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Sunday, August 7, 2016

HOW TO TAKE THE MISERY OUT OF BOOK MARKETING

 And you thought WRITING the book was hard!

BOOK MARKETING sucks the joy right out of the air you breathe in the sigh of relief after finally having a book in print.

We study hard to write the best prose we can.  Most of us research how best to market our books.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! 

 Most of what you will find on the internet is already out of date:

the guaranteed methods have become more over-done worse than a Flying J road-stop steak. 

Some of my sales struggles in the past have come from a poorly titled book 

or a marketing plan that didn’t effectively target my core audience, 

but regardless, I’ve always been tempted to take my sales numbers personally.

Sales are just numbers.  

Low numbers tell you more about what you need to do than high.  Face it, you learn more from mistakes --

They shout at you louder.

Poor sales do not tell you about the quality of your prose.  

They merely tell you that you have not yet found the road out of the author blog ghetto.

A preacher who feels his sermons are poor because he has won no souls in the choir has learned the wrong lesson.

An imitation will always pale in comparison to the original.

Do not imitate another author's or blogger's path to writing success. 

It worked for them because they were on fire for it ...

besides you also do not know all the other factors in their situation that led to lightning striking their sales.

Be yourself.  Have fun. 
 Grow as writer.  

Enjoy the journey.  Look at the world around you: do not be blind to those who need your presence in their lives.

A snubbed child will not care if her mother is a success at writing if she is frozen out of the mother's life.

 Most strikingly in our comments to the blogs of others, 

connecting with readers in a personally authentic way ensures that the reader who is impacted with your book will return for the next.

Remember: 
You Are Never Done Promoting your book

Keep an eye on news headlines, current events, or internet movements to leap upon them should they tie in to a past book of yours.

Your two year old book will be new to someone who is just then discovering it because of you tying it with a recent headline.

 You can’t always control the effectiveness of your book marketing plan, 

 but you can control the way that book marketing impacts your relationships, mental health, and spirituality.

 If you hope to make a career out of writing, 

it’s especially important that your publicity practices leave something of yourself for the next book.

Enjoy the journey and slow down to take in the world around you. 

20 comments:

  1. Hi Roland - couldn't agree more about the 'Be Yourself' and help others ... and learn more about writing so you're always different to all about you ... cheers Hilary

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    1. We grow as writers or we wither. Thanks for always visiting. It means a lot to me! :-)

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  2. This is the best advice about being a marketer for your own writing. There's nothing more that others want is for you to be authentic and genuine, whether on social media, or in real life.

    The only other point I would try to make is that by doing so, by being real in an unreal blogosphere, word of mouth remains one of the single best ways to sell a book. If people are talking about you, they're talking about your book. An author is only as good as his brand.

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    1. WORD OF MOUTH is magic when it comes to book sales. The real trick is how to generate it without breaking the law or running for president! :-)

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  3. Ahhh, now I know why I'm so bad at marketing! I'm busy enjoying my back yard. Thanks for confirming that it's okay.

    I LOVED Planet Earth. Such a small dust mote we live on, such a miracle.

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    1. PLANET EARTH was breath-taking, wasn't it? We are given life to live, and the pity is that so few of us only exist. :-(

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  4. What worked for one won't always work for another. And we can't give up on those older books.

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    1. GREAT that your first book is now out in AUDIO!! Best of sales with it.

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  5. I think marketing is both a pleasure and a chore. When I am having a slow day and don't feel like doing a lot of work, then I really enjoy marketing but when I have a busy writing day--- it really annoys me then. You are right, of course, it never ends.

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    1. The pleasure to book marketing is when it is over. Oh, wait! It is never over! No wonder I hate it so!! Thanks for visiting and commenting.

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  6. How gorgeous she is, our plnet. I hope we will be able to keep her and honor her for centuries to come. Marketing a book has always sounded a bit difficult to me. Helping others, as you are doing in these posts, should make it and other parts of book writing, publishing, and marketing more rewarding.

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    1. Isn't our world beautiful? No border lines can be seen from space nor the squalor the rich in every country ignores.

      Helping my friends makes me feel as if I am accomplishing something of worth. :-)

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  7. Some good points here to bear in mind if the happy day ever arrives of having my own book out there. (Have to finish writing it first!)

    Susan at
    Travel, Fiction and Photos

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    1. Yes, finishing is step number one!! I am currently trying to finish my latest myself. Let me know when your book is ready so I can give it a proper hollar! :-0

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  8. All you've written is so true. And even with constant marketing, the glut of books continues to swell around us, making each appearance in the public eye more challenging and more expensive.

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    1. Sigh. You're right: the glut is getting worse and worse. Even with my great covers, my books will never be seen in the tidal wave of new books out there.

      I am too stubborn to quit, but my heart is getting heavy. Enough of this!

      I have my next to last chapter, DRAGONS OVER PARIS, to finish!!

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  9. Great advice, as always, Roland. I see so many bad marketing mistakes out there. Probably the best thing I've done is tailor my blog to my potential readers, instead of writers.

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    1. I believe you are right there. It is hard to tailor for potential readers for me -- how do I let them know I am out there? How is the deadline coming along?

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  10. These are great tips and perfect timing as Jess and I are trying to make a marketing plan for her next book coming out this fall. We didn't really do much for the first one because we didn't know what to do. Thanks for sharing your ideas. I think you're so right that you have to do what feels right and works for you, not whatever works for others.

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    1. Let me know when Jess's book comes out, and I will give her a shout-out -- maybe even interview her in my haunted jazz club, Meilori's (the ghosts of Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde may even show or or Poe's ghost!)

      Thanks for tweeting about this post!

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