Getting the Word Out There
In today’s world where numerous venues exist to sell books—from bookstores to mass-market outlets to catalogs to the Internet to author-supported sales—making the best use of each channel can be challenging. To help make cross-platform marketing more effective, here are some proven insights I’ve learned during more than 25 years of publishing and marketing books.
Ninety percent of all marketing efforts are wasted.
This law of wasted effort is just a fact of life. It applies to all areas of marketing, from making sales pitches to direct mail to Internet sales. If a publicist actually gets one media hit from every 10 phone calls she makes, she should be ecstatic. That’s a great return on her time and probably a higher return than most publicists get.
Direct marketers expect an even smaller percentage (as little as 2 percent) and can make money from such a small percentage response. If one out of 10,000 readers of a magazine read a review and buy the book, we’d all be amazed. It doesn’t happen very often in real life. In short, a lot of what we do to try to reach potential readers is wasted effort.
While that’s not necessarily bad, there are several actions we can take to alleviate this law of wasted effort:
• Learn from your mistakes. Over time, we’ve all seen some things work pretty well and some things that didn’t work well. This may sound obvious, but the smart person learns to focus time, money and efforts on the things that work. One reason most publishers focus on certain subjects is so that they can learn the market, get to know the audience, cultivate the experts in the field, and nurture relationships with the key media people who cover that subject. If you skitter from one subject to another, you never get a chance to find out what really works.
• Be persistent. It has been said that someone has to hear about a new product at least seven times before he or she is moved to act. I don’t know that seven is exactly right (I’ve heard ranges from five to 29), but I do know that you have to keep knocking on the door if you want it to be answered. In direct marketing, that means sending out multiple catalogs or mailings. In publicity, it means making follow-up phone calls, lots of them. In direct sales, it means knocking on lots of doors. It’s a numbers game. Keep knocking. Eventually you’ll make a sale.
• Repeat. This is really a way of saying be persistent—and then persistent again. Repetition is the key to overcoming the law of wasted effort.
Book marketing is all about
creating relationships.
I think we all know that the idea that book marketing is about relationships is true, but it took me about 10 years to identify this principle as the basis of success in marketing. And that, in turn, means one basic thing: making friends. If you know how to make friends, you’ll be a great book marketer.
Think of it this way: What is publicity? It is simply creating relationships with people in the media who, if they like your product, idea or service, will pass on that information to their audience in the form of reviews, interviews, stories or notices.
And what is distribution? It is simply creating relationships with bookstores, wholesalers and sales representatives who will make your books available to retail customers.
What are rights sales? They, too, are based on creating relationships with key companies and people who can exploit those rights better than you can.
What is editorial? It is simply creating relationships with authors, literary agents and other people who can bring you good material to polish, design and promote.
Wherever you look in business, relationships are what make things happen: networking, the old-boy network, the new-girl network, customer lists, sales reps visiting customers, publicists talking to the media, luncheon meetings, conventions, trade shows, chat groups, newsletters, blogs, Web 2.0. They all have one thing in common: Their primary purpose is to enhance communication and further relationships.
Take action.
Create a list of the key contacts that need to hear about your book. You can’t create relationships with thousands of people. You have to focus. For most book projects, focus on the 100 key media and marketing contacts that will make a real difference in the sales of that book or series. You can mail to many thousands, but you should follow up and really work to create relationships with your top 100.
Who should be on that list? The key magazine editors, radio producers, TV producers, merchandise directors at targeted catalogs, book buyers at key retail chains, book club editors, the top five or 10 potential premium buyers, the top 10 bloggers or Web sites, etc. For this list, research and maintain a database of names, phone numbers, addresses, Web sites, e-mail addresses, faxes, cell phone numbers, and whatever other details you think will help you to develop a relationship with these key contacts.
Once you’ve developed your list, contact each person on that list at least once a month, if not more often. Tell them about your new books. Let them know how each book or author can help their customers, listeners, readers, etc. Each of these 100 people should get personal attention. Learn how they like to be contacted (mail, phone, fax or e-mail). Target your letters and other promotions to their audience’s or customers’ needs. Help them serve their market. Your job is to make their jobs easier.
If you want to be in a magazine, read the magazine first. Read more than one issue. Get to know their needs, their formats, how they like to feature books, how they use authors.
If you want to sell books to a catalog, read the catalog. Let them know: “Here on page 49 is where my product would fit.” Help them identify where your book fits within their catalog and how it can help them sell more of the other items in their catalog. If you do that, you make it easy for them to say “yes” to your books.
Relationships are the key. If you want to sell books, you have to make friends. And the only way to make friends is to get to know them well—and let them know you in turn. BB
John Kremer is author of “1001 Ways to Market Your Books,” editor of the Kremer 100 Media Contacts newsletter, and webmaster of BookMarket.com.
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