some time. After incorporating regular exercise into your schedule, you might just find that you feel better in more ways than one.

If you have digestive problems like acid reflux or IBS, you need to watch what you eat, as certain foods are more likely to trigger your symptoms. In addition, minimizing stress and exercising may help with these conditions, too.

It may benefit your heart to avoid long periods of sitting down, and to get up, stretch your muscles, and move around for a few minutes in between. It may also benefit your vision to rest your eyes, avoiding long durations where you stare at a computer monitor.

I’m not a medical doctor. If you want medical advice, consult with a medical professional. However, if you have a math or physics emergency, I do have doctorate in physics. 🙂

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 13 2013

Readers and Authors, What Constitutes Self-Promotion?

Self Promo

This is an important issue for both readers and authors. Authors know they need to be discovered through marketing, and so readers come across countless attempts by authors to get their books discovered by them.

At the same time, it isn’t easy for readers to navigate through hundreds of thousands of books to discover those few that most interest them. Authors want to be discovered, and readers want to discover books they will enjoy. Successful marketing helps readers find books that are likely to be a good fit for them. This helps readers. In contrast, ineffective marketing can be quite a nuisance, and distracts readers from the opportunity to discover books that are likely to interest them.

The most obvious attempts by authors to get discovered by readers come in the form of spam, where an author repeatedly posts about the book with high frequency. Many authors realize that this is more likely to develop a bad reputation or simply be ignored than it is to succeed. It’s also prohibited on most forums and online platforms if done too frequently.

There is a danger in being branded as an annoying insect if posting too frequently on social media platforms. Borderline spamming might get the title or author name out there for possible branding—“I recognize this book,” or, “This must be a big-name author because I see that name all over the place”—but it’s also likely to be tuned out or to brand a negative image—“I hate that author for spamming the boards all the time,” or, “I think I’ll click that Unfollow button so I can find the posts I like.”

One step down from spamming the board is explicit self-promotion. For example, “Hello, I just wrote a book called Best Book Ever by Self Promoter. Please buy it.”

Some community forums—like the Amazon customer discussions (which attract some authors because they expect to find customers there, but may not be the ideal place to get a book discovered)—don’t allow explicit self-promotion like this. Even where explicit self-promotion is permitted, it’s often frowned upon by various (and sometimes outspoken) community members.

Aside from this, explicit self-promotion has the problems of overt advertising. Most people prefer to avoid commercials. We put up with commercials on television, radio, and magazines for lack of a free alternative (though you can pay for commercial-free alternatives). Except when you need a bathroom break in the middle of a movie, you usually aren’t pleased to have your show interrupted. (If you want to shout “Infomercial,” I’ll grant you a point.)

On the other hand, some level of self-promotion is what authors need to do. Spam and explicit self-promotion to the point that it seems that your post served no other purpose may not be in your best interest even where they are allowed. However, if you want to be discovered, you do need to promote yourself in some way.

Effective marketing requires visibility among your target audience. You need your target audience to see your book cover and read or hear your book’s title and your name for branding to do its work.

Essentially, this is self-promotion. You’re trying to get discovered. You have to tell people about your book for this to happen. Yet spam and too much self-promotion can backfire.

The trick is to get discovered in a way that doesn’t come across as self-promotion.

This begs the question: Exactly what do people perceive as self-promotion? Part of the problem is that everybody doesn’t agree on the answer.

Following are a few suggestions to help judge this:

  • Does it seem like you are present mainly just to promote your book? Or are you providing relevant and meaningful contributions?
  • Does the mention of your book seem out of place? Or are you mentioning your book at your own site, or to establish your expertise or experience as an author, or to provide a reference to relevant content?
  • Does it look like you’re trying to grab everyone’s attention? Or does it seem like you’re just hoping to get discovered by those who enjoy interacting with you. (For example, it could be the distinction between coming right out and telling anyone about your book versus mentioning this when asked or only offering this information in your profile.)
  • Is your book irrelevant for much of the audience? Or does your audience closely coincide with the target audience for your book?

Context is important, too. If you’re running a special one-day sale, you want to get the word out, and people in your target audience may be grateful for the discount. Also, more self-promotion is to be expected on your own turf than otherwise (but posting too much about yourself isn’t as likely to attract an audience as providing meaningful content for your target audience).

Self-promotion isn’t just an issue online. It’s also important when interacting in person.

