Tag Archives: book marketing

Jan 23 2014

Book Marketing Assignment: What Do Your Customers See?

Eye

Concept: The Customer’s Perspective

It’s a very handy perspective to see your book the way prospective customers see it. They are judging your book, deciding whether to buy it, never buy it, or think about it for a while. The more insight you can gain into this, the better you can perfect the marketability of your book.

Challenge: A Different Perspective

The customers and the author view the book through much different perspectives:

  • Customers are deciding if the book interests them. The author has a crush on the book, whereas customers aren’t sure if they even want to shake hands with the book, let alone take it out on a date or propose to it.
  • Customers have no idea what the book is about until they see the cover, read the blurb, and check it out. The author already knows what the book is about; the author even knows the story and ending.
  • Customers want to learn about the genre and content. The author already knows these precisely.
  • Customers stumble along the sentences of the blurb and Look Inside as they are written, noticing any typos or formatting issues. The author tends to read what he or she meant to write, not seeing what’s actually there (making it easy to miss typos). It’s difficult for the author to consider how each sentence might be misinterpreted.
  • Customers are comparing the book to similar books, noticing any differences with what they are accustomed to reading. Authors should be thinking this way, too, when preparing their product pages, but, unfortunately, usually aren’t thinking this way.

Assignment: What Your Customers See

Months after publishing, it’s worthwhile to rediscover your book. You’re no longer feeling that strong urge to publish it; you’re no longer overwhelmed with all the work that must be done to publish the book. You’ve forgotten parts of your blurb, which gives you a chance to see it with fresh eyes.

Here is your book marketing assignment:

  1. Search for your book on Amazon. See how it looks on a page of thumbnails. Imagine not knowing anything about your book. Would you be able to guess the genre and content instantly? Is the title easy to read in the thumbnail? If this were someone else’s cover, what criticism would you offer?
  2. Read your blurb as if you’ve just discovered it. Sound it out slowly, listening to it one syllable at a time. Check carefully for any typos. Does the beginning of your blurb grab your interest? Does the blurb engage you throughout? Does it arouse your curiosity to want to look inside? Are there any sentences or phrases that customers might find confusing, or could just be more clear? Do you see any words, clichés, phrases, or ideas that may upset or confuse your target audience? Is there any punctuation that you’re unsure about?
  3. Examine the biography on your author page the same way. Look at your author photo. Does it seem professional? Do you look credible as the author of your book?
  4. Look inside your book. Scroll back to see your enlarged cover. Read through your title page, copyright page, and front matter carefully; take breaks every couple of paragraphs. Note any formatting issues, no matter how subtle, that might have a little room for improvement; also note any editing issues. Does the front matter make a good impression? You want to roll out the red carpet to welcome the reader, not have the reader pull on a grimy doorknob, press against a splintered door, and walk down a dark, damp hallway.
  5. Read the sample chapters. Does it start out engaging the reader’s interest and hold it throughout? Does the beginning fit the target audience’s expectations for the genre and content? Look carefully for any formatting or editing mistakes. Imagine this is somebody else’s book and you’re determined to show that person how many mistakes there are. If the sample doesn’t make you want to buy your own book, perhaps there is some room for improvement; think of how you might make it more compelling.
  6. Check out other books in the genre or category that appear to be successful. How do those covers, blurbs, and sample chapters compare to your book? Look for ideas that could help you improve your book’s product page. What makes those books marketable? What might your book be lacking?
  7. Ask others to examine your book’s product page and encourage honest feedback.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Jan 10 2014

Marketing Books around Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

More than just marketing your book, you have the opportunity to paint a perception. That perception could attract readers who may appreciate the strengths of your book; it may even downplay your book’s weaknesses.

Marketing a perception may even help to create more indirect interest in your book than marketing your book directly.

Examples

(1) Strength = storyline; weakness = writing.

It’s in your best interest to shore up your weakness as much as possible, e.g. improving your writing skills (reading classics can help with that) and seeking editing help. But let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a book on the market where you know the writing is okay, though not as good as it could be, but you feel that the storyline more than compensates for this.

In this case, you want to paint the perception that the storyline is more important than the writing. Be careful: You don’t want to say that writing doesn’t matter; you don’t want to create the misperception that you didn’t care about the writing at all. Rather, you want to stress how great ideas for plot and characterization are the best part of the book; that you would rather read a book with great ideas, but just okay writing, than a book with just okay ideas, but extraordinary writing.

Not everyone will agree with you, but that’s okay. In fact, this will help you target your audience. You don’t want people who weigh the writing aspect of the book heavily to be dissatisfied with their purchases. At the same time, your marketing will help to attract people looking for a great storyline. “I love a great story. I might just check that out.”

(2) Strength = writing; weakness = great story ideas.

This is just the opposite. Here, you want to stress the wonders of writing, how it helps the story flow, etc. You want to emphasize the importance of scrutinizing the blurb and Look Inside for possible mistakes.

Many other people are already selling a similar perception. For example, editors and traditional publishers want to highlight the importance of editing because this is one of their strengths. It’s okay that different people are painting contradictory perceptions. This helps to filter the audience, creating a more positive reading experience.

But if you’re an indie author with a writing/editing strength, you want to market the reality that some indie books are very well-written, too. You don’t want all the traffic looking for quality writing to read exclusively traditionally published books. Stress some examples of indie books with quality writing (and not just your own; people will find your books when they discover your articles and posts).

(3) Strength = content; weakness = cover.

My advice is to get a better cover. It’s a very important part of marketing. If your content is very good and there is a significant audience for your book, a great cover that attracts the target audience can make a big difference. But let’s say that, for whatever reason, your cover isn’t as good as it could be, but you believe that the content compensates for it.

You want to stress the old adage about not judging a book by its cover, that you’d rather read a great book with a lousy cover than a lousy book with a magnificent cover.

(4) Strength = fantastic cover; weakness = novelty.

