Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
Five Great Things That Don’t Sell a Lot of Books: #3 Reviews
We’ve all picked up a movie at the video store with a great blurb on the cover from someone at a major newspaper who said, “Best film of the year!” Little did we know:
a) This person said this on January 2nd.
b) This person doesn’t like the same kinds of movies as yourself.
I’ve found that with friends and family it can be very hard to recommend a book or a movie. At a recent gathering of friends several discussed their take about the Twilight series. To a person they all thought the books were poorly written, but some admitted that the books made for great leisure reading.
Since books can serve a variety of functions, providing an escape or valuable information, it’s hard to discern based on a review and even a friend’s recommendation whether a book will be a good fit. A reviewer may praise an author’s use of description and ability to set a scene, but perhaps the story doesn’t connect. A review may lambast an author for writing a book lacking essential information about a topic, but perhaps you found just enough to make it helpful.
Reviews are a wonderful tool for drawing attention to worthy books. They may play a significant role in convincing some readers, who may have been sitting on the fence, to pick up a book.
However, when it comes to making that personal connection with readers a review is still a very limited marketing tool. Reviews should be part of every author’s publicity plan, but a good review does not automatically translate into book sales. Those who rely on them to do this will only be disappointed.
The rest of this series:
Great Reviews
Online Social Media
A Web Site
Two Thing That Do
A well-written book that is targeted to a specific but wide audience.
A Trusted Name with an Extensive Platform
Five Great Things That Don’t Sell a Lot of Books: #2 A Great Forward
Besides lining up a great group of endorsers, I also asked a very popular author and blogger to write the forward for my book. I reasoned that any kind of positive endorsement from him would lead to instant sales.
However, the more I talked with people about the forward, I realized that many hadn’t even noticed it. Once they read it, they found it a persuasive case for buying my book. However, I began to realize that forwards aren’t quite as powerful a force for book sales than I had imagined.
The forward certainly leant me a little more credibility and I’m very glad that I had it, but it wasn’t the earth-shattering force that I expected it to be.
While a great forward should be the goal of any author, we can make the mistake of trusting things such as endorsements or forwards to do a lot more than they are designed to do. I’m very grateful for my colleague’s kind words, but his forward could only do so much by way of actually selling books.
I didn’t realize that selling lots of books had more to do with my own abilities.
The rest of this series:
A Great Forward
Great reviews
Social Media
A Web Site
Two Thing That Do
A well-written book that is targeted to a specific but wide audience.
A Trusted Name with an Extensive Platform
Five Great Things That Don’t Sell Lots of Books: #1 Great Endorsements
I confess that when I worked on publishing my first book that I thought landing a few great endorsements would just about guarantee success. Whenever I read a positive nod from a writer I admire, I usually consider buying the book.
From what I can tell, I assembled a pretty good group of endorsers. They were all respected and published authors in their own rights, and they said very kind things about my book.
While I’m sure that some folks picked up my book based on their endorsements, an endorsement can only take readers so far. An endorsement may convince them to pick up your book and look it over, but a potential reader’s interest may well stop there.
I invested a lot of time into the endorsement process, which I don’t necessarily regret, but I think I put way too much trust into it. In addition, I probably didn’t work as hard on some other things that were much more important since I trusted that the endorsers would expand the appeal of my book.
Endorsements are great, but they aren’t the most important factor in selling books.
The rest of this series:
Great endorsements
A Great Forward
Great reviews
Social Media
A Web Site
Two Thing That Do
A well-written book that is targeted to a specific but wide audience.
A Trusted Name with an Extensive Platform
Five Great Things That Don’t Sell Lots of Books… And Two Things That Do
I thought I’d done everything to give my book Coffeehouse Theology a chance to sell a lot of copies. I was very busy in the time leading up to the book’s release and afterwards with endorsements, reviews, blog tours, and social media buzz.
While there are a lot factors that go into a book’s sales from the marketing ability of a publisher to the state of the economy (which was at rock bottom at the time of my release), I’d like to process a few things in public about marketing my book and what I learned.
These are things that you the author can control. Results may vary depending on any number of factors, and the rules of publishing are generally made to be broken. However, there are some trends I have noticed.
The more I speak with other authors and industry professionals, the more I think I missed a few strategic opportunities to improve my book’s chances because I focused on developing some areas that were certainly important, but not quite as critical when it came to selling books. They may have helped sell some books, but they were not the most important factors when it came to selling LOTS of books.
I’ll spend this week and the next unpacking some of this a bit more, including how my publishing strategy has changed over the past year.
Here are the lists that I’ll dig into over the coming days:
Five Great Things That Don’t Sell Lots of Books
Trustworthy Endorsements
A Great Forward
Great Reviews
Social Media
A Web Site
Two Things That Sell Lots of Books
A well-written book that is targeted to the needs of a specific but wide audience.
