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Marketing Novels: One Man's Experience |
The following post was written by Earl Sewell in a forum at the Book Marketing Network (http://bookmarket.ning.com). His website is at http://www.earlsewell.com.
What’s working for me is setting up events where I have an audience. Also having an act when speaking to groups helps a great deal---for example, I write fiction, and instead of just reading the work, I turn it into a dramatization and get the audience to participate. The Call and Response method works great for me. This also helps me to sell myself as an entertainer.
Two weeks ago I did a book release party with a book club in DC. I ordered 100 copies of my book from my publisher and let the book club pre-sell Have Mercy. Since Have Mercy is an erotic thriller, part of the program included a lingerie fashion show. About 35 people showed up and when it was my turn, I put on a great show for my fans. The book club kept the remainder of the books and hand sold all of them for me.
During my book signing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I asked a local book club there to join me at Waldenbooks. I asked them to wear their book club t-shirts and walk around the mall handing out my promo cards. They did this for me and for the first time, I got a crossover audience. The ladies, whom I’d known for three years, told every woman in the mall what a great writer I was and they came over. Some purchased books while others were just curious.
I also write Y.A. fiction. What’s working for me there is dealing directly with high school librarians. They’re always looking for great books to purchase for their students. I also do creative writing workshops and publishing workshops. I charge a nominal fee for doing this plus I get the schools to order the books at a discount from my publisher.
In addition I have a special website for my Y.A audience (http://keyshasdrama.ning.com). Staying in direct contact with them has helped because they tell their friends about the book and then get them to join my website. I have contests and prize giveaways for them.
However, even with all that I do, I still can’t get my sales numbers to sore the way I’d like them to. It’s a very very tough market out there and getting a name brand to stick without a large marketing budget is no easy task. However, this is my passion and no matter what, I’m going to keep moving forward.
John's Comments: Earl is clearly creative and working hard to promote his novels. Obviously some things are working. I love his go-to-it-tiveness.Labels: book marketing, book promotion, marketing novels, novel marketing |
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John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Internet Marketing Event
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What Publishers Can Learn from the Web |
The following post has been contributed by Caitlin Smith . . .
The internet has become a valuable marketplace for booksellers, a great community resource for readers, and an essential marketing tool for publishers. Successful ventures of all kinds have exploded on the web in recent years, from blogs to new formats for buying and selling media. Why not tap into some of these ideas for your own work? Here are some lessons that publishers can take from the success of the web and apply to their own practices.
Make reading a social experience. The internet creates the perfect environment to make reading more social. Online communities are great places to bring readers together and get them talking. One way to take advantage of this is to set up online book clubs and forums, letting these customers come together and enjoy reading as a group rather than just as individuals and letting them say what they loved about a particular book, basically selling it for you.
Use social networking for marketing plans. Want to know where the fans and potential audience for your author’s works are? Social media can help you create targeted marketing plans and organize book tours where turnouts will be significant. Whether you employ a social networking page or just track subscribers to an author’s blog, these tools can help you get a much better handle on where and how to market.
Find untapped talent. The Internet has turned out many celebrities in recent years that became successes from relative anonymity. Finding new talent for your publishing company may be a little easier if you monitor places like blogs, where humor, good writing and other important skills can come to light. Better yet, you can subscribe to blogs and follow your potential finds to see how they evolve.
Use electronic formats. These days keeping manuscripts in paper only format just doesn’t make sense. Using both print and electronic means to get your book out there can be smart and will allow you more flexibility in how you promote the material. Releasing small sections of the book to fan blogs and on your own site can be an excellent way to build up anticipation about an impending publication.
Make it to buy online. It’s estimated the Amazon’s Kindle format will sell millions of digital publications this year. As electronic books grow in popularity both in text and audio format it’s essential that you keep up and make your books easy to acquire through online means. Paper copies should be easy to buy from your site as well, increasing easy availability to whatever format your customers like best.
