The Savvy Book Marketer has put up a blog post by Kathleen Gage about book promotion strategies. This is an area where many writers fail, as … well, they’re writers, not marketers.
I’ve heard writers refer to the excellent promotion tools provided by Amazon – like the Select program that allows authors to give their books away for up to 5 days over a 90 day period where the book is exclusively offered by Amazon – as a “gimmick.” These same authors claim that they gave away “hundreds” of books to people and because of that they lost “hundreds” of sales.
These writers don’t know the first thing about marketing, and they need to learn it – and fast.
From the Savvy Book Marketer website:
“Writing the book is the easy part. Then begins the work,” went a recent conversation I had with a new author.
Peggy (not her real name) was incredibly excited about her recently released book. Like many first time authors, she was convinced the book would take on a life of its own and somehow, someway be found by an agent. The agent would then find a big name publisher. The big name publisher would get Peggy on a bunch of major shows.
I have watched this scene unfold countless times with naive authors. The fact is, as an author it is up to you to take control of marketing and promoting your book.
If you’re serious about selling books you have to put more effort into marketing your book than writing it.
Recently I surveyed a group of several hundred authors. “What’s your greatest challenge with marketing and selling your book(s)?” was the only question asked.
The results were as follows:
- 38% knowledge
- 33% time
- 17% money
- 7% fear
- 5% other
Sadly, even when many authors are told they must market their book they fail to get into massive action to raise awareness about their works.
You can read the rest of the blog HERE.
You can find out more about the Savvy Book Marketer HERE.