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The 7 Best Things
an Author Can Do
to Promote His Book
Without Spending Big Money
by Stephen Blake Mettee
Often the biggest
surprise for a book author—fiction or nonfiction —is the fact that the
publisher, small or large, expects the author to do much of the book’s
marketing.
And all too often,
the next surprise is that there are few things an average author can do
that will immediately have a large impact on his or her book’s sales.
Mounting a successful
book publicity campaign can be compared to filling a bucket with water.
Unfortunately, with a book campaign, the only tool you have is an
eyedropper. There are no water glasses available and certainly no hoses.
All one can do is add one drop at a time.
And, for the campaign
to be successful, an author must be unremittingly persistent in adding
those individual drops.
Every
book is an ad for itself
The goal with any
book is to start a word-of-mouth buzz that takes on a life of its own
with each reader recommending the book to the next. To do this, you have
to get the book into the hands of as many readers as you can. The best
marketing tool a writer can have is a battalion of readers who love your
book.
To create this
battalion, your word-of-mouth campaign needs to snare opinion makers such
as reviewers who will tout the book, industry leaders who will suggest it
to their associates, retailers who will recommend it to their customers, and librarians who will place it on their
shelves for others to discover.
And how is this done?
One drop at a time.
But
I get frustrated easily
Yes, this process
will at times become frustrating. It may feel like a lot of work for
little reward. But if you believe in yourself and your book, history
shows that the persistent route will be rewarding in the end.
Wayne Dyer may have
been the first author who really understood the power of getting the word
out. In the 1970s his speaking engagements and public appearances in
small venues kept Your Erroneous Zones on the New York Times best-seller
list for a year. Nearly three decades later, you can still find the title
on bookstore shelves.
Neale Donald Walsch,
author of the terrifically successful Conversations With God, is a
more current example. His publisher, Bob Friedman of Hampton Roads says,
"Getting the word about the book out there any way you can is the
way to get a book jump-started. Neale did a lot
of speaking to anybody who would have him in a room."
Unless your residence
of late has been a cave in Afghanistan, you will have heard of the success of Jack
Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen’s Chicken Soup for the Soul. In
the beginning, Canfield and Hansen set a goal for themselves of selling
one million copies. While each had an extremely busy schedule, they
agreed that every day each of them would do at least one activity to
promote the book. This could be anything from a radio talk show interview
to writing an article for a newsletter.
Did it work? You bet!
They have surpassed their original goal fifty times over. Visit a major
bookstore today and you’re likely to find a whole section devoted to the Chicken
Soup for the Soul series.
So what is the common
denominator? Persistence, persistence, persistence. Persistence, one drop
at a time. Hansen says, "I had to see an awful lot of church
basements to get where we are today."
Here are seven things
you can do to get your book flying out of your publisher’s warehouse.
1.) Don’t do book signings
That’s right, don’t
do book signings—but do lots of "events" —especially events
held in bookstores. Unless you are already famous, book signings per se
don’t usually draw a crowd. Always make your book signing an event.
Announce that you’ll be discussing strategies for making a small
apartment more livable, demonstrating how to buy and sell antiques on the
Internet, or revealing 300-year-old beauty tips. Give potential attendees
a reason for attending. Be inventive.
As you may have
guessed from the stories above, one of the most successful things you can
do is to take your event show on the road. At first, this will mean small
venues close to home—men’s and women’s clubs, friends of the library
groups, church groups. Watch your newspaper’s local events calendar for
organizations to contact. Every time you go on vacation or travel for
business, set up events in the area you’ll be visiting. Book as many
events as you can—whoever, whenever, and wherever.
If you will be
presenting at a bookstore, begin checking weeks before the scheduled date
to make sure the store has ordered and received your books. Keep checking
until you get an affirmative; strangely, bookstores are notorious for
overlooking this little detail.
At other sites,
always have books available for sale and signing at the back of the room
after your presentation. Most publishers are happy to supply books to an
author at a discount, and many authors find the profit from
back-of-the-room sales pays for the time spent on the event and then
some.
As your ability and
reputation as a presenter develops, chances to speak at larger venues
farther from home will open up. Get good at it and some will come with
paid travel expenses and an honorarium. (You’ll actually get paid to
promote your book!)