A Trusted Name with an Extensive Platform (One note: the 5 things in the list above are part of a platform, but there is much more to a marketing platform than those 5 things)
Why You Have to Promote Your Blog or Quit
Earlier this week I wrote about the importance of writing a good blog post, but after a post is written and made available to all, your work is only half done. You need to work harder than ever to make sure people read it.
When I started reading blogs in 2004 and then started my own blog in 2005 there were three primary ways to drive traffic to your blog.
- Share an RSS feed so that readers can subscribe.
- Ask other blogs to list you on their blog roll.
- Participate in the discussions on other blogs.
While some of these methods still work, especially the third one, the first two are not quite as relevant anymore. In fact, there are a few other ways to market your blog that may be even more necessary these days.
As I mentioned in my previous post, competition is fierce. There are a lot of great blogs out there fighting for the limited attention of readers. Here are some thoughts on why marketing your blog is more important than ever:
Readers Want You to Find Them
Folks are using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media tools to share their information with others. When big news happens, many people don’t have to look much further than their facebook or twitter feeds. In fact, these days I find out most big stories from social media before I hear them on the news. Readers expect the best content to find them, even if they won’t admit it.
Today’s Online Tools Give Immediate Access to Your Blog
Rather than praying for someone to subscribe to your RSS feed, you can stick your posts right into the Twitter and Facebook feeds of hundreds, if not thousands of readers. It’s very easy to promote a link on social media a few times a day, so why not plan on it 3-times a day? Those two sites are the most important sources of traffic for my blog.
Blog Rolls are Less Important
While it’s never bad to have your blog listed on the sidebar of a high-profile blog, or any blog for that matter, blog rolls are becoming less important with the large number of blogs out there and the variety of ways the people read blogs these days that render a blog roll link useless.
Online Conversation Has Not Changed
It’s still vitally important to comment on the blogs of those with similar interests. Finding time for this is the most challenging part of blog promotion for me, but it can also be the most rewarding since you’ll make some great friends and acquaintances along the way. Some of these friends have become friends in person or have become collaborators in projects.
Align Your Promotion Plan with Your Goals
A big part of determining how hard you want to work at promoting your work will depend on your personal goals. Perhaps you just want to write as a personal discipline or as a way to share ideas with your friends. That’s a good and viable plan for a blog. However, if you want to be a major contributor to an area of knowledge or even a leader, then you’ll need to think of ways you can ensure that readers have multiple opportunities to run into your work.
A Courtship with Twitter: The Why’s and How’s of Tweeting
When I give presentations on blogging and social media, I often hear folks expressing concern over the difficulty of finding readers for their blogs. I know the feeling. You’re going through all of this trouble to post something special, and then no one shows up to read it.
It’s one step removed from having a conversation with yourself.
I’ve heard lots of people unfamiliar with Twitter deride it as a silly exercise in narcissism. For those new to blogging and social media, it’s either intimidating or simply beyond their comprehension.
However, if you want people to read your blog, to learn about your work, and to hopefully pass it on to others, Twitter is an indispensable tool that you’ll learn to love once you figure it out. By signing up and then learning a simple program such as Tweet Deck (or HootSuite), you’ll soon find yourself tweeting the praises of this service. Here are a few reasons why you need to start tweeting:
It’s Easy to Follow and Connect
Start off by following all of your favorite bloggers and authors. Also do searches for those with similar interests. Using a tool like “Twitter Local” will enable you to search for users in your locale.
Following them is as easy as a click, they’ll receive an e-mail that you’re following them, and they may even follow you back. Over time you’ll notice mentions and “ReTweets” (RT) that are particularly interesting, and now you have other interesting folks to follow. After you have a few followers, sign in to Mr. Tweet to get recommendations of others to follow.
It’s Easy to Share Information
OK, now you’re on Twitter and you have a few followers, but what’s next? Did you just finish a blog post and begin to worry that no one will read it? Copy the link to your post, type something like this into the status update in Tweet Deck: “New blog post ‘Title’”, and then paste the link in there. Tweet Deck can shorten the link for you automatically.
Once you send it out there, you’ve just alerted folks to your blog post. About three to four hours later post a reminder tweet that your blog post is our there just in case anyone missed it. If someone loves your post, they may Retweet it and share it with others.
It’s a Community
As you post your own updates, share links, and send out blog post alerts, you’ll find yourself in conversations with other users on Twitter. You can either reply with a public comment or you can send a private direct message to someone who has reciprocated your follow.
You’ll find your network of friends and colleagues expanding, your knowledge of blogs and other valuable information growing, and your own work reaching new readers. I find that I rarely check my RSS subscriptions these days since I’m already following my favorite bloggers in Twitter.