If your cover is amazing and the content is also appealing, but maybe your weakness is that the book doesn’t show as much imagination as it could, then you want to emphasize the importance of cover design; that if much effort is put into the content, the cover should also reflect this effort.

You

List your strengths and weaknesses. Get feedback to see if others agree with your list. Think about what perception you could strive to pain that may help to attract your target audience.

It’s foolish to think you can write a book that will appeal to everyone. You can’t. Just look at the reviews of any highly esteemed book, and you’ll see that book wasn’t for everybody.

What you want to do is filter the audience, trying attract people for whom your book will provide a positive reading experience. In fact, if people realize that your book may be a good fit for them through your marketing, they are more likely to check it out. The better you succeed in filtering your audience, the more likely readers will leave positive reviews or recommend your book to others.

Tact

Don’t slam the opposite perception. For example, suppose that you’re selling the perception that cover design is highly important. Be careful not to slam books with lousy covers. Some of those might actually be great books. Potential readers may have author friends with not-so-good covers; you don’t want to insult friends of your potential readers. You also don’t want to attract negativity.

In this case, focus on the merits of a great cover, without saying rude things about books with lousy covers.

Whatever perception you’re trying to paint, take care not to insult authors who are trying to paint the opposite perception.

Maintain a professional image as an author. Marketing books is not like politics.

Credibility

You want to emphasize the importance of your book’s strengths while downplaying your book’s weaknesses, but you don’t want to advertise the weaknesses. For example, if writing is your weakness, you don’t want to say something crazy like, “The writing stinks, but the story is awesome.” Improve your weaknesses as well as you can, then play to your strengths without calling undue attention to your weaknesses. You might say something to the effect that the story ideas are far more important than the writing is to you, that for you the writing doesn’t come as easily as the ideas, but demonstrate how you’re working to master the writing (e.g. you’ve taken a writing course or how you’re working with an editor).

Frequency

You don’t want to write one article after another painting your perception; you’ll get tuned out, readers will get annoyed. You have to find the magic frequency, and you need to mix up your posts.

A perception may have different aspects, giving you more topics to work with. For example, if you’re marketing the importance of good writing, there are a host of ideas that you can write about, such as the effect of word flow, passive versus active storytelling, and the art of subplots.

If you can find a concise way to get your point across, you can include it with your signature. “I’ll take a great story over a great cover any day.”

My Example

With my Improve Your Math Fluency series of workbooks, my strength is my background (Ph.D. in physics and experience teaching at the university). One weakness, for some teachers and parents, is that I favor the old-fashioned technique of ample practice of fundamental skills, whereas a new trend is fewer drills, more pictures, more group activities, and more engagement.

One reason for the new trend is that some students in a classroom get bored by the drills: As soon as the top students master it, they’ve had enough, and many of the struggling students would rather do something else. However, many motivated students who are working on problems that match their level greatly benefit from practicing fundamental math skills. In fact, no matter how you teach, if you want the students to be fluent in the subject, at some point they will have to practice it.

As a physics teacher, I see many university students who are quite rusty with their arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry skills, which is even more amazing when you consider that many of the students who sign up for physics tend to have stronger backgrounds in math compared to other students. Students simply aren’t required to practice the fundamental math skills as often as we did when I was in school.

Many parents want their children to benefit from additional practice. Sometimes this is to help good students who are bored with the curriculum; they use workbooks to learn higher-level skills. Sometimes it’s to give a student who is struggling in school extra practice.

I emphasize the benefits of practicing fundamental math skills to improve math fluency. I have nothing against the modern workbooks that have different objectives. Parents and teachers who want to engage or entertain bored kids should favor the modern approaches. Rather, my goal is to reach parents, home-school teachers, independent students, and teachers who see the benefits of building fluency in basic math skills through ample practice.

If you’d like to check out my Improve Your Math Fluency series, please click here.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Jan 7 2014

Don’t Just Throw Your Book Out There (Why not?)

Cross Your Fingers

The Temptation

Joe’s muse inspired him with a great idea for a book. Thus, Joe sat down at his computer for several months, typing up his story. Now he’s ready to publish it.

Sure, he’d love to have a fantastic cover, excellent editing, and effective marketing. However, Joe is self-publishing, has no budget, doesn’t have artistic or photography skills, and doesn’t know anything about marketing.

Like many authors, Joe doesn’t feel a need to perfect these things. For one, he doesn’t see how he can afford to hire anyone. For another, he has no idea if his book would sell; he’d loathe to waste months more time and money he doesn’t have only to see a trickle of sales.

It occurs to Joe that he could publish the book as it is now and the cover, editing, and marketing can wait until later. If the book sells well, then he can afford these things, and then he won’t even need the marketing; and if the book doesn’t sell, he will be glad he didn’t waste more time and money.

Putting the book out there will give Joe some initial feedback, help him build a fan base, allow him to test the market, and provide some extra income that he can really use.

Everything seems to suggest that Joe should publish as soon as possible. This will also relieve a great deal of stress that had built up while he was writing the book, and which became nearly intolerable when he started to learn the publishing ropes.

The Problem

There are a few important points that Joe hasn’t considered (or perhaps he has considered them, but either ignored them or convinced himself that they don’t matter):

  • Sales rank. It’s really challenging to overcome a slow start. The history of no sales factors strongly into the sales rank (which weighs sales from the past day, week, and month). Sales rank quickly climbs to the millions with no sales, then when the book does sell, it rises quickly. In contrast, when a book sells frequently with its launch, its sales rank climbs much more slowly when it doesn’t sell. It’s much easier to keep sales consistent when they start out well than it is to generate sells after a very slow start.
  • Reviews. If the book needs significant editing, formatting, storyline, character development, or writing help, this may be reflected in critical reviews. You can revise the book later, but any negative reviews are there to stay. With only a few reviews, if any are bad, it can hurt the book’s prospects for sales, which makes it challenging to get new reviews to offset the bad one. Perfecting the book before publishing and marketing it effectively can inspire helpful early reviews.
  • Discovery. There are millions of books out there. People need to discover your book before they can buy it. Early sales, customers also bought lists, reviews, and bestseller lists improve a book’s exposure. Perfecting the content and pre-marketing can greatly help with this.
  • New release. When a book first appears on Amazon, customers are more likely to discover it by using the Last 30 Days or Last 90 Days filters. If your book is in its best condition and effectively marketed prior to publishing, you can take full advantage of this. If instead you wait until you realize that the book isn’t selling, you’ve missed this golden opportunity.
  • Image. You only get one chance to make a first impression. If people check out new releases in your genre and discover your book only to think, “Ugh,” they probably won’t click on it months down the line after it’s been revamped, and they may have already told their friends not to bother with your book. It’s important, yet challenging, to successfully brand the image of the book and author. Strive to brand a positive, professional image from the beginning.
  • Satisfaction. Customers are investing time, and possibly money, to read your book. With this investment comes a set of expectations. Whether your book merits reading, recommendations, or criticism largely depends on how well the experience satisfies customers. A quality book with good packaging improves the chances that the book will be read and that some readers will recommend it to others. A book with problems discourages sales and encourages a disproportionate number of critical reviews.

To make matters worse, Joe is aware of a few famous authors who improved their covers or editing later, and eventually found success. Unfortunately, Joe isn’t thinking of the millions of books that struggled to begin with and never overcame this.

It’s really challenging to succeed as an author when you put your best foot forward in the beginning. Making it even tougher on yourself isn’t the best plan.

Whether you just throw the book out there or fight to get it ready for publication can significantly impact the fate of your book.

The Solution

Authors who don’t have money do have time. We all know that time is money. There is also an abundance of free resources to help authors publish and market their books, along with a community of authors who like to help others.

For those who do have a little money, there are many low-cost services to explore.

It’s not the lack of resources or help that’s the problem, nor the expense. The problem is the choice to get the book out there when it’s not quite ready to succeed.

(I’m not talking about the perfectionist whose book is already extremely well-edited and has a great cover, or who keeps bouncing back and forth between ideas because none of them seem good enough. I’m talking about the majority who know deep down that they really need help with cover design, editing, or marketing, but can’t figure out what to do about it.)

Here are some things you can do to give your book its best chance of success:

  • Get the content publishing-ready. Give customers a quality product that they will enjoy, not something they will have to settle for; some customers won’t settle. You can put extra time into editing and formatting. You can find affordable ways to get many other eyes to read your book.
  • Find a way to get a cover that will attract the target audience. It needs to be visually appealing, but that’s not sufficient. It must signify your precise subgenre and content. This has a significant impact on whether or not people who see your thumbnail will check out your product page or pass. If your target audience favors your thumbnail among others in your subgenre, you have a distinct advantage.
  • Research and master the art of preparing a concise blurb that will inspire interest from your specific target audience. The cover, blurb, and Look Inside are your only salesmen at the point-of-sale. Make these inspire sales, not deter them. Study the product pages of top-selling books in your genre, especially those that are selling well without the benefit of the publisher’s or author’s name.
  • Seek feedback on your cover, blurb, title, Look Inside, and book before you publish. At a minimum, you should recruit friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, and your online followers and connections. Ideally, you would also get feedback from your specific target audience. This not only helps you perfect your book, it helps you create buzz, too.
  • Setup a blog and social media pages several months before you publish. For one, you’ll have content already there when fans check out the websites listed on your About the Author page. For another, you’ll already have a following when you launch your book. A fraction of your followers will show support with a few reblogs or retweets, some likes, a couple of sales, and maybe even a couple of reviews. You’ll also have valuable connections that may come in handy for author interviews, blog reviews, advice, support, and inspiration (since you’ll see firsthand what others are doing). When readers check out your newly published book, they’ll see that you’ve already established yourself.
  • Generate buzz for your book weeks before its release date. Get people talking about your book online and in person. Feedback and your online following can help with this. Find bloggers and websites with traffic from your specific target audience where you might get reviews, interviews, or publish an article; allow ample time for consideration. Search for Facebook author groups in your genre. Explore free and low-cost advertising options for a short-term promotional sale and learn how to do this effectively. Interact with people in your target audience and let your passion show.
  • Find your target audience, interact online and in person, and make a favorable impression. Let them discover that you’re an author. Seek readings, signings, seminars, conferences, media exposure, websites where they hang out, and other ways to engage your target audience. Personal interactions are an asset to the indie author, who has the time and passion to offer this personal service. Use it.
  • Research effective free and low-cost marketing strategies. Consider which are most likely to help you reach your specific target audience and provide the greatest benefits relative to the costs (which include both time and money). However, also realize that some things that may not lead to many immediate sales may have a significant indirect benefit like helping you look like a complete, professional author.

The better your book is, the more seriously you’ll put effort into the book’s launch and success, and the more confidence you’ll show in your work and marketing.

No Guarantees

There is a risk; there are no guarantees that your book will succeed. Not all book ideas have the potential to sell well. There are some books that don’t sell well, where there isn’t much that could change the fate of the book. A very rare book will succeed with so-so packaging and marketing; the vast majority need effective packaging, marketing, and content.

However, there are very many books that are close, but no cigar, where a little help could go a long way. Maybe the cover or blurb are attracting the wrong audience. Maybe something in the Look Inside is deterring sales. Maybe customers are checking the book out, but are reluctant to try a book with a sales rank in the millions.

Can you remember shopping for a product when you were on the verge of making the purchase, where you were having a tough time deciding? Even a small thing could decide it one way or the other.

If the customer is viewing your product page, that customer is interested. He or she is deciding. The content and packaging will make or break the sale. Your cover, blurb, Look Inside, reviews, author photo, biography, and categories are the only marketing you have at the point-of-sale.

Do you believe that you have a marketable book, that there is a significant audience that will truly enjoy it? Do you think it’s good enough that many people will recommend it to others? Then you have to go for it and give your book its best chance.