-- Caitlin Smith writes about the best online colleges: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com. She welcomes your feedback at CaitlinSmith1117@gmail.com. |
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John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Internet Marketing Event
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Teleseminar for Authors: Today, July 2nd |
Tonight (Thursday, July 2nd) at 9 pm Eastern time, Alex Mandossian will describe how he JV'd with Jack Canfield, Donald Trump, Stephen Covey, Harv Eker, and others to create real value and generate income: http://budurl.com/ny8a.
In just 90 minutes, you'll learn how to market like a pro.
This special teleconference is designed for authors, information marketers, and small business owners.
Note: This teleseminar will cost you $20.
Alex Mandossian also has a clever way to capture emails and provide real help at the same time: http://budurl.com/xz25. Check out his website. His Ask Alex website is an interesting way to start creating a real relationship with people via the web.Labels: book marketing, book promotion, email subscribers |
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John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Internet Marketing Event
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Chelsea Green Launches Library Wish List Gift Registry |
Chelsea Green has just launched a Library Gift Registry, which encourages librarians to select new books from the publisher's list and send their patrons to Chelsea Green's website to buy titles at a 40% discount and free shipping to designated libraries.
Peg O'Donnell, sales director for Chelsea Green, notes that "Libraries have been struggling in these challenging times, and this is one way we can help them stay competitive and current, especially with sustainability and green living titles."
Librarians who sign up for the program between July 9 to 15 will qualify for a raffle of $500 worth of Chelsea Green titles.
Check out their new registry at http://www.chelseagreen.com.Labels: book marketing, book promotion, Chelsea Green, libraries |
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John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Internet Marketing Event
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Book ‘Em, Danno. A Report from BookExpo America |
The following report on the most recent BookExpo America in New York City was written by syndicated columnist Michael J. Herman . . .
In an economic environment where everyone is consciously wondering where and when the next shoe will drop, it is refreshing to see that things are not as grim in Whoville as they seem. Predictions for this year’s Book Expo America (BEA), which took place at New York’s Jacob Javits Center several weeks ago, were dismal at best.
Rumors of the show's imminent demise seem surprisingly premature. Godfrey Harris of The Americas Group, a Los Ageles-based consulting firm said: “In today’s new publishing landscape, BEA is becoming increasingly irrelevant.”
However, rather than downtrodden and gloomy exhibitors, and listless and apathetic attendees, BEA '09 has proven instead a vibrant and excited group of reinvented individuals. Well, many of them, anyway.
While the industry as a whole continues to struggle with its own identity, figuring out why it's a different world out there, and how it can get its archaic paradigms to fit into the new business models, others are embracing the new trends with gusto. By and large, the old guard continues to reign supreme. Brands like Random House, Simon and Schuster, Wiley and Bertelsmann dominate and are the bullies on the block, but the cracks in the walls are apparent to nearly everyone at the show.
No matter to whom you speak, the buzz is about the now ubiquitous transformation of e-books and the even greater rise in popularity of the small press and greater influence of the independent publisher.
Once thought to be a shear aberration, the e-book now promises to serve as savior to an industry that could be witnessing its own rapid demise. The fall of broad appeal brands like Circuit City and Mervyns foreshadow a dismal hope for longevity of niche retailers like Barnes & Noble or Borders.
The question should now be plainly posed: Can the book industry rely on the good graces of Walmart, Costco, and Amazon to provide the effective and wide enough distribution for books, music, software, and other media? Or will the only 2½% of the publishing industry represented by e-books and downloads be able to save us all? Consider the following when answering this question:
-The 2010 BEA will be cut from three days to only two days.
-The Trade Publishing Industry as a whole is experiencing what much of the economy is feeling, a seizing spasmodic choking of revenue and profits from all sectors.
-With the rise in popularity offered by iPods and other downloadable book readers, is BEAs necessary? And,
-How can traditional publishing models continue to succeed, when to survive in the new paradigms they must shift their models and give up what they have known to be stable? Can the changes work?
