While traditional marketing can work for the book author or publisher, the return is dim for the huge effort it takes. You must promote 90% of the time to even get a milligram of attention. While you may have a success or two, most of your efforts will bring poor book sales. With online marketing, the author's message will reach hundreds of thousands in just a day because people love the free information you can give them with an enticement to come to your site to buy. And, you'll spend 9% instead of 90% time on it. Ask yourself right now, what promotion is working for me? What is not? Traditional Book Marketing Method One: The Press Release Sure, press releases can bring you attention. But it takes a lot of time to gather specific media or radio/TV producers' names. Writing "The San Diego Media Resource Directory" took 50 hours to research, and a lot more time to update each year. But you waste your efforts if your release doesn't go the right person. Many authors make the mistake of sending the release to the book editor. He gets hundreds each month, and will pay no attention if you are self-published. Like agents and traditional publishers, only 1-2% are chosen. But if you only send a few releases, they may get ignored. It's usual for any business to send out 150 news releases a year. That does take some time and effort. Don't relax after you send one or two releases. Think in terms of at least five a month. But, 95% of releases are ignored and tossed into the round file. Why? For many reasons, but check to see if you include a compelling heading, a human-interest story, a short tip list or article of how-tos, or a present news analogy. But you send a lengthy news release that takes 2 pages. Usually, editors want one under one page, double-spaced. But you go on and on about your book's features rather than its benefits. What's in it for the media's audience? They want solutions just like your book should offer. It turns out editors accept how to tips and articles with your byline that refers to your book than the features within your book. Most new authors omit this most important information. But most people don't realize the purpose of the press release is to grab the editor by the collar, so they will want to do a feature story on you. Make your headlines sizzle. "Seven Ways to Sell More Books Than You Ever Dreamed Of" got a feature story, which attracted 90 people to a seminar by the same name. The coach sold $550 worth of books, gained four new book- coaching clients worth $2000, enrolled 15 in her weekly seminars, yielding 24 clients published within a 2-year period. Your book coach's first published press release responded to an article on the editorial page about the "Three R's." The headline was "Schools Need to Teach the Fourth "R" "Rapid Reading. After discussing the background problems of first grade reading circles, she included the benefits of rapid reading, and gave nine how-to solutions. The publisher not only loved the article, but also came personally to take a picture. Most people don't realize the purpose of the press release is to grab the editor by the collar, so he or she will want to do a feature story on you. Make your headlines sizzle. "Seven Ways to Sell More Books Than You Ever Dreamed Of" got a feature story which attracted 90 people to a seminar by the same name. The coach sold $550 worth of books, gained four new book-coaching clients worth $2000, enrolled 15 in her weekly seminars, yielding 24 clients published within a two-year period. Traditional Book Marketing Method Two: Giving Talks, Seminars and Presenting at Expos Creating a talk takes a lot of time. You must practice it at least two times before you deliver it. You must discover resources to find organizations to present to. Many of them don't pay their speakers. You may say that's OK because I will sell books. Yes, you'll sell a dozen or maybe more, but think of the huge effort it takes to get there. Consider travel time, traffic, clothing upkeep, and schlepping all those heavy books around. Like myself, you may present a talk or seminar to a corporation with big hopes of selling your products. When they pay you, though, they may set boundaries on book sales. One positive is that because you have a book, you can negotiate and leverage with meeting planners and top executives for higher paid presentations. The biggest disadvantage? You must wait for decision makers to accept and schedule you--that could be six months or more. Think of the time invested in marketing materials such as the One-Page, videos, and meetings. Your book coach left this venue because she knew there was a better way! But was it expos? Speaking at Expos or maintaining a booth takes many hours of work. Consider preparing and submitting press releases, creating brochures, hand outs, decorating the booth, presenting a drawing, and bringing in products to sell. Speaking can bring you a few book sales, but people passing by your booth are usually just looking. Giving out hundreds of flyers with free seminar offers brings few results too. Yes, I did get on a talk-radio show and eleven people showed up at my Supermemory seminar. No, they didn't buy books or book a coaching session. Yes, I collected names and email addresses from a free drawing. I was able to use them for my free ezine, The Book Coach Says...," but clients did not bang down my door to use my talents. With figuring my prep and floor time at 44 hours for just one expo and sales under $350, I'd say that was slave labor. Judy Cullins 2004 All Rights Reserved. |