Research books similar to yours to see what the prospects are. If there are books like yours selling well, and you can honestly see yours competing with those (make lists of things that those books and your book have going for and against them), then some extra tender-loving care before you publish may make a big difference down the road.

By perfecting your book, you will be happiest with it and so will your readers. You will be proud to share it. You will know it’s a worthy product, regardless of its fate. If you give your book its best chance of succeeding, you won’t have any nagging doubts about what you might have done better.

Disclaimer

Joe is a purely fictional character invented solely for the purpose of illustration. Any resemblance to any actual author is purely coincidental.

Free resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles, by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Jan 6 2014

Marketing a Book Is Like Dating

Date

The Bar

Authors dress their books up with covers and blurbs, and mingle with readers through marketing. Readers are searching for good books, checking out those covers and blurbs, looking for a good catch to take home and bundle up with.

The Pick-up Line

Trying to stand out, authors try to design fantastic covers, promote their books with special deals, or catch interest with a clever strapline. Readers want to be impressed; they won’t fall for a common one-liner. If the line does impress them, they will play hard to get.

The Blind Date

A reader who enjoyed a book sets the book up with a friend. The friend is nervous. If the book doesn’t turn out to be good, he will feel obligated to grind through it so he doesn’t let his friend down. He’s also worried that the book may be too good for him, with more vocabulary and complexity than he’s prepared to handle.

The Courtship

Authors interact with their target audience in person and online through readings, signings, seminars, presentations, blogs, fan pages, podcasts, and interviews. They brand their images over a period of months, hoping to show readers that they are serious about the relationship.

The Kiss

Finally, after weeks of branding, the reader has clicked link to view the book’s product page, read the blurb, and—oh, here it comes, the moment we’ve been waiting for—KISS!—the reader is viewing the Look Inside. It better be a good kiss. If you like it, there are hundreds of more pages where that came from. Come on, kiss this book like you’ve never kissed a book before.

The Commitment

It was a good kiss. The reader invited the book home for the evening. This is the best night ever, a moment the book will treasure for the rest of its life. It’s a dream come true.

The One-Night Stand

What happened? It started with a good kiss. The book went home with the reader. They had a great time. The next thing the book knows, it was returned. The reader is gone. How could this be?

The Dump

Once the reader got home, it discovered that while the book had a handsome face, it was really a scoundrel of a character. Beyond the Look Inside, the book turned into something awful. The book is promptly dumped, confined to sit on a shelf, watch the reader pass by a few times each day, and bear the agony of seeing the reader sit by the fireplace with other books, smiling and laughing gleefully. Life is just unbearable.

The Climax

Just what every book and reader were hoping for, the book was good enough to please the reader, who finally reached the climax of the book. The feeling is just wonderful. For a few minutes. Then the book realizes that this is the end. Well, it was good while it lasted. At least the reader left some change on the nightstand.

The Marriage

Every author dreams about the marriage: Readers who enjoy the first book so much they propose to marry the whole series. It will be a grand wedding.

The Affair

While conversing with a fan, an author learns that she is reading a book in the same genre by a popular author. How could she do a thing like that? What will people think?

The Divorce

It’s that tragic moment when the reader gives up on a series. It was a match made in Heaven. What could possibly have gone wrong?

The Proposal

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Jan 5 2014

Selfless Promotion

Selfless

With millions of books to choose from, it’s necessary for most authors to promote their books in order to help readers in their target audience discover them.

We sometimes see blatant self-promotion, like going to external websites and posting, “I just published my new book, Whip It Out There. Buy it today.” You should mention your book occasionally on your own site; after all, it is your site. At other sites, this behavior is often strongly discouraged, if not against the rules.

Many of the people who come to your site already know about your book. What you really want to do is find your target audience at external sites, where nobody knows about your book. And this is exactly what you should do, only at most sites you need to let people discover your book by checking out your profile or mentioning your book in the proper context, where this is allowed and acceptable. Some sites allow a brief signature, where you can include a link to your book; where it’s common to post with a signature, you can blend in nicely, and if you make a good impression, people may check your book out.

A milder form of self-promotion is mentioning your book in context. Instead of saying, “Check out my book, In Your Face,” try to find something else you can post where mention of your book is relevant. For example, asking for opinions about your blurb gets you a little attention and helpful feedback while not coming across as a salesperson. Obviously, you can’t ask about your blurb three times a day all year. Use the creativity that you obviously have as a writer and find relevant ways to mention your book. Study the ambiance of each site first and be sure not to behave in a way that may be frowned upon.

“Self, how would I feel if I were just chillin’ with my pals online and some other author posted that?”

Before you post it, think about how it looks from the other side.

Most marketing isn’t about instant sales. When you see an advertisement on t.v., do you run right out to the store and buy the product immediately? “Sorry, dear. I know it’s 3 a.m. Saturday morning, but I just saw an advertisement for honey and I really need to get some. Could you please watch the kids?”

It’s about branding. You learn about a product enough times that you recognize it. But you don’t want to be branded as annoying. Strive to find less obtrusive ways to get discovered. Come across as a professional. Make a good impression. Brand a positive image as an author to help get your target audience interested in your book over a long period of time.

The best exposure you can get is selfless promotion—i.e. when others market on your behalf. One way you can do this is to seek honest online book reviews or arrange a blogger to interview you. However, most of this is beyond your direct control.

Imagine a reader who discovered your book online, enjoyed your book, and posted a good review for your book online without your even knowing about it. Or imagine a reader who loved your book and told all of his or her friends about it. Recommendations and word-of-mouth sales are golden. They’re also very hard to come by. If a book is truly exceptional in some way, or if the book elicits strong emotions, this is more likely. The first step is to perfect your book from cover to cover and include some wow-factors in your writing. This is quite challenging, but ask yourself this: “Will people recommend a book if it’s just so-so?”

