Book-Marketing Expert Advises Authors to Develop a Plan

WRITERS. Book marketing strategist Don McCauley has a clear and simple message to authors: Don’t fall prey to using tools and techniques that do not produce real world results – sales.

He urges you to take the time to create a marketing and publicity strategy that can help you determine which tactics make the most sense for your book and specific target audience.

McCauley says it’s natural to want to do what everyone else is doing. But using a “one-size-fits-all” marketing strategy to promote your book is like taking someone else’s medicine—the results will likely not be good.

Just as each and every book is unique, every target market is specific in regards to age, gender, geographic region, wants, needs and preferred approach. Thus, developing a marketing and publicity strategy for your book requires a thorough analysis of all the systems, processes, functions and procedures within the general marketing plan.

“So many people new to marketing are looking for that elusive idea that works. They all work,” says McCauley. “However, not all of them, or perhaps none of them, will work for a specific book.”

Some authors listen to all the great ideas out there and then try them out, one by one. “This is precisely the wrong approach,” McCauley emphasizes. “Using a ‘try it out’ approach will cost a great deal of money. Not only will money be wasted on experimentation, but there will also be a terrible waste of time.”

“Don’t use a tool or method because someone else said it should be used. Failure usually results from concentrating on tools like Twitter or Facebook, rather than concentrating first on the blueprint – the strategy,” says McCauley. Making a plan can help you focus on those marketing methods that are best for achieving your own very specific goals. In addition to deciding which methods to use, you should plan how, where, and when the chosen methods will be implemented.

Don McCauley is a marketing strategist with over 30 years of experience. He is the co-founder of ‘Book Marketing – The Authors Marketing Powerhouse’, facilitator of the Free Publicity Focus Group, and hosts several of ‘The Authors Show’ radio programs.

He offers book-marketing training to authors and publishers, as well as no-charge, no-obligation marketing and publicity strategy analyses. The strategy analysis reports cover specific topics relevant to marketing and publicizing books in the current Internet marketing environment. McCauley notes that marketing strategies designed to sell books in the past generally do not transfer well to Internet marketing.

On his website, you can find video training, complimentary e-books, and reports with titles such as

  • Using Article Submission as a Marketing Tool
  • Top Ten Reasons Why Your Book Isn’t Selling
  • Top Ten Reasons Your Internet Marketing Plan May Fail
  • Questions You Really Need to Ask Before Entering the Marketplace
  • The Fine Line Between Becoming Famous and Becoming Invisible
  • Creating Trust: Using Words that Sell

LINKS

WEBSITE: Free Publicity Focus Group

E-Books from Free Publicity Focus Group

Book-Marketing Support Services Aim to Ease the Pain of Promoting Your Work

Screenshot of Book MarketingWhether you choose to self publish a book or are lucky enough to land a book deal with a publisher, one of the harsh realities is that you will have to do a lot of the marketing of the book yourself.  This sometimes comes as a big surprise to an author who has focused mostly on mastering the art of fiction writing or developing the expertise needed to write a credible non-fiction book.

Making matters worse is the fact that the field of marketing itself is in a state of rapid transformation. Even experienced PR and marketing professionals are struggling to keep up with some of the opportunities and challenges associated with new media platforms and social networking.

Because there is no magic, one-size-fits-all formula for marketing a book anymore, how does an author even know where to begin? It’s certainly not a dumb question, and one that a new crop of book-marketing services would be happy to try to help you resolve.

For example, today I ran across an online press release for Book Marketing: The Authors Marketing Powerhouse website. The site provides authors with a centralized hub for book marketing activity, education, and networking. It is intended to be a one-stop resource to help authors find success in today’s confusing and ultra-competitive Internet marketing environment.

Each author can create a personalized page, upload photos, bios, book covers, video and book trailers, and integrate their promotion activities with Facebook and Twitter. The site also offers discussion forums on book-marketing and website optimization strategies and segmented special-interest groups for authors of different genres of books.

The site is a joint collaboration of Don McCauley of the Free Publicity Focus Group and Danielle Hampson of eBroadcastMedia.com. The Free Publicity Group is a marketing and publicity firm that helps authors develop strategic marketing plans that integrate many of today’s free publicity and social-networking tools. EBroadcastMedia.com produces professionally recorded and edited interviews in a “Show” format that can help the author appear more credible.

“The site can be treated as a place to create awareness of one’s work while, at the same time, allowing authors to network with like-minded individuals,” explains McCauley. “The segmented groups allow for the exchange of book marketing ideas, while the discussion forums can serve as an educational resource for those who may need to increase their own knowledge with regards to creating marketing and publicity plans that produce real results.”

I’m not surprised to discover websites such as The Author’s Marketing Powerhouse. Whenever technological change (in this case, on-demand book publishing) causes pain and confusion in the marketplace, a slew of start-up companies and organizations emerge to help address the new problems.  Some solutions turn out to be wonderful; others are not-so-great.

So when I call attention to a new service for creative professionals on this blog, my purpose is not necessarily to endorse it. I just think it’s important for creative professionals who want to find new markets for their work to always stay aware of what new services and resources exist to help them.

I know from experience that some of these start-up services will inevitably crash and burn, while others will adapt to the needs of their customers, evolve, and grow.

If you’ve had any experiences with some of these new book-marketing services, I’d love to hear from you!

LINK

Book Marketing: The Authors Marketing Powerhouse