The Love You Take…
Twitter is only as good as your last tweet, so be sure to write up valuable updates, share solid content, and ReTweet generously when you find something excellent. Twitter is one of those services that can become a huge waste if you don’t manage your time and content wisely.
As the Beatles said, “The love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Put into it’s proper place, Twitter is an indispensable networking, marketing, and friend-making tool that in many cases thrives on excellence and generosity. For bloggers worried about finding readers for their posts, Twitter is the perfect place to spark the conversations all writers long to have.
Amazon Associates Now Integrates with Twitter
Amazon has added a great new feature for Associates that integrates an associates ID with links to books on Twitter. Users can now post links to books right from the Amazon home page, much like posting from a news site.
This is a great way to utilize Twitter in both making book recommendations and providing an extra revenue stream. This will not be for everyone, but for those engaged in recommending books, products, or in sharing expertise in a particular field, I see some potential for growth.
After using Amazon Associates for a good two to three years on my blog and e-mail newsletter, I personally haven’t seen too much of a need for it in those mediums. For the most part this is tied to my blog’s topic (Christian theology), the number of readers I draw, and the income generated per sale doesn’t make it worth the effort to embed my associates ID with every book.
To make it worth my while I would need a wider audience and more marketable products to sell. An economic recovery wouldn’t hurt either. If I blogged on politics, technology, marketing, or online commerce, I could very well see the value in generating revenue from an associates account on book and other product purchases.
Nevertheless, from time to time I recommend books, mark some for my wish list, or save others in my del.icio.us bookmarks. Using this Twitter feature is yet another way to share content with friends. The potential to earn even a quarter adds a little incentive to do something I would consider doing without the promise of revenue.
The e-mail notice I received from Amazon said the following:
By clicking on the Share on Twitter button in the Site Stripe, a new window will open and an Amazon-generated message is pre populated in the ‘What are you doing?’ text area of your Twitter account (you may be asked to log in to your Twitter account). That message will include a shortened URL that already includes your Associates ID. You’ll have the option to edit this message or simply hit the ‘Update’ button to post to your Twitter account. When Twitter users click on the link in your post and make a qualifying sale, you’ll earn referral fees.
With the immediacy, large number of potential readers, and ability to share that Twitter provides, I think this is a great idea. Though I’ve given up on using Amazon Associates on my web site, I think I’ll give this Share on Twitter feature a shot.
Selecting Influencers for a Book Release: The Problem
Continuing my 3-part series on selecting influencers for a book release…
When you begin selecting influential people to help spread the word about your book, keep in mind the three qualities that you’re looking for: trusted names, contact with a large audience, and a willingness or ability to endorse your book.
In compiling my own list of influencers I worked very hard to contact those with large audiences and a trusted name, but I didn’t necessarily gauge the likelihood that they would plug my book. Keep in mind that the bigger a name, the more books he/she will receive. They can’t read every book that comes onto their desks, and so the question is, “Will this person both read and talk about my book?”
If an influencer doesn’t read your book, it’s nothing personal. There are only so many hours in a day. In addition, some may hope to read and talk about your book with their audience only for your book to fall through the cracks. Within days of receiving my book one well-meaning influencer realized he wouldn’t have time to read it and so he gave it away on his web site.
No exactly the ideal publicity you’re aiming for.
And so the challenge you face is balancing the audience size and trust of an influencer with that person’s ability to plug book whether in conversations or in an online or on-air review. However, the right kind of influencer for your book may not have that large of an audience and may even look quite different from what you expcet.
The next installments in this series…
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Solution
Previously…
Selecting Influencers for a Book Release: The Goal
Before a book releases it is important for authors to assemble lists of influencers who can help promote and possibly add a public endorsement that will prompt others to buy their books. For instance, if a respected author, radio personality, or, in my case, pastor of a large congregation recommends a book, especially saying it’s a must-read, then a book may well receive a bump in sales.
Selling a book tends to be a very personal, one on one process. Advertising may raise awareness, but anything from a friend’s recommendation, a book seller’s comments, or an online review often makes the difference between a book staying on the shelf or ending up on the nightstand. In addition, a series of solid reviews do not guarantee brisk sales, just as negative reviews do not equal a book’s doom.
There is plenty of competition these days for not only the public’s attention, but also for the public’s disposable income. When trusted authorities recommend a book, authors have one more way to connect a book with readers. Influencers can vouch for an author’s credibility and provide a broad point of connection with potential readers.
The ideal influencers will have trusted names, contact with a large audience, and a willingness to endorse your book. Influencers may lead to direct sales or at least give readers another reason to recommend your book.
An influencer without one of these three qualities may not be a helpful contact. In the next post of this series I’ll look into some of the problems authors encounter in putting together an influencer list.
The next installments in this series…
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Problem
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Solution
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