What good books have you read lately? What are you doing to help spread the word about those amazing books? Don’t just review and recommend books because you’re hoping for the same in return. Do it because you discovered a great book and believe others would enjoy it, too. Definitely, don’t recommend books that you don’t honestly believe to be worth recommending. There are many good books out there, and they can use your support.

I see plenty of selfless promotion in the form of reviews and recommendations. It’s a great sight to see. You might notice that I recently added a couple of pages to my blog, highlighting a few books by other authors. It’s a short list, presently, but it will grow.

Brace Yourself, Here Comes the Self-Promotion

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Jan 1 2014

Authors, Don’t Write Books; Create a Whole New World

Image of Mars from NASA.

Image of Mars from NASA.

People don’t buy books. People buy the experience that a story provides.

So authors shouldn’t write books, and they shouldn’t market books. Authors should create a whole new world, and they should market the experience of visiting that world.

Don’t think of your book as a book. Think of the story as one part of the world that you created.

Don’t think of how to market your book. Think of how to get people interested in your world.

The world you create is far more than a mere book. It’s the world, not the book, which people want.

How do you do this?

  • Give your world life before your book is published. Spread the word about the world you are creating. Create buzz for it. Reveal the cover, blurb, and sample chapter in advance.
  • Design striking, relevant images for your cover, blog, social media pages, website, bookmarks, business cards, brochures, PR kit, all your online activity, and all your printed materials. These materials come in different sizes, so you need a flexible design. All the products should fit together. They don’t all have to be exactly the same, but it should be immediately obvious that they match. Everything prospective shoppers, readers, and fans see are a visual representation of your book.
  • Supplement your book with additional material. Post free bonus content on your website or an email newsletter to give fans an incentive to stay in touch. This might include maps, character sketches, or short stories or poems, for example. Not everything has to be free. For example, you can sell a short story that relates to your book.
  • The great thing about a series is that the world can last well beyond just one book. It also helps you create anticipation for each book in the series and steadily grow a following. You can make the first e-book permanently free or 99 cents to help lure readers into your world. An omnibus with significant savings can entice readers to buy the whole world all in one shot.
  • Sell, give away, or hold contests for additional products like bookmarks, special editions, t-shirts, buttons, or maps.
  • Create a highly marketable world and it will help attract visitors to your world. Some ideas are more marketable than others. Some writing is more pleasing than others. The packaging—cover, blurb, and Look Inside—are also very important in attracting attention to your world.
  • Find your target audience—especially, people who aren’t already in your following—in person and online, interact with them, and show them the benefits that your world has to offer. You’re not selling a book, but a roundtrip ticket to paradise. Introduce people to your world. Create a video trailer that depicts your world visually.

Self-publishing world

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Dec 24 2013

Creative Marketing Ideas for Books

Envelope

Imagination. Authors use it to write books. Readers look for books that apply it effectively. So why not use that creativity in marketing, too?

Here are some creative marketing ideas for generating book publicity:

  • Small stickers with your book cover on them. Use them to seal envelopes and the recipient will surely see your book cover when opening your mail. An alternative is to print your book cover directly onto the envelope. Stickers can also be applied to many other items besides envelopes.
  • How about a nice tattoo of your book cover on a visible body part? What more could an author do to show how much he or she believes in his or her book?
  • But you can achieve a similar effect without the pain or a permanent mark on your body. It’s called a t-shirt. If it looks nice, other people might even wear them. It doesn’t quite show the commitment of a tattoo, but I’ve never met a reader who only reads books by authors who tattoo the covers on their bodies. In cold weather, t-shirts might get covered up, so a hat might be a good alternative.
  • Advertise your book on your car. The mild way to do this is with a bumper sticker. But you see more and more small businesses with extensive paint jobs to market their products and services. Sometimes, it’s just a website written on the back. Other times, the entire vehicle is transformed. Imagine thousands of people stuck in traffic, seeing your book on your car. Would this brand your book’s image effectively? Or would people think you’re a nut? Maybe it depends on how professional it looks and how mild it seems.
  • More traditional ways to publicize your book include business cards, bookmarks, flyers, and brochures. A bookmark that looks nice enough to use (i.e. not like an advertisement) helps to brand your image, at least with readers who still use print books. Wouldn’t it be cool if someone, who knows who, accidentally misplaced a few of your bookmarks inside similar books at a bookstore? How did those get there?
  • Wouldn’t it be cool to have some pens or pencils that feature your book? After all, you’re a writer.
  • Suppose you are friends with some experienced authors and between you, you have dozens of books. Imagine spending a day renting a small kiosk in a mall or other highly visible area, selling your books. Even if you don’t sell too many, people will see your books and browse them. In the worst-case scenario where you don’t sell any, you have a cool picture to post on your author page, blog, and all over the internet.
  • Think of all the advertising in sports: ballcaps, towels, golf tees and markers, wristbands, duffel bags, etc. You could have your book on one of these, advertising your own product instead of some big business. If your book relates to that sport, even better. People might even want one of their own.
  • I was watching a MLB game once where during the game the announcer mentioned a book that a fan had sent him and they showed pages of the book on the air. It had pictures of a fan’s collection of baseball memorabilia. If you send your product to a t.v. announcer, it probably won’t get aired, but if it does, that’s some major publicity. In the more likely case where it doesn’t get aired, it might still get read or mentioned to other people.
  • Don’t forget, it’s not just sight, there is also sound. People don’t just see your book, they can also hear about it. When you interact with people, let them discover that you’re an author and inquire about your book.
  • Imagine eating a peaceful dinner with your family. The phone rings. Telemarketer, of course. An author telling you all about his book. Yeah, this probably isn’t cost-effective for most authors, and might be rather irksome.
  • A less disruptive, more effective way to create book publicity is to get your book in the news. Prepare a professional-looking press release kit and contact newspapers and radio stations, for example. Start small and local. Many local papers have column inches to fill and like to highlight local talent; a small, local radio station might need to fill minutes. You can look for book reviews or interviews. You can also think of what else might make you newsworthy and let you plug your book.
  • Online, you can show your book cover and author photo and mention your book on all your sites. You can interact with your target audience at other sites and let them discover that you’re an author.
  • Write an article relevant for your target audience. Try to get it published in a newspaper or magazine, or a website online. There are so many websites online, that if you’re determined and your article is well-written and interesting, you have very good prospects. In the worst case, you can still post your article on your blog, so it won’t go to waste. Get your article posted where there is significant traffic from your target audience and you might get some healthy traffic to your book. At the end of the article, write Your Name, Author of Your Book.
  • There are many advertising opportunities online. The big question is whether or not it will be cost-effective. You can spend as little as about $5 a day and try to match your book with readers in your target audience at Goodreads, Facebook, or Twitter, for example. The click-through rate is pretty small these days, less than a percent on average; and of the products and services offered, a book by an unknown author probably won’t attract much attention this way.
  • If you really want to invest big, you can spend $10,000 or more advertising your book or series of books online. For example, that’s the starting amount to advertise a book through Amazon’s marketing department. This is for a professional campaign for highly marketable books, for authors with multiple books. Even then, you might not recover the investment after a couple million shoppers see your book over the course of a month.  The publishers and authors who use this service may have other objectives that may offset an initial loss, such as the hope of getting on a coveted bestseller list or stimulating initial sales and reviews for a new series. This is a huge risk for a new author, as the worst-case scenario is virtually no sales; there are no guarantees.
  • A more cost-effective way to advertise may be to run a short-term promotion and promote the sale through a service like BookBub. You can find a sample list here.