How do you feel about self-promotion as a reader or as an author? How do you define the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not? Do you think there is a type of self-promotion that needs to be done, but another type of self-promotion that should be avoided? What kinds of marketing do you consider not to be self-promotion?

Well, we’ve reached the end of this post so I better mention my book now. I might as well promote Read Tuesday while I’m at it. 🙂

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Read Tuesday: It’s going to be HUGE!

Oct 7 2013

Your Muse and Murphy’s Law

Muse Murphy Pic

Murphy and your muse are surely conspiring with one another. At least, that’s the case with my muse. The evidence is in.

I didn’t have any writing ideas all morning. One minute after driving away from the house, my muse gave me a great idea for a poem. (I’ll probably butcher the idea when I try to write the poem, but that’s beside the point.)

Fortunately, I have a pen in the car. (Learned from experience.) But not paper. (Perhaps I didn’t learn my lesson well enough.) But we writers are resourceful; I have plenty of napkins.

Now I just need to wait for a red light, traffic jam, funeral procession (now there’s a poor soul whose problem is much greater than my own), train, road construction, or one of the many delays that I ordinarily encounter virtually every time I drive anywhere.

But this wasn’t any ordinary drive. I wanted a red light. I just needed a few seconds to scribble down some words.

Green light. Green light. Green light. Ah, finally a red light. Where’s that napkin? Hey, it’s green already!

Meanwhile, my muse is feeding me more and more ideas for the poem. Then I get an idea for my blog. Then I get another idea for my blog. I know if I don’t write these down, it will anger my muse. She doesn’t like to repeat herself.

Where are all the red lights? How is it possible not to get a red light when you want one? I once drove 70 miles, getting every one of several lights red in two different cities. Oh, but that day I had been in a hurry.

I did manage to reach my destination and jot down some notes on a napkin. Then I went into the restaurant, only to think of yet another idea, with my napkin and pen back in the car.

Very funny, muse. We all know that muses have a great sense of humor. They really put the muse in amusement.

Of course, this isn’t the only evidence. We have storage rooms full of it.

Your muse and Murphy’s law: They’re definitely in on it together.

What has your muse done to you lately?

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Sep 30 2013

Authors: Try Giving Yourself Advice

If another author asked you for advice and you checked out the other author’s book, would suggestions come to your mind? Maybe you would comment on what you do or don’t like about the cover. You might have suggestions for the blurb. If you found something in the Look Inside that put you off, would you mention it?

People generally love to give out advice. That’s why everyone tends to receive a lot of advice, even when it wasn’t sought. People form opinions easily, and many people don’t hesitate to share them.

Even if you don’t share your opinion so freely, you still form opinions. Suppose you’re checking out a book. You’ll know in an instant if you like or dislike the cover, if the blurb attracts your interest or not, and if there is something that you do or don’t like about the book.

But a funny thing about advice is that while people love to give it to others, they often don’t take their own advice.

  • Evidently, you don’t have to have a good track record in your own relationships in order to give dating advice to others.
  • Apparently, you don’t need to have any skill in a sport yourself in order to give tips to others.
  • Clearly, you don’t have to make the best work-related decisions in order to advise others about their career paths.

Here’s my point. If you’re looking at someone else’s cover, you might find yourself wondering, “How can you put that on your book?” But if it’s your own cover, you don’t tend to be as critical. If you’re shopping for a book, you might think to yourself, “That blurb doesn’t try to catch my interest at all.” But when it’s your own blurb, you’re already interested in it. When you pay five bucks for a book, you tend to get disappointed if you catch several typos. But when it’s your own book, you often read what you meant to write instead of what you actually wrote.

There are two things you can learn from this:

  • You need to try to step aside and evaluate your work critically. Take a break from it and try to approach it as if you were seeing it for the first time, and try to evaluate it as if it were someone else’s book.
  • No matter how hard you try, you can’t see your own work as if it were written by someone else. There is no substitute for external opinions. Getting this before you publish is invaluable.

I know a few authors who will think that they judge themselves more harshly than anyone else – i.e. you feel that you are your own toughest critic. Many of us feel that way.

But we’re our toughest critics only in certain aspects. You’re not your own toughest critic in every aspect. You judge yourself harshly only in the areas that you care about most. You give yourself a large allowance in areas that you don’t care much about.

However, those areas that aren’t so important to you might be very important to shoppers. So even if you are your own toughest critic in some regards, honest external feedback – if you can get it – is still very likely to help you find ways to improve your book.

You shouldn’t necessarily change everything based on external feedback. But first you need to know what that feedback is before you can decide whether or not you feel it merits attention.