Success
Story
Many authors feel events
at bookstores aren’t worth the bother. Often, even for noted authors,
bookstore events are disappointing in both turnout and sales. I once had
an author complain about making a two-hour round-trip for a
forty-five-minute presentation at a Barnes & Noble store. Only a few
people had shown and only six books were sold. He wanted to cancel all
his other events in light of this "embarrassingly unsuccessful
washout."
While his bruised ego
was understandable, the author was wrong in calling the event unsuccessful;
actually, the event was a huge success. Here’s why:
• News of the
upcoming event, complete with the title of the book and the name of the
author had appeared in the local newspaper in the Sunday "Book
Notes" section and in the paper’s weekly events calendar. This free
coverage introduced the book to tens of thousands of potential
buyers—including librarians.
• The store’s
newsletter carried a picture of the cover and an article about the event
affording further free advertising.
• The manager of the
store ordered dozens of books and built a display, complete with a large
sign, two weeks prior to the event. This display stayed up for a week
after the event. Without the author’s visit, the management might have
brought in a couple of copies and put them on the shelf—or they might not
have brought any in at all.
• The store’s sales
staff was introduced to the book and the author. Bookstore staff often recommend books they know about—especially
if they met and like the author. One San Francisco bookstore clerk hand-sold over 1,000 copies of
a book she really liked.
• The author signed
the remaining copies of the book and the manager put "Autographed
Copy" stickers on the books. Autographed copies tend to enjoy
stronger sales.
By the end of a
month, the store manager reported he had sold ninety-nine copies.
2.) Write for magazines,
newsletters, and websites
Since periodicals
come out monthly, weekly, or even daily, their editors are often
desperate for material to fill their pages. The same is true for website
editors who need fresh content to keep people coming back to their sites.
Websites often pay
less than in-print periodicals (if any pay is involved at all), but have
the added advantage that they are often archived in an easily searchable
format; people may read your article and learn of your book months or
years after your article first appeared.
Don’t overlook small
publications. Often smaller publications enjoy a more loyal, devoted
following, people who will actually read the article and act on it.
Work the title of
your book into the article or, at least, include it in the author’s
profile that usually accompanies the article.
A good idea is to let
the editor excerpt part of your book—perhaps a chapter or a sidebar. This
is less work for you and will whet the appetite of the reader for the
whole book.
3.) Work the media
Call producers of
radio talk shows and TV shows and suggest that they have their on-air
personalities interview you. Contact columnists and other journalists. To
find likely candidates, search the Net or use media directories available
at the library.
In most cases, the
fact that you have a new book out isn’t reason enough for such an
interview, so think up something topical, exciting, controversial, or
informational that is oblique, but related, to the book itself. Supply
on-air interviewers with a list of ten or twenty questions they can ask.
Most will not have time to read your book.
Of course don’t
forget to mention the book by name, and ask that the interviewer include
your publisher’s toll-free number so people may call and order the book. (Quill
Driver Books’ authors note: Our order number is
800-497-4909.)
Let the local and
national media know you are an expert in your subject area, and then when
a journalist needs a quote from an authority, he’ll contact you. Always
take or return media phone calls right away. If you’re not available the
journalist will go right on to the next source on his list.
Success
Story
Even minor media coverage
can lead to major sales. A freelancer who wrote a column on aging for a
small-town newspaper discovered Betty Fielding’s
The Memory Manual at a writer’s conference. The resulting column,
complete with Quill Driver Books’ 800 number, was picked up by a major
syndicate and appeared in newspapers of all sizes all across the nation.
The phone orders from individuals generated by just this one column
numbered in the hundreds.
Mike Reynolds, author
of Three Strikes and Your Out!, is diligent about doing
interviews. He’s been on everything from The Today Show to BBC
specials.
Yet, one late-night
phone interview, to be broadcast from a small-wattage radio station in North Dakota, hardly seemed worth the effort for Mike to
stay awake for. As it turned out, across the border in Alberta, a Canadian minister of parliament must have
been having trouble sleeping. He was intrigued by the show and had his
office contact our office. Eventually, the MP bought 100 books and flew
Reynolds and his wife to Calgary where Reynolds was guest of honor at a
fund-raising banquet.
4.) Build a website that promotes
your book
Websites are getting
cheaper and easier. Often your Internet service provider includes as part
of your subscription space for dozens of web pages. Complete web hosting
services are available from suppliers such as Readyhosting.com starting
from about $100 a year.