Marketability

It’s not just about marketing. It’s also about marketability. Do you have a book that readers will really enjoy? Do you have a book that has a significant audience? It can be a niche audience, as long as it’s significant and you can reach your audience effectively. Do you have a cover that will attract your specific target audience? Do you have a blurb that will make your target audience want to look inside? Does the look inside grab the reader’s attention and make him or her want to buy your book? Is your content good enough to get referrals, reviews, and recommendations? Will the editing and formatting satisfy the target audience?

If your cover isn’t appealing, or if your cover attracts the wrong audience, or if the blurb doesn’t make the reader curious, or if the look inside doesn’t attract the reader, or if the story doesn’t satisfy the reader, or if the reader finds many mistakes, or if there isn’t a significant audience for your book… then the first thing you need to do is improve your book’s marketability. You’re not ready to start marketing your book yet.

For an in-depth discussion of marketability, click here.

Target Audience

With any marketing and advertising, you need to gear it toward your specific target audience for it to be effective. Marketing efforts that reach your specific target audience effectively can do wonders for a highly marketable book. Spend time thinking about the characteristics and habits of your target audience. Interact with fans; direct them to your email, blog, or fan page. The more you interact with fans, the better you will understand the variety of people who enjoy your book.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

The easy thing to calculate is cost. If you invest in an advertisement or service, you can easily estimate how much you’re paying. Remember, time is money, too. If you’re spending hours marketing your book, this is costing you even if it’s free.

The hard thing to calculate is the benefit. It’s not easy to predict what impact your marketing effort will have on sales. If you do some new marketing, you can try to see if it’s improving sales compared to your average, but there are many complications (like maybe Amazon also made changes to customers also bought lists at about the same time, or maybe you got a few new reviews).

There are also many valuable benefits besides immediate sales. Most marketing requires patience, on the scale of many months. Branding takes time. People don’t run out and buy products immediately when they see an advertisement. The might see an advertisement a few different times over the course of months, then one day when they are shopping for that product, they see one that was advertised and recognize it. Things like branding really complicate the figuring of benefits in a cost-benefit analysis. Branding is highly important, but difficult to predict, and a challenge to calculate after a couple of years.

Nonetheless, you should be weighing costs and benefits with all of your marketing.

Author Image

If you’re trying something creative, ask yourself how it might impact your image as an author. You want to be viewed as a professional author. An author’s brand is difficult to establish, but very easy to destroy.

Chris McMullen

I have a Ph.D. in physics, but don’t let that scare you. I love to read and write. If you just look around my blog or at the books I’ve published, you’ll see that I love to write. I’ve come to understand and appreciate the marketing aspect, too. I didn’t like it when I first started publishing, back when I naively thought marketing meant salesmanship and advertising. Now that I realize that marketing is more about branding, showing that you’re a person and not a name, and letting your target audience discover your passion—and more meaningful and subtle things like these—I’ve come to enjoy it. I hope to reveal the enjoyable and fascinating side of marketing—the parts that aren’t so obvious—to other authors. Focus on this side of marketing, and you may find yourself more motivated to do it, the process more rewarding, and hopefully better long-term results.

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Dec 19 2013

What Attracts Me to Blogs of Fiction Authors

Brainstorm

Marketing fiction books and especially blogging are quite a challenge. Nonfiction authors have an advantage: They can attract the target audience with free content, seminars, etc. Very often, a nonfiction book has information that people need or will find helpful. A novel, on the other hand, may primarily serve to entertain. There are very many hot selling fiction books, but it takes a book that is highly marketable from cover to cover and, with rare exceptions, required effective marketing.

Fiction authors who take up marketing start a blog as one part of their marketing strategy, but often struggle with how to attract the target audience.

  • Much thought, time, and effort can be put into a short story that scarcely gets read. Blogs grow very slowly, and most posts don’t receive much attention until a blog has really blossomed. Most blog readers aren’t particularly looking for short stories, especially from unknown authors. And even if they are, there are many different kinds of short stories, most of which won’t appeal to a given reader. In some cases, it might be harder to get readers for free short stories on blogs than it is to sell a short story on Amazon (and that’s a challenge, too).
  • It’s hard to attract an audience when you mostly blog about yourself, unless you happen to be a celebrity (but if you are, attracting a following should be easy). Sure, once you get fans, they might want to learn more about you. Occasionally blogging about yourself reveals your personality and shows that your human. But this won’t attract an audience.
  • Posting about things that don’t relate to your book might get attention if they’re fascinating topics. However, most of the people who check these things out won’t be in your target audience. Plus, if they’re popular topics, there are many other popular resources writing about them online.