Have you ever come across books where the cover, blurb, Look Inside, category selection, or something else probably could have benefited from a little advice? Of course, if you send advice to all of those authors and publishers, some of them won’t want it. I’m not telling you to go advise others about how to publish their books. I’m suggesting that we all need to evaluate our own books more critically, and especially to benefit from more external feedback prior to publishing.

We just don’t look at other books the same way that we look at our own. In this regard, books are kind of like kids. Your book is your baby. It’s not like other books, is it?

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Sep 21 2013

Red Tuesday: Idea for Boosting * Your * 4th Quarter Book Sales

Fourth Quarter Pic

This idea came to me this morning. It has the potential to help you sell many books in the fourth quarter. It’s a simple idea; it’s free; and it will be easy. It just involves a little marketing, but, as you know, marketing is exactly the kind of work that can move books.

I’m not talking about marketing for a few sales. I see potential for a great deal of exposure.

THE PROBLEM: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are huge days for holiday shopping among retailers. However, booksellers probably won’t reduce the price of your book any more than usual, they probably won’t advertise your book as part of the sale, and you might even sell fewer books than normal because all of the customers are too busy buying electronics, toys, tools, and clothing.

You can discount your book significantly on these days and promote your sale to help stimulate some traffic during this time, but it probably won’t be any more effective than promoting your book this way on any other day of the year. In fact, it may be better to do this on some other day where you’re readers aren’t too busy shopping for other items.

THE IDEA: Thousands of authors participate in special one-day pricing of incredible discounts. We’ll call it Red Tuesday (a homophone with the past tense of what you do with a book). Actually, we’ll do it again just after Christmas, when everyone just got a new e-reader and still has holiday money to spend. We’ll call this one White Thursday (a play on “write,” perhaps).

It’s simple, really: Each author promotes his or her own discount while simultaneously promoting the huge event. You don’t do any more work than normal, but by being part of a huge group of authors involved in this, you can gain the enhanced publicity of the event as a whole.

For example, you would write, “Title of My Book will be 80% off as part of the Super Incredible Red Tuesday Extravaganza.” Take a moment to briefly describe what Red Tuesday is all about in addition to promoting your book. Link to the event page as well as to your book. Think of all the content you could post on your blog and social media regarding Red Tuesday, where you will also mention your own book’s participation in the event. Red Tuesday helps you with your marketing.

One author is really tiny. Together as a community, we can thrive.

All we need to do is spread the word and get super-mega-incredible participation among authors.

If we can get significant participation, it will open up many marketing opportunities that may otherwise elude us. Imagine the growth and buzz building up so large that the media takes notice. I have a list of other ideas below, and more will come. Together, we can help Red Tuesday go viral.

ELIGIBILITY: You just need to be an author who is willing to significantly discount your book on Red Tuesday and/or White Thursday. All authors are welcome, regardless of how you published, what you write, etc. (You don’t have to worry about your book being listed in an electronic catalog with an adult content book because we could always make separate catalogs for different kinds of books. At this point, there is no guarantee that there will be a catalog; that’s just one of the ideas below.)

If your book is already 99 cents, pretty much the only way to discount it is to make it free. However, many authors might want to just drop their prices, but not make them free. Why not allow for both? Any catalogs could easily come in separate editions for discounted titles and freebies. We could also feature the deepest discounts at the top to help catch interest in the program.

I have several e-books priced between $2.99 to $5.99. I’m thinking to drop all of the prices to 99 cents (except where the file size is so large that it prevents the e-book from being priced this low).

I also sell several paperbacks. These could be reduced, too. Or I could make a significant percent-off discount code for my CreateSpace eStore. Or I could sell them from my website at 50% off and take payments through PayPal.

The important thing is to make the book on sale during the promotion for a significant discount.

EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST: If you’re interested in this, please post a comment below to let us know. If there doesn’t appear to be interest, this idea will just slowly die out. The idea can only succeed through your participation. Please share the idea to help spread the news, so that we can find more authors who are willing to participate.

If there is plenty of initial interest, then we’ll move onto the next step and Red Tuesday may become a reality and a success.

We’re still in the planning stages. So if you have ideas, suggestions, comments, or concerns, this is a good time to express them. Nothing is set in stone yet.

There is no cost. You’re only commitment is to significantly lower your price for Red Tuesday and/or White Thursday. Any other work will strictly be voluntary. It would be wise for you to promote your discount and the event in order to help you get the most out of it.

