Market a book: get organized
When it comes to the point where we market a book, the story is all too familiar in the world of the freelance author / self-publisher. The book is written after having been painstakingly worked for months, probably years. The e-book or paper version doesn’t matter, the direction and the result, sadly, is often a well-traveled road to marketing failure. Do not go there. There is another way and the key is organization. Marketing a book requires being organized and disciplined. Of course there are no guarantees of success, but you must give yourself the best possible chance to go as far as you can but, and here is the key part for me, at the same time you must maintain a balance between your writing and your marketing. Can be done. Promoting your book doesn’t mean you can’t keep writing. Just get organized, write a plan, don’t get discouraged, stick to the plan, and make sure you have a clear vision for the future. Above all, be patient. Most books are not sold in large quantities immediately and the marketing strategy for each book is improved as other books are added to its author’s portfolio, perhaps sequels, or perhaps a novel or theme is written entirely. new. One method that I have come to use, not just in my writing, is to create a structure with a clear center point, or center, as I like to call it. This method can be applied to absolutely any situation in life, be it on a large scale, if you are perhaps moving house, or on a smaller scale, if you are planning a birthday party, for example. For the purposes of this article, I will refer only to the use of this method when marketing a book. However, I hope it is obvious how it can be applied elsewhere.
First, create a stable hub, a static website (in the case of marketing a book), that will house the core of your marketing strategy and become a place where you can refer other people who express interest in your work or that you get through an advertising campaign. Let this hub have clear and concise links to your:
- Points of sale
- Social networking sites
- Twitter feeds
- Other ‘hubs’ for other projects
- Videos
- Online Reviews
- Online news articles
- and so on
Also show some reviews on the center page.
Make this place, the hub, yours, whether it’s a blog or a website hosted by yourself or one you’ve commissioned. Choose a domain name that is memorable, relevant to your book or you, and one that you think will be easy to recommend to stakeholders. I hope you can already see that, in its simplest form, bringing all aspects of your authoring life together at one point is hugely beneficial in keeping your mind cluttered and displaying your work, and it’s an incredibly simple concept actually.
The situation actually improves even more, as once this hub is achieved, you can let it mature and gain status on the internet knowing that it will still be there tomorrow, next week, next year, or ten years from now. As the hub is literally a showcase, it doesn’t suffer from the same flaws as social media pages like Facebook, or even your blog. What I mean is that nobody expects the content of the ‘hub’ to change, so it does not need your constant attention, unlike your Facebook page, Twitter or Blog that, if not updated regularly, the perception of your visitor is that you may have lost interest and are moving quickly. As browsers and book buyers we are a very fickle bunch, I can assure you.
Of course, a hub can be modified, but I find that once it is set up it just sits quietly doing its job and actually needs a minimal amount of attention from you. Imagine, as it happened to me, running into a friend you haven’t seen in the supermarket for a long time. You want to tell her about your book and you want to direct her to where she can find you online. In an instant you know that there is a simple and relevant web address that you can recite and that will cover all your bases. It will lead to outlets on Amazon or Smashwords, for example, or to your Facebook, Pinterest or Google+ page and will contain some reviews on the site. Simple. You can even sell your book directly from this hub using the easily configured PayPal buttons.
I sincerely hope this makes sense to you and is something you might consider when marketing a book. It works for me and I can assure you that before doing this my marketing strategy was chaotic and I couldn’t find time to write or pursue my other interests due to my ‘mental clutter’. Give it a try. It works.