Place content on your
site that people browsing the web will find informative and useful.
Update this content regularly so these same browsers will have a reason
to return.
Consider placing a
different chapter of your book on your site each month. Contrary to what
you might initially expect, this should increase book sales, not limit
them. One publisher of travel guides placed whole copies of its books on
its website and saw bookstore sales soar.
Create a link to
Amazon.com so people can order your book from your site. Amazon will
actually pay you a commission for books ordered this way. (Go to the
bottom of Amazon’s book page and click on Amazon.com Associates to sign
up for this).
Today, even the most
modest web pages are locatable via the various search engines such as
Google, Dog Pile, and Yahoo! Use one of the free Internet services that
list your website on the search engines. (Adpro.com offers this service.)
5.) Collect an e-mailing list and
publish an e-mail newsletter
Collect e-mail
addresses from people who visit your website (have a link they can click
to sign up) or people who attend your events (pass around a sign-up
sheet). Then publish a monthly or quarterly e-mail newsletter. Don’t make
this newsletter an overt pitch for your book, but provide interesting or
useful information pertinent to your book’s topic.
To see an example of
an e-mail newsletter and to learn more about how to market your book,
sign up for John Kremer’s free "Book Marketing Tip of the Week"
at Bookmarket.com
By the way, Kremer is
the author of the bible on book marketing, 1001 Ways to Market Your
Books. If you don’t already have a copy, get one.
Success
Story
In one of John
Kremer’s newsletters, he advised a reader who had written to him to write
a book proposal and approach selected publishers. Always alert for ways
to promote my book, The Fast- Track Course on How to Write a
Nonfiction Book Proposal, I e-mailed Kremer and offered to supply any
of his newsletter readers with an e-mail copy of the checklist of the
twenty-three essential elements of a book proposal that I included at the
back of my book.
More than 150 readers
responded when he ran my offer, proving the power of an e-mail newsletter
and exposing my book to 150 (and, perhaps, many more through
word-of-mouth) potential buyers.
6.) Join Internet chat groups
There is an Internet
chat group or listserv interested in discussing every subject under the
sun, including yours. Participate in these forums, offering insight and
advice. While open promotion of your book will usually get you into
trouble, it is proper to have a "signature" line that mentions
not only your name but also the title of your book. People will begin to
recognize you as an expert and buy your book.
By the way, be sure
to use this same signature on all your e-mail. You might even include a
small image of the cover of your book in your e-mail signature.
7.) Contact businesses or organizations
about buying large quantities of your books
This is one area
where an author stands the chance of moving hundreds, even thousands of
books at one time. Books have what advertising people call "a high
perceived value." Marketing departments of corporations and other
entities use books as premiums to lure customers to purchase their
products or use their services.
We are all familiar
with the send-in-two-box-tops-and-receive-a-$14.95-book-for-only-$5.00
type of promotion, but books are used in many other ways to promote goods
and services. Kaiser-Permanente offers a free book on the concerns of the
aging to seniors who come in to learn more about its Senior Advantage
program. One of the nation’s largest homebuilders, KB Home, used the Clifford
children’s books published by Scholastic Books in one of its promotions
aimed at attracting young families thinking of buying a new home.
Publishers often will
supply books at greatly discounted prices to organizations buying them in
large quantities. Sometimes special print runs can be made with company
logos placed on the cover, coupons inserted at the back, or with other
innovative modifications.
Watch for and contact
businesses or organizations that would benefit by using your book for
promotion or other purposes. Don’t overlook getting businesses to use
your book as thank-you gifts or Christmas gifts for their clients.
Success
Story
The director of a Missouri county health-care department read a review of
The Pediatrician’s New Baby Owner’s Manual by Horst D. Weinberg,
M.D. He was having difficulty getting mothers-to-be to attend prenatal
classes and decided to offer a free copy to any woman who attended the
whole series of classes. This caught on with other Missouri counties and now, every year, thousands of new
parents all over Missouri are provided with a copy of the good doctor’s book.
So, go out and be
persistent; I’ll see you on the New York Times best-seller list.
************
Stephen
Blake Mettee, publisher, Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press, Inc. is
the editor of The Portable
Writers’ Conference, a Writer’s Digest Book Club Selection, and
the author of The Fast-Track Course on
How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal.
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