Before you authors run away because I’m talking about a marketing idea today. Don’t. You blew that one off with another author’s post recently and missed out on a very good, very easy opportunity. We write about things like book covers and formatting and you eat it up but anything that ventures in to the area of the dreaded world of promotion you run like conservative and a tree hugger festival.
I have eleven years experience in marketing. My interest in helping promote authors is not one that is some half wit idea without some thought given. I’ve done articles about authors needing social media presence for a reason. Articles about getting your book description right on Amazon have come up, with little attention by readers.
“Why does my great book about blah blah blah not sell?” Because your book description says a boy and his dog set off on an adventure across the country. That it, nothing else.
Back to marketing. How do you get people to buy your books? Advertising? No.
There are two ways; Word of Mouth and Word of Your Mouth
Word of Mouth
This is how most books get around. People to friends. Those friends could be face to face friends (f-f) or online community friends (OCF). Regardless of which, they are among people that know each other and are liable to listen. Send me an Amazon email with that list of books and I am more than likely not going to bother.
Word of Your Mouth
And here is why I’m writing this today. Jo Robinson wrote a great article How to Create Downloadable Links to Give Away Books from your Newsletter Sign Up In it she discusses exactly what the title says. But there is something she mentions that might be missed. And it was missed by a lot of people because for some reason this article didn’t get the massive response a Jo Robinson article normally does. Why? I won’t repeat why but as authors we want to write our books and that’s it.
Those times are long gone unless you write about wizards and have a nice bit of plastic surgery done. Or you have so many books out there that they do your leg work for you. But even then you have to play the game. Indie Authors MUST do it. House Published authors NEED to do it and are encouraged to do it by their publishing house.
What did Jo say in her article? A lot. But the one piece that I am talking about is as an author you MUST build up an email list. An email list is made up of people who have shown interest in something you were giving enough to give you their email address, which is a big deal these days. Start now before you even know you are going to write a book. Come up with some idea for a Newsletter and have those people sign up. 1000 people sign up and then get word of your book. Let’s say 10% buy your book. 100 people buy it. of that say 50% tell their f-f or OCF.
It keeps going and going. Your one email newsletter or email blast about your book is now spreading for you by word of mouth. Just think. Oprah speaks and people buy. Books never heard of may be mentioned by her and are then a best seller in days.
Read Jo’s article about how to set up a newsletter email system. It’s worth the time.
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