Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 28, 2018

Think like a burglar and get in to see more corporate buyers. If burglars want to get into a house, there are many different ways to enter front door, rear door, side door, garage or any of many windows. They keep trying until one opens. You, too, can find a way if you want it bad enough.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 26, 2018

In special-sales marketing, your customers may place a (blanket) standing order (a given number of books to be shipped automatically on some predetermined schedule) if your book is used as a textbook or a successful premium. This recurring revenue improves the volume and velocity of your cash flow.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 25, 2018

If people predict that your book will "never make it" in special sales, think about these predictions: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943; and "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty -- a fad," said the president of Michigan S&L advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company, 1903

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 24, 2018

Picture your plans. What's your objective? What are you trying to accomplish? Can you state it in one or two sentences? Can you draw a picture of it? Can you make a map of where you want to go and list the things you will need to do to get there? What detours might you encounter? What short cuts you might take? Can you visualize yourself reaching your objective?

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 23, 2018

Frequent promotion can create additional opportunities. You never know who will see or hear your message. It could be a publisher looking for the rights to a book like yours, a meeting planner seeking a keynote speaker, the buyer for a corporation seeking your content for a marketing campaign,  or the person who arranges guests for a national talk show.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 22, 2018

The book-publishing marketplace is like an iceberg. There are visible opportunities (bookstores) that make it easier to chart your course. But there are many opportunities that remain unseen – those among non-bookstore retailers, and non-retail buyers in corporations, associations, schools and the military. It can be hazardous to ignore what is there, but hidden.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 21, 2018

In 2004 Lego's product line was comprised of 12,000 unique bricks. They could not deliver popular sets because one brick out of 500 was unavailable. For that and other reason Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy. They changed their product strategy and reduced the number of unique bricks. They also began to innovate around the ways the fewer bricks were combined in sets. The efforts paid off in profitability and growth.

 

The lesson for book publishers? Do not focus on publishing more books, but on selling more books. Here are three things you can do. First, analyze your acquisition strategy so you take on content that is based on a market need. Second, evaluate your ROPE (Return On Promotional Expenditures). Are you spending your promo dollars wisely with the right message sent to the right prospects at the right time? Third, find non-retail buyers in corporations who can buy in large, non-returnable quantities.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 19, 2018

"If you're going to be an author in today's publishing world, you absolutely have to market. You need to build a platform. You need to learn how to effectively use social media." – James H. Pence

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 18, 2018

When selling to non-retail buyers, the starting place for your negotiations is the information that your book provides. If a prospective buyer decides that your content has value, then you settle on the form in which the content will be disseminated. This may be as a book, ebook, booklet, DVD, audio book, or other form. Even if you do choose a book as the final form, it can still be customized by adding a tip-in page, changing its size, reducing its paper weight to lower shipping costs, creating a custom version using the client's product as the hero of the story, changing the binding to meet a specific function, or many other options.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 17, 2018

When planning your marketing actions, don't try to duplicate what leading authors in your segment are doing now. What did they do when they were at your stage?

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 16, 2018

Take some of the pressure off your pursuit of your goals. Some goals have a fixed deadline (April 15, BEA) but others have a flexible deadline (pub date, promotional campaigns). Which of your goals have flexible deadlines?

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 12, 2018

What is your secret weapon, the one thing your offer that will help your prospects more than anything else they can do? Think of this as a supply of "benefit" arrows in a quiver, and you choose a different arrow to target each prospect.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 10, 2018

Do you think you have no competition? Every book has competition, regardless of its content. In retail sales you have competition for shelf space, media placement, airtime, readers' wallets, reviewers' time, etc. In non-retail sales you are competing against budget money, coffee mugs and other sales-promotional products. Know the value of your competition to your prospective buyers, and how you stand in comparison.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 9, 2018

What do these seven words all have in common?

1. Banana

2. Dresser

3. Grammar

4. Potato

5. Revive

6. Uneven

7. Assess

 

The easy answer is that they all have at least 2 double letters. But in all of these words, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 8, 2018

"A Cure for Our Fixation on Metrics" is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal (Jan 13-14, p C4). It says that the general (yet erroneous) belief is that "people are best motivated by attaching rewards and penalties to their performances." It goes on to say, "not everything that is important is measurable, and much that is measurable is unimportant." It's a good article with some thought-provoking concepts.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 7, 2018

Book publicist Antoinette Kuritz will not even consider taking on a client without a marketing plan. She advises publishers to "describe your promotional plans and tell what your budget is for advertising, direct mail, personal presentations, tours or any other activities you intend to perform." This plan and your cover are the two most important parts of your proposal. A weak book with a strong promotional campaign will almost always outsell a well-written book that is not promoted heavily.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 6, 2018

Get on the trend to audiobooks and make more money. According to today's Wall Street Journal (Feb 6, page B2), when Audible (Amazon.com's audiobook subscription service) "owns the audiobook rights, print publishers no longer get a cut. Typically, this means more money is passed on to the author." And revenue from audiobook sales is rising, "In the first eight months of 2017, publishers' revenue from audiobooks grew 20% for the same period a year earlier, while print books only rose 1.5% and e-books slipped 5.4%."

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 6, 2018

When you are on a roll, stop writing. Hemmingway put it thus: "You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again." Arthur Miller said, "I don't believe in draining the reservoir, do you see? I believe in getting up from the typewriter while I still have things to say." (Readers Digest)

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 3, 2018

If you are selling a book about improving someone's tennis serve, a review or article in Tennis magazine would more efficiently reach prospective buyers than it would in The New York Times. Pinpoint promotion to carefully selected target market segments could reduce waste in your marketing expenditures.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 2, 2018

"You need to run a TV ad at least 12 times if you want voters to remember your candidate," said Jim Margolis. Similarly, you need repeat exposures on prospects before they will buy your books. One radio or TV appearance in a market is not sufficient. Know where your buyers are concentrated and saturate that area before moving to the next one. Then repeat.

Book-Marketing Tip of the Day – February 1, 2018

The value of your content (to the buyer) is fluid because it is unique to each customer and changes over time. An example of recognizing and responding to this fluidity is Amazon Prime. In 2005 it was initially focused on reducing costs and saving time for its customers by providing unlimited two-day shipping for a fixed annual fee. Then Amazon expanded Prime to include streaming media (added value was access and entertainment) and unlimited photo storage on Amazon servers (to reduce risk). Each new element attracted more customers and increased the value to existing ones. How can you apply this concept to selling more of your books?