MORE INFORMATION: As long as there continues to be significant interest, I’ll post information about Red Tuesday here on my blog. Please feel free to help spread the news – directly, by reblogging, or by creating your own posts about Red Tuesday.

If there is significant interest, I’ll send out a sign-up post on my blog, whereby authors can sign up. If you have a better idea for how to get authors to sign up besides just using the comments section of a sign-up post, please share your idea.

If several authors sign up, I will put up regular posts with information, ideas, suggestions, etc. here on my blog. Again, feel free to help spread this information.

DATES: In 2013, Black Friday is November 29 and Cyber Monday is December 2. Everyone is now exhausted from shopping. So my thought is to wait until Tuesday, December 10 to celebrate Red Tuesday. Then we’ll have White Thursday on January 3. (I liked White Wednesday better, but it falls on January 2, just a day after New Year’s.)

IDEAS: First we need to brand the concept of Red Tuesday. We’ll want to have a small number of images that we can all use with our blog posts and other Red Tuesday promotions. I can announce a contest to submit images for consideration. Then we’ll use the winning image to brand our image. Everyone should use this image with all of their Red Tuesday promotional materials.

We’ll also want to brand White Thursday (which will come about a month later). But we want White Thursday to be a surprise. We don’t want readers skipping Red Tuesday, knowing that White Thursday will come later. We want to generate huge exposure twice, not once. We’ll need a different image for White Thursday.

Some kind of catchy slogan, jingle, strapline, or something of this sort would be nice, too. I can solicit suggestions in a separate post.

Soon we’ll need to build a great deal of buzz and generate plenty of author participation. We can post and reblog about Red Tuesday to spread the word. Assuming this takes off, I’ll make a post in a couple of days with more ideas of how to help create buzz for this special day.

If we succeed in creating ample buzz for Red Tuesday, this may create additional marketing opportunities. Write an article about it and try to publish it in a relevant high-traffic zone. (Your article won’t go to waste because you can always post it to your bog if it doesn’t get used anywhere else.) We can try to get writers with a large following to write about Red Tuesday, and we can aim for a little media attention.

We can make a webpage specifically for the Red Tuesday event and everyone can link to it in all of their posts. If we’re able to make any electronic catalogs of books (volunteers can make this possible), we’ll post them on the event page and circulate them in others, too.

If many authors do a few small things in the way of promoting Red Tuesday, it will really add up. We all have different areas of expertise. If you’re a video whiz, for example, you can post a trailer on YouTube about Red Tuesday, and the rest of us can help get people to check it out. Remember, any marketing that you do voluntarily to promote Red Tuesday will also help you with your own book as a part of your promotion.

As we approach Red Tuesday, our marketing campaign should go nuts. Everyone should be posting and promoting in anticipation, and especially on Red Tuesday itself.

It’s very important to reduce your price in time, allowing for probable delays (which can be several hours or more – and may be longer if there is widespread participation) to get your book’s price reduced in time for the big event. Better early than late.

GREAT FOR READERS: Red Tuesday doesn’t just have the potential to benefit authors. It can greatly benefit readers, too. Red Tuesday would be a great day to stock up on books by all your favorite participating authors. It’s also a great day to buy books as gifts. There is ample reason for authors and readers alike to spread the word and make Red Tuesday a huge hit.

Sure, some readers will see Red Tuesday coming and try to hold off of buying books until Red Tuesday comes around. There will still be readers buying books before then. If your sales rank does slide somewhat going into Red Tuesday, just think what a potential avalanche of sales on Red Tuesday could do for it. The better you promote your discount and Red Tuesday and the more marketable your book, the better your chances of having a successful Red Tuesday.

NO GUARANTEES: There is no guarantee that this will improve your exposure or increase your sales. However, if participation is widespread, there is much potential for numerous authors to receive a marked boost in both exposure and sales. The more marketable your book (i.e. good content, appealing cover, effective blurb, well-formatted and -edited, attractive storyline and characterization, and good readability), the better the prospects for you to benefit from the promotion. Also, the more active participation we receive and the more effective we are, collectively, at marketing the event, the better the chances of success.

FINAL WORD: Ideas, comments, suggestions, and concerns are not only welcome, they are strongly encouraged. 🙂

We can be part of something much bigger than ourselves. The magic word is participation.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Sep 21 2013

Online Marketing: Feel like a Dog Chasing its Tail?

