Book Marketing Tips

BOOK MARKETING

Marketing your book is a joint approach. While we have expertise in marketing, we'll be counting on your support for a successful effort.

Marketing a book needs to be incorporated into the book itself. Our marketing effort will start with our editing - we want to help tailor your book to the market. Don't think that marketing is a bag of tricks that will persuade people to buy a book they wouldn't otherwise want. The fundamental principle of marketing is to genuinely meet the needs of the buying public. As such, the author needs to be intimately involved in marketing.

Here are some ideas for helping insure that your book will sell, distilled from professionals in the field:

	Begin your marketing plan even before you sit down to write. The first thing to do is to identify your audience. Whether fiction or nonfiction, if you have a specific niche of the market in mind before you start, you'll be more successful. Plan how you will reach and interest this audience. What format and features will make your book appeal to this niche? Too many writers get their books back from the printer and then start to think of how they're going to sell it. They've put the cart before the horse. If you have no idea how you'll sell your book, maybe you shouldn't have written it! To eliminate that sense of despair that can grip you as you set out to try to market your book, identify your target before you start and then build in a setting, a style, and other features that will appeal to this audience. If you're preparing a work of nonfiction, start by bringing us your book proposal. We can help you tailor the book to the market from the point of the proposal down to the finished product.
	Be prepared to prove yourself with your first work. It may be difficult to convince a conventional publisher to take a risk on your manuscript. Show the confidence you have in yourself by taking that risk with your first work. Plan to put a great deal of personal effort into promoting your own book. This will prove yourself to agents and editors with conventional publishers.
	Book promotion is a long-term project. New fiction often has a shelf life of a few months, unless it becomes a classic. Good, practical, timeless nonfiction can stay on the shelf for years. In either case, you can extend the shelf life of your work with promotion, which will multiply your sales. With works of fiction, your opportunities for promotion are more limited and would include efforts to promote yourself and with that promotion, mention your book. Or you can encourage people who have read the book and liked it to share those positive feelings with friends and by posting them to Amazon.com. With nonfiction, you have a wider range of options. In addition to the above, you can write articles relating to your book and mention your book in the bio note accompanying each article. You can create a web site on the same theme as your book and provide a free newsletter. You can offer seminars related to your book. When your book becomes outdated, create an updated edition or a derivative work based on the first edition.
	For nonfiction, create a title that gives a clear idea of the subject of the book. In these days of web marketing, it is helpful to have in your title some key words that relate to the subject matter of your book. Is your book about management? Then have the word "management" in your title so that consumers can find you if they use "management" as a search term. Is your book going to be on the shelf? Then have a title that gives the essence of the book to a prospective buyer. People buy nonfiction that fills a need for them, so make your title sell your book by telling people what needs it is going to address. Notice the successful books listed below—can you tell if you're interested by reading the title?
	Don't count on advertising to sell your books. Book ads will not of themselves bring you sales. They are helpful once a book is selling after publicity and word of mouth have already laid the groundwork. Instead, rely on publicity, good book reviews, good jacket appeal, talk show appearances, and endorsements to get your book moving. Sending out review copies to publications that would have an interest in your subject matter is probably the most cost-effective way to "advertise" your book.
	When you have some success with talk-show hosts, reporters, or reviewers, be gracious—send a thank-you note. This is a nicety that many authors skip, but, when remembered, will make it more likely that they will invite you back.

Beyond these tips, here are some books that can give you in-depth knowledge of book marketing: