Synopsis

So, imagine developing a detailed marketing plan for your book and then implementing it. That’s what this book offers.

In this book, you’ll learn:

– How to develop your author’s platform material

– How to write your marketing content

– How to engage in marketing activities

– How to get more book reviews

– What kind of events to hold

– How to get publicity

– How to use (or not use) advertising.

– What other authors say about book marketing

Amazon * B&N * Apple * Kobo * Gardners

Excerpt

Book Marketing: What Doesn’t Work For Other Authors

While working on my new book, Book Marketing Fundamentals, I asked some author friends what doesn’t work when marketing their books.  Below are the answers arranged in no particular order.  Along with the author’s name is a link to their Amazon page or website.  While most of the authors write fiction, a few are non-fiction authors.

The wide diversity of the answers came as a surprise to me.

  What is your least favorite or least successful marketing tactic?

Mark Cain – The use of social media.  I feel particularly strongly about Facebook, in which I’ve invested way too much time over the years for too little payback.  I have yet to do Facebook ads, though.  Their cost is high, and I have yet to be convinced of their efficacy.

Elizabeth Craig – I feel ads are the most time-consuming and highest learning-curve option for promo.  Each ad opportunity (whether BookBub, Facebook, or Amazon) operates slightly differently.  To make sure you don’t lose money, I’d highly recommend taking either a paid or a free course (Reedsy offers some: https://blog.reedsy.com/learning/courses/ ).  And to really do it right, you should compare different versions of an ad and different audiences.  As an English major, I’ve found it very tough-going.

Stuart Aken – I’ve never measured activity, so I can’t answer this in terms of success. But my least favourite activity is the whole spectrum of sales.  I long for the days when publishers did all the marketing and promotional work and left authors free to create the work.  It’s the creation that matters to me.

Lorraine Ash – Following the online theme, any endeavor that is taken over by a computer algorithm or function instead of a human.  I’ve been involved in many expert online ad campaigns, some of them quite expensive.  Results have always looked great in terms of numbers of impressions and clicks, but not in books sold.  They don’t necessarily convert to sales.  People engage people.  Machines do not.

Peadar O’Guilin – Constant bombardment.  Begging.  As a regular book purchaser, I need to feel that when I buy a book it’s because it was my own choice.

Nicolette Pierce – Direct sales or direct promotion to my fans.  I’m not very good at promoting my own work without an ad platform.  I know this about myself, so I rely heavily on other tactics such as newsletters, AMS ads, Facebook ads, etc.

L. Diane Wolf – Bookstore appearances used to be all the rage and they can be a lot of fun, but there is the downside of book returns.  We do send the same author and book sheets to book stores, but we caution our authors that if they do a book signing or event, make sure the stores don’t order too many books and sign any that remain after the event. (Because those can’t be returned.)  Plus, so many stores just don’t host events anymore.

Stephanie Auteri – I set up a Facebook author page because my publisher asked me to.  But I felt so lackluster about it — partially because it felt forced, partially because I was already so engaged on other platforms — that it remained mostly stagnant.  To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t create a Facebook author page.  What I am saying is that you don’t need to be on every single social media platform out there.  Consider where your target audience is hanging out.  Consider which platforms you’re most active on and comfortable with.  The goal is engagement and if you’re not naturally engaged and engaging on a platform, it’s going to be a dud for you.

Hank Quense – Anything on Facebook.  Boosting posts or buying ads on Facebook are complicated and don’t produce anything useful.  The reports aren’t user-friendly either and difficult to interpret.

Nanci Arvizu – Facebook. I’ve seen authors run successful campaigns, but they’ve usually got a wizard behind the curtain running those ads, requiring a budget, like, real money, and a lot of authors aren’t in the position to take the financial plunge this could become if they don’t set it up right.

There you have it.  Who knew there were so many ways to hate marketing activities!

About the Author

Hank Quense has been self-publishing books for over ten years.  HIs non-fiction books cover fiction writing (Creating Stories), self-publishing (How to Self-publish and Market a Book) and marketing (Book Marketing Fundamentals). He also lectures on these subjects in schools, libraries and on webinars.

He recently created a new section on his website called Writers & Authors Resource Center.  Most of the content is free and much of it is unique.

There you can also read an expanded sample of Book Marketing Fundamentals.

Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * YouTube Channel