Marketing Net Pic

Joe published a book. Sales are slow. He learns that he needs to market the book.

He develops a blog. It starts out small and grows slowly. Even the blog needs to be promoted.

Joe joins Facebook and Twitter. His experience there is much like his blog.

He makes a website for his book. That entails SEO optimization.

Joe includes links to his social media sites, author website, and book from his blog.

He links to his social media sites, book, and blog from his author website.

He adds a fan page to his book to help drive traffic to his blog, social media sites, and author website.

Wait a minute. Joe wants his online marketing to drive traffic to his book, but he’s using his readers to promote his websites. Huh?

Here’s what it looks like to Joe:

  • A drives traffic to B, C, D, and E.
  • B drives traffic to A, C, D, and E.
  • C drives traffic to A, B, D, and E.
  • D drives traffic to A, B, C, and E.
  • E drives traffic to A, B, C, and D.

That’s great except for one little detail: There wasn’t a source of traffic anywhere to begin with!

Are we just driving around in circles? Where does the traffic come from? Are all of Joe’s followers other authors trying to market their own books?

These are natural things to wonder when you first explore online marketing.

The author who is wondering such things might wish to be aware of the following points:

  • It would have been helpful for Joe to do some effective premarketing.1
  • Joe wants a simple, easy, magical source of traffic. In reality, marketing requires work, patience, and wisdom.
  • A ton of instant sales would be really nice, but this is really difficult to come by for a new author on the first book. A gradual increase in sales is more realistic and can become significant over a long period of time.
  • Marketability2 is as important as the marketing. Any problems with the content, cover, blurb, writing, editing, or formatting can render the marketing ineffective.
  • Local offline marketing can be quite effective for many new authors, and this can help stimulate the online marketing.

Think of your combined marketing efforts as an ever-expanding marketing net.

If your online content is designed well, someone in your target audience who wanders into your marketing net is likely to check out one or more other components of your online platform: your blog, your social media sites, your author website, your book website, your fan page, your book’s product page, your author page, etc.

The larger your net, the more opportunities there are for potential people in your target audience to wander into it. Having content that attracts your target audience helps greatly.

It takes time to build your marketing net. It takes time for your target audience to discover your net. It takes time for your following to grow. It takes motivation, diligence, and patience.

It’s not about money. It’s about helping your target audience find a product that they’re likely to be interested in. It’s about blogging because you have ideas to share. It’s about writing because you have a strong passion for it. It’s about marketing because you have a passion to share your work.

It’s about gaining exposure for your work.

Following are some specific things that you can do to help stimulate traffic.

For example, a temporary, infrequent reduction in price or freebie can help with exposure. For this to be most effective, you must build a modest following first (one benefit of premarketing). This greatly helps you spread the word through your marketing net. Price doesn’t generate interest. Creating the perception of value and spreading the word generates interest. You have to promote a sale for the discount to draw readers in.

An advertisement that reaches a large percentage of your target audience can help promote short-term interest and increase your exposure. Don’t focus solely on the initial return. Consider what the potential exposure, if promoted effectively, may do in the long run. It’s very important for an advertisement to reach your specific target audience3 and for your book to be highly marketable for it to pay off. Keep the investment low because there is no guarantee that it will pay quick dividends. Do a cost-benefit analysis.4

Having multiple books or a series also widens your net. This offers previous readers an opportunity to get more (provided that your previous content was good enough to warrant it).

Local offline marketing can be a valuable resource. Meeting people in person allows you to show your personality and charm them. Being able to meet an author in person is a treat. See if small, local, indie bookstores or other stores that sell books have any interest in your book. Perhaps a school or library would be interested in a reading. Find out where your target audience is likely to be and make an effort to meet and interact with them. A small, local paper may have column inches to fill with a local story about you or your book.

Effective premarketing can lend early sales to start out with a strong sales rank and may also earn early reviews. It also enables you to build your following prior to the launch of your book.

Getting a blog review, interview, and especially publishing an article relevant for your target audience in a high-traffic area can help draw in readers.

Related Posts:

1. Premarketing Ideas:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/marketing-isnt-an-afterthought/

2. Marketability:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/marketing-why-isnt-it-working/

3. Target audience:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/target-your-audience/

4. Cost-benefit analysis:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/cost-benefit-analysis-for-marketing-books/

Want More? To find more posts about marketing and publishing, click on one of the links in the Index on the sidebar to the right. Choose Cover Design, Blurb, Formatting/Editing, Marketing, Writing, or Publishing.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)