A Consideration for Do-It-Yourself Book Promoters
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, multi award-winning novelist, poet, and author
of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers
Every author wants their marketing efforts to be super successful.
And most of us spend an inordinate amount of time chasing big coverage in big media. That’s our dream. Trouble is, it is often a failure.
So, as a book marketing consultant, I tell my clients a little story from my early consulting days. I met June at a writers’ conference about two years after she had hit the big time with a featured four page spread in a slick, trade magazine including being its cover girl. There she was posing apparently nude but with a bathtub full of bubbles protecting her reputation—bubbles, her book, and her iPhone and were her only props. It was tastefully done. It was the perfect theme for the news cycle of the day about the advantages for working from home—and being a happily independent self-publisher. She had been the envy of many authors. Two years after that magazine was issued to tens of thousands business people across the US, she still had entire box-fulls of some 2,000 copies of the title she had published hanging around her garage. She had been absolutely sure they would sell quickly after this marketing triumph. She was for sure one disillusioned cover girl.
I gave her a 50% discount on her consultation and found myself coaching her at no charge for a year as she slid into an “I’ll-never-write-again funk.” She made a mistake familiar to authors. She reached for the stars. She did so when it seemed logical and right. She had learned to write a knock-out query letter and knew the standards for submission. She even did post promotion touting her success at events designed to help other authors. Her story was a trove of wisdom for those who long for independence.
BUT SHE ALSO VIOLATED A BASIC MARKETING RULE. GREAT MARKETING IS RARELY A MIRACULOUS COUP. MARKETING THAT INCREASES BOOKS SALES AND BUILDS CAREERS IS PROPELLED BY ENTIRE CAMPAIGNS AND REPETITION. CAMPAIGNS GROW REACH LARGE NUMBERS OF READERS AND REPETITION REMINDS READERS TO ACT ON WHAT THEY’VE SEEN.
Here’s the saddest part. She could have done much better with less expenditure of time and more successes that would have could have fed that repetition machine. Here the kind of media that might that might have helped her reach her sales goal as well inspire her with more positive marketing experiences--enough to keep her going for another book and then another.
Let local media keep your campaign going as your success stories proliferate including awards, local events built around holidays, local politics--whatever you can associate with different aspects of your book.
§ Don’t neglect free media.
§ Don’t forget media from your alma maters—from newsletters to their quarterlies to their e-magazines, high school, community colleges where you took night classes...and above.
§ Don’t ignore querying for reviews, or exclude the less prestigious ones.
§ Don’t underestimate yucky commercial stuff you find in your mailbox. Read them. Get creative. One or more could be a goose that lays the golden egg.
§ Don’t disregard throwaway newspapers found in a rack outside CVS, printed on paper that isn’t slick, edited by professionals who need tons of content to fill many pages on a weekly basis.
§ Actively seek marketing opportunities other than media. Most are great for building the kind of readers who become supporters. Have them sign a guest book complete with e-mail addresses. Then ask them to tell others. Find them at places like these:
~Seminars and readings at retailers that match your reading audience—boutiques, bars, coffee shops, yogurt shops, anyone located along the main street of your home town. Events using your personal mail list can increase their much-needed profits by 10% a day. Get them to agree to stock your book while you continue to make others aware of where to buy them, even in your e-mail signature. Have you heard of point-of-purchase sales? All they have to do is perch you book near their cash register with a little stack of your business cards and when someone looks, touches, or comments, keep the conversation going.
~ Local and not so local fairs and trade shows.
~ Let your library’s event director know about your release. They need panelists. Volunteer for to do or help with their book displays and window arrangements.
~ Pitch newsletters or weeklies for seniors and medical communities.
~ Don’t underestimate the reach of online entities like blog tours, articles for newsletters. You can produce your own to encourage loyal fans and readers, but a very wise Dan Poynter once told me that we reach a greater number and variety of readers—and save lots of time—when we offer content for others’ websites and blogs in exchange for nothing more than a glorious byline and bio.
~ If you are enamored with being on a big morning talk show (a danger sign by the way!), explore the local cable channel that runs your city’s meetings and determine what theme, topic, or genre of your book or your own backstory would interest their audience.
All of the editors, readers, and business leaders you meet are your future supporters. Keep accurate contact and mail lists. Using them frequently is as important as knowing how to write s smashing query letter or media release.
Somewhere lying fallow in a musty library there is sure to be an old marketing tome—perhaps once a textbook—that would tell you about the “rule of seven.” People must be exposed to a message at least seven times before they act on it.
If you still aren’t convinced, here’s how to combine the possibilities. Don’t think Time, Vogue, or CBS (unless it’s local CBS in a small town or region). Think obscure. Think big charities and organizations. Jim Banning, Editor-in-Chief of AAA’s Westways says the term hidden gem is a one of the most “cringe-worthy” clichés he comes across in descriptions of his free periodical. And he has first-hand experience of its value. The editors of AARP’s (American Association of Retired Persons) and the Sierra Club’s magazine editor would agree with him. They send out hundreds of thousands of magazines to their members/clients. The beauty is they’re slick, professional and did I say have a rather large distribution list? Their readers are not monolithic. If accepted an article you wrote (and pitched) would carry a credit line with its title and website address. You might also suppose they don’t hear from new authors with a great story to pitch nearly as often as The New Yorker or Playboy that might not be as impressed by your name or the title of your book—yet.
An appearance in one of these niche periodicals expands the fairy dust around us that builds careers. But mostly their positive and frequent acceptance keeps us writing (and reinvigorated) on even our bluest days.
MORE ABOUT TODAY’S “WRITERS on the MOVE” CONTRIBUTOR
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a multi award-winning author of fiction and poetry but is best known for her how-to-books for writers. Find all of that series in one place on Amazon, but it’s her poetry that addresses the ills of cultures across the world. Imperfect Echoes is her Writers’ Digest honored book. Self-published in the tradition of poets since the advent of the Gutenberg press, it defies #bookbigoty as well other biases we are experiencing after a period—decades—of progress on that front. Find a review by Jim Cox, editor-in-chief of The Midwest Book Review, and its Amazon buy page at Https://tinyurl.com/ImperfectEchoes.