The change in the length of the show is a mistake according to industry video blogger Kurt Aldag of www.ireadnet.com. He has been pressuring the ABA [Editor's note: BEA is produced by a sister company of Publishers Weekly] which produces the BEA to change its plan from two days in the middle of the week for only industry folks to attend, instead move the show to Thursday and Friday for trade and open it up to the book buying public Saturday and Sunday.
“After all” claims the web TV producer, “the exhibitors are already there with books to sell. The publishers are there with their authors and the media is there waiting for interview savvy dynamos like Ben Mizrich, author of The Accidental Billionaire: The Founding of Facebook to wow them.” Besides which, the Frankfurt Book Fair, (the world’s largest and most successful publishing expo has well proven that this formula works.
According to publishing magnet Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, this expo is the answer to the industry’s woes. “This is where the most forward thinking thought leaders in the world come to convene for the single cause of publishing. There are no venues in the world containing more positive and motivated people fixated on creating a better world in one location than at BEA. These are the people and companies that know how to solve problems.”
Hansen’s optimism isn’t surprising. He’s built a virtual publishing empire based on the concept of things can always get better. The Chicken Soup brand alone has sold more than 800 million books worldwide. He’s even taken substantial steps to ensure the continued growth of the publishing industry and access to all by launching his own imprint Hansen House and the new web-based http://www.youpublish.com where even beginners can compete with Mark Victor Hansen.
But even with these new outlets designed to compete with Viacom’s massive financial brawn, or Bertelsmann’s global reach, consumers are tired of the old ways and things have changed.
Reid Tracey, with Hay House Publishing, sees the rise of devices like the iPod, iPhone, iTouch, and Sony’s new E-book Reader, are indicative of where the industry simply must go. “Readers are younger, more-savvy, more technical, more educated, more information-starved, and have shorter attention spans. They want it and they want it now.”
He’s right if you consider that the most profitable brands like Harry Potter, Lord of The rings, Twilight, and Jonas Brothers all target young readers.
More than 65 million Kindle e-book downloads have been sold in under two-years and the brands with e-book readers on the way, are betting big that this trend toward portability of content, and cheap accessibility will continue as far as the third eye can see.
The prediction by publishing industry guru Dan Poynter, author of The Self Publishing Manual suggests that the e-book will experience its next tipping point when big names, celebrities, politicians, and tent pole marquis authors choose to publish their big stories by e-format, and forego the prestige commonly associated with printed books.
This opinion is shared by tech publishing guru Yanik Silver of Surefiremarketing.com, who contends that at this point there is no reason to publish traditionally, unless your objective is to be at the mercy of someone with little imagination and an even smaller vision of what is possible. “Publishing electronically is the future and you simply can’t escape that fact.”
Observations Worth Noting at This Year’s BEA:
>> There was a marked shift in exhibitors to more book and publishing related booths and a clear decrease in the number of non-book exhibitors like toys, games, music, consumer products, devices, and personalities.
>> Exhibitors consistently reported fewer qualified leads, but bigger orders and higher priced orders than last year. This is consistent with some other recent tradeshow studies.
>> The quality of titles of all kinds, small press, or by the major houses is the highest they’ve ever been. This made possible by the advent and popularity of digital printing.
If you really want to get the pulse of the book selling industry, buy a new book and read it. Do your part. Take a good book to bed.
Proving that the book publishing and book selling businesses are no laughing matter, even CBS late night talk show wise cracker Craig Fergusson has a new book chronicling his journey to American citizenship. When I asked Fergusson what the secret to his success in so many creative areas is, he chided and said, “I really don’t know.” When pressed a little more, he confessed, “I think I finally got comfortable with who I really am. When I let the world see it, the world wasn’t such a bad place.”
-- Michael J. Herman is a syndicated columnist and author of the bestselling Becoming The Complete Champion: One Motivational Minute at a Time (2003 Motivational Minute Press). Mike coaches authors, speakers, and entrepreneurs in the effective and systematic ways to build profitable enterprises. Mike can be reached at http://www.themotivationalminute.com.Labels: BEA, book marketing, book promotion, BookExpo America |
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John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Internet Marketing Event
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