Book Marketing 101
Book Marketing 101
By Clark R. Covington
What’s The Big Deal?
Book marketing is quickly becoming more of an art and less of a science as writers attempt to increase exposure and sales for their book. Book marketing is a unique, underserviced niche of the publishing and PR industries that focuses primarily on the attempt to gain exposure for an author’s book by the media and public spheres of society.
Typically book marketing is created, and performed on a per book basis, usually surrounding the release or initial publication of a book. While book marketing can be performed long after the first book is printed, it seems that most authors prefer to market their books as soon as they are published, in order to build on any pre-release buzz publicity that may exist. This common time to market a book is also purposefully coincided with the book review schedules of major newspapers and periodicals. Ever see a book review on an old book? Me neither.
So what is the big deal when it comes to book marketing? Why is book marketing so essential in gaining a leg up on selling one’s book? There is a simplest answer to both questions is that book marketing is necessary to separate a newly published book from the glut of books that are released each month all vying for the same attention.
What drives the need for book marketing is the overflowing glut of newly released books, combined with today’s bookstore that keeps less stock, and relies heavily on the internet for sales. Welcome to today’s book market.
Market Supply and Demand
The market for new books is growing slimmer and slimmer by the day. This is not some ploy to gain business, but rather a fact of an industry that depends more and more on an established author’s name recognition than they do on a book’s premise. The market for buyers is increasingly becoming consolidated to bestsellers, and niche books that are steady sellers available in bookstores, every other kind of book is starting to migrate into special order status or for purchase online only status. This means writers are having a difficult time getting their book the attention it needs to sell copies, get press, get reviewed, and so forth. Fueling this new book market supply and demand scenario is the print on demand, also known as POD, phenomena that eliminates the needs to print books in bulk for those that have yet to fly off the shelves.
Unless your name is James Patterson, Stephen King, or Dr. Phil, it will be increasingly hard to break into the traditional retail book market. Not impossible, but very difficult. The bottom line is that publishers are looking for a slam dunk when it comes to investing in the printing and marketing of a book. It is the name recognition that today sells books, just as you or I might buy a CD from our favorite music artist without ever hearing a track; many book buyers are doing the same for their favorite writer’s new book.
The untended consequence of name leveraged book marketing is a book market with little new authors coming into the mainstream. Consequently authors are more and more taking on self publishing as a way to get their book on the market with favorable terms. Those that stay with traditional publishing houses can rely on the publisher’s reputation and connections to get their book in the bookstores, but that does not mean it will sell well. This coupled with the steady decline of new book deals coming from traditional publishing houses for unknown authors, and you have a market in need of correction.
All of the above leads to a market that is in dire need of correction. As long as the publishing houses pour most of the money into the bestselling name brand author’s new books, the new or established but not famous author will suffer. Thankfully there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a concrete and proven way to get your book the attention and sales it deserves, that so many other books will never achieve. Enter internet marketing, your new best friend.
A Case For Innovation: Internet Marketing
Internet marketing, commonly known among specialists as IM, is powerful new medium authors can use to promote and sell their book. The internet offers authors, new and old, the ability to push their book to the forefront of any given public discussion. This means that if you wrote a book about the spider monkey, it is now possible to expose your book to those most interested in the spider monkey, and those looking for books on the subject. In fact, the internet, if mastered correctly, can become a marketing tool far better than any publishing house could offer even its most esteemed authors.
Imagine a world where you effortlessly control the traffic of your virtual bookstore, pointing those most interested in your topic to the book you penned, and taking the one’s not interested in your work, and tossing them out the door. This could never happen in your local chain bookstore, but thanks to several key innovations in online marketing, you can dust of your virtual boots and kick some major butt in online marketing and sales for your book.
Relative nameless authors can become established experts and bestselling writers in months. Established authors can become superstars in even less time with the right mix of online internet marketing. No matter what the level, topic, type, genre, or form of a book, if it’s for sale, it can be marketed online.
Just like the game of Monopoly cannot go on without a player rolling the dice, internet marketing, specifically book marketing online, cannot take place without someone manipulating the marketing venues in the proper way.
For example, a book listed on Amazon.com may not sell any better than a book listed on any other website if left alone. However, if the book on Amazon.com is reviewed five, ten, or even fifteen times by other Amazon.com members, one can quickly see a rise in both exposure and sales. Further, if the same book is offered as a paid placement alternative to a popular bestselling book on Amazon.com, it fares an even greater chance at selling at a high rate. The bottom line is if online internet marketing avenues are not only utilized, but expertly analyzed and adjusted for optimal results, one can expect great things.
Online Book Marketing: Zig When Everybody Else is Zagging
Taking the path less traveled is often regarded as risky in business and marketing. Taking the path less traveled many note is quick way to lose all momentum, and subsequently go out of business. However, it is my argument that taking the path less traveled when it comes to online marketing might just make you the bestselling author you always dreamed of being.
If you are to zig when everyone else decides to zag, you will not only stand out from the crowd, you might actually sell a book or two!
Standing out from the crowd means not producing the stock template websites that most authors use, not doing the basic promotion of having someone write a press release, and then sending it out to the local paper, and not doing basically everything traditional and self publishing houses advise you to do when it comes to marketing a book online. In short, it means doing more marketing in different ways. It means taking your press release and giving it legs by distributing it to people that might actual care to read it, and in some cases actually act on it. It means thinking forward, and looking at your book from a media consumption standpoint. What do the media want to report on? How can your book help them craft a compelling story? Answer these questions, and your book marketing campaign just took its first of many zigs.
To review all the necessary changes one would have to make to a traditional online book marketing campaign to make it worthy of a new media internet marketing campaign would take days. Instead of focusing on an action plan now, start by realizing the power is within you to effectively promote your book online, and control your marketing costs leading to increased visibility in a way that helps return a healthy profit on the hard investment of penning a book.
Book marketing works, it works online better than in traditional forms, and it works for those that are motivated, and creatively driven to sell their book.
Book marketing can change your book’s sales for a longtime to come, this fact has already been proven, the question that still remains are you ready to take the plunge and get your book marketed in an innovative way? Or is the path less traveled in online book marketing too new to take advantage of? Your choice either way will play a major role in the success and ultimate sales of your book.