So what should you blog about?

You should have some variety. People have varied interests, so this helps you catch different people from your target audience. Variety also helps you reach new readers while also engaging fans; you want some posts for both parts of your blogging audience. (Include the url for your blog in your book; that will help attract some fans.)

Here are some things that have attracted me to the blogs of fiction authors:

  • I like to see snippets of things you’ve done as part of your writing process. Show me a scratch sheet with a word cloud, a photo of sticky notes with ideas for your book, sketches of characters, a preliminary map for your fantasy novel, etc. These kinds of things show the effort that you’ve put into your work. It’s kind of cool; something more than just a book. I like to see this whether I’m just discovering your blog or if I’m already a fan. It gets me interested in your writing.
  • Short poems don’t require me to invest too much time in an unknown (to me) writer. If I like the way you combine words together and express ideas in short poems, this gets me interested in your writing. I’ve discovered a few different authors this way. There is a lot of poetry out there, though. Your poem won’t appeal to everyone, won’t be discovered by everyone, and has to be pretty good to stand out with so many good poets here. No matter what, though, it helps you achieve variety with your blogging and provides a short writing sample to prospective readers.
  • Occasional posts to show what’s going on with your book catch my attention. Cover reveals, blurb posts, debut announcements, rare promotions, rank achievements, and so on give you an opportunity to mention your book without solely saying, “Buy my book.” I enjoy seeing highly marketable covers; they grab my interest. You’re not likely to attract and hold an audience by constantly blogging about your book. But mixing such updates about your book in with many other kinds of posts rounds you out as a complete author.
  • Support for other authors shows me that you’re not focused solely on yourself. I don’t mean that if you reblog Author X’s post, then Author X will be interested in your book. I mean authors in the community recognize other authors who are interactive, supportive bloggers in the community, and we all tend to support one another in various helpful ways.
  • Your experience as a writer and writing ideas attract my interest. I like to discover concepts that I’d never thought about. For example, I’ve read many fantasy novels, but never realized how many challenges fantasy writers face until I discovered a variety of blog posts describing them. Such posts also show me that you’re an experienced author who has spent much time contemplating complex writing problems in your genre.
  • A weekly goal post shows me that you’re organized. It looks professional. It should be a minor thing among other kinds of posts, but it’s nice to see your objectives and progress.

* * *

Follow me at WordPress, like my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Dec 14 2013

Positive Reading Experience

Customer Service

Everything that you want to know about buying and selling books comes down to three simple words:

Positive Reading Experience

That’s what it’s all about.

This is exactly what readers want. Put your focus on maximizing the reading experience for a significant target audience. When your book is perfected, switch your focus to showing the target audience that your book provides an excellent reading experience.

What Makes a Good Reading Experience?

Several factors go into delivering this:

  • The storyline engages the reader’s interest.
  • The characters fascinate the reader.
  • The information is helpful to the reader.
  • The content is what the reader was hoping to find.
  • The words, structure, and ideas flow well for the reader.
  • There are virtually no editing or formatting hiccups to distract the reader.
  • The reader perceives the book to be a good value.
  • The book pleases the reader.

If you can go beyond the reader’s expectations, really impressing the reader can be a wow-factor worthy of many referrals and recommendations.

How Do You Show This to a Customer?

  • Design a cover that reflects the quality of the book.
  • Design a cover that attracts the specific target audience that will most appreciate the book.
  • Devise a short title that appeals to your specific target audience.
  • Prepare a concise blurb that captivates your target audience’s interest.
  • Structure the beginning of the book in a way that will show your target audience that your book is what they were hoping to find.
  • Market your book to your specific target audience to help them discover your book.
  • Let your passion for your book show through implicitly in your marketing.
  • Offer a short sample of your book that will make them want more.
  • Provide excellent customer service in your interactions with your audience.
  • Develop a reputation as a professional author.
  • Show samples of diagrams, notes, photos, and other things you use to help prepare your book as these reflect your diligence and dedication while also helping to create interest.

There are two parts to this, and both are critical. One part is showing the customer that the book will provide an excellent reading experience, and the other part is delivering on the promise.

Positive Customer Experience

Many businesses, like Amazon, orient themselves toward excellent customer service. This is what brings customers back for more, and it’s what generates referrals and recommendations.

Authors can similarly benefit from striving to provide a positive reading experience.

Did you see this article about Jeff Bezos and leadership in Forbes in April, 2012? If not, it’s worth checking out. I like point two, where an empty chair was used to signify the customer who was crucially important, but not present at the meeting.

I spoke with a representative from Amazon’s marketing department over the phone a couple of weeks ago, and one thing that repeatedly stood out was a “positive customer experience.” For example, consider those advertisements you see on Amazon’s website that drive traffic to a particular product. If that product runs out of stock, the algorithm stops displaying those advertisements because that wouldn’t provide a positive customer experience.

Ultimately, Amazon’s algorithm is trying to determine which books provide the best reading experience. The best way to benefit from this is to deliver a book that provides an excellent reading experience and market your book effectively to your target audience.

Think, “What can my book do for my target audience?”

The things that your book does to impress your target audience are your strengths that can help attract the target audience. The things that your book does to detract from the reading experience are your weaknesses. You can’t hide these, so you must shore them up as best you can.

Who Am I?

Chris McMullen.

I’m not just a name. I’m a person, too.

I have a Ph.D. in physics, but don’t let that scare you. I love to read and write. If you just look around my blog or at the books I’ve published, you’ll see that I love to write. I’ve come to understand and appreciate the marketing aspect, too. I didn’t like it when I first started publishing, back when I naively thought marketing meant salesmanship and advertising. Now that I realize that marketing is more about branding, showing that you’re a person and not a name, and letting your target audience discover your passion—and more meaningful and subtle things like these—I’ve come to enjoy it. I hope to reveal the enjoyable and fascinating side of marketing—the parts that aren’t so obvious—to other authors. Focus on this side of marketing, and you may find yourself more motivated to do it, the process more rewarding, and hopefully better long-term results.

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Dec 14 2013

The Value of Marketing Books

value

Why are you marketing your books?

The wrong reasons are for financial gain or sales. I’m not saying you shouldn’t sell books or earn royalties. I’m saying these shouldn’t be your motivating goals.

Why not?

Several important reasons:

  • Would you rather read a book that was prepared by an author who was passionate about the subject or who was trying to get rich quick? The key point here is that it can’t be the same book. The writing itself will be different based on the underlying motivation of the author.
  • Positive personal interactions with your target audience can get readers interested in your book. If your main objective is money or sales, your mindset is apt to be more businesslike* and less personal. People can sense if you seem to be passionate about your work or come across more as a salesperson.
  • You’re more likely to be focused on quick returns and lack the necessary patience. For example, branding is an important part of marketing, but can take many months to pay off. A blog works best when it is interactive, but tends to start out very slowly. Word-of-mouth sales can make a huge impact, but often not for a long time. When you’re focused on sales, it’s hard to work hard at things that might not pay off for several months.
  • Interacting with others is important in marketing, but a sales-oriented author tends to focus primarily on the book and sales. When you market for better reasons, you see the value of interacting with your target audience, establishing connections with other authors, and other personal marketing endeavors that are quite important. Your underlying objectives also affect how you interact with others, which in turn affects their perception of you.
  • Many roads will tempt you with prospects for quick riches. If your heart desires instant success, your desire can shove logical reasoning aside, distracting you with a variety of ways to invest money with the hope of big short-term gains. Striving to build gradually toward long-term gains tends to be both much more plausible and rewarding.
  • Financial goals can deceive you into bending your natural ethical beliefs. You’re in the public eye as you try to create publicity for yourself and your book. One false step can ruin your reputation. Authors must strive to brand a positive, professional image in order to achieve long-lasting success. Strong character and good intentions are assets.

If not Money, then What?

There are other factors that make book marketing valuable to both authors and readers. These factors can also make the marketing more effective. Here are a few examples:

  • Passion for the subject, book idea, or story. Infuse your writing with passion. View your book as a work of art. Use your passion to perfect your masterpiece. If you can take this a step further and convince yourself to share your passion with others, letting your passion show through implicitly in your marketing endeavors can make a big difference. It also changes your focus from your sales figures to the positive experience you can share with others.
  • For the love of writing. In this case your passion is for the craft itself.
  • To pass your knowledge on. You’re a teacher in addition to being an author. Place your emphasis on what students can learn from you (not just your book), instead of how many books you can sell. Samples of your content knowledge can help you attract students.
  • Helping others. A great story can offer an escape from reality, and a self-help book can help people improve their minds, bodies, or spirits. Focus on what you (not just your book) can do for others.
  • It’s fun. Writing is fun. At least, it should be. Enjoy it.

How Marketing is Valuable

It’s not the money. Sales do come from effective marketing. But there are other rewards that are more valuable than royalties. Again, I’m not saying you should sacrifice your royalties. I’m saying to focus on these other rewards, then the royalties will come on their own and the experience will be more enjoyable and less stressful.

  • It allows you to share your passion with others. People must discover your book before they can enjoy it. They are more likely to become interested in your book when they discover your passion.
  • You can build meaningful relationships through marketing. This is more likely when you’re focused on other rewards besides sales.
  • If your intuition tells you that marketing is about salesmanship and advertising, it may be refreshing to discover firsthand that you can market effectively on a more personal level.
  • The sense of belonging to a supportive author community is a reward in itself. The author community can be highly supportive (in a positive, ethical way, of course). Interact with others in a positive way, build meaningful relationships, and support others. Share your passion with other authors, not just with readers. (But also manage your time wisely. Don’t get lost in your blog. Save time for writing, your family, and yourself. You have to learn to juggle.)
  • Interact with your readers. Not only will your readers benefit from this and see your passion for your work, but you can learn about your readers this way, too.
  • Have fun with your writing and your marketing. This way, it isn’t work. You might feel more creative and passionate, which can make a positive impact. More importantly, you may feel better. Writing and marketing can be stressful, but they don’t have to be. The power to change this lies in your perception and motivation.
  • Make gradual improvements. Strive for long-term success. Grow your online platform and selection of books. Start out with a few basic marketing ideas and add to this. Eventually, if you develop a complete, professional author package and much improved sales, you may find such long-term success to be more rewarding than any short-term gain.

Ask not what your readers can do for you (i.e. how can they find and buy your books). Ask what you can do for your readers (provide an amazing reading experience).

*Business vs. Art

You must balance this wisely. It’s smart to research books already on the market before you write to assess your book’s chances. It’s smart to learn about your target audience before you write and before you market your book. But when you do the actual writing and marketing, feel like an artist.

Who Am I?

Chris McMullen.

I’m not just a name. I’m a person, too.

I have a Ph.D. in physics, but don’t let that scare you. I love to read and write. If you just look around my blog or at the books I’ve published, you’ll see that I love to write. I’ve come to understand and appreciate the marketing aspect, too. I didn’t like it when I first started publishing, back when I naively thought marketing meant salesmanship and advertising. Now that I realize that marketing is more about branding, showing that you’re a person and not a name, and letting your target audience discover your passion—and more meaningful and subtle things like these—I’ve come to enjoy it. I hope to reveal the enjoyable and fascinating side of marketing—the parts that aren’t so obvious—to other authors. Focus on this side of marketing, and you may find yourself more motivated to do it, the process more rewarding, and hopefully better long-term results.

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles by clicking one of the following links:

Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers