Lost in the Sea of Marketing Madness
Top Ways to Sell Your Book
You have a book idea, a manuscript, or a book soon to be published, and you have no idea what to do next. First of all, you want to keep some things in mind up front. You should write about something you know and are interested in. If you couldn’t care less, it will be reflected in your book. Second, it helps if you write about something that is in demand—something people like or care about. If you write a book about the Care and Feeding of Pet Snails, you’re not likely to get many sales no matter how much you promote it.
It is true that people often literally judge a book by its cover. So, better shell out the bucks for a professional, custom-designed book cover. Try out different titles on family and friends. Ask which title would grab them enough that they’d pick up the book and maybe want to buy it. Also, for non-fiction, use a sub-title that clearly presents what the book is about. Create the right mood with the colors on your cover—if your book is about a racy topic, choose bright colors, if it’s a business “how-to” use more subdued, dignified colors. Suggest nice graphics but don’t go for a cover that’s so graphic, potential readers hardly notice the title and sub-title. If you have any experience or credentials, include them in your brief bio on the back cover of the book and maybe in your book preface. Be wary of publishers that hit you with a hard sell for their manuscript-editing service. They can easily charge $500-3000 for editing your manuscript, even after you’ve already paid someone to do so. If you’re far from a skilled writer, you know your manuscript is a mess, and/or you’re not too hot at grammar and spelling, then you might consider hiring an editor. But maybe you know someone who would do it for significantly less than the publisher.
Your publisher may offer quite a few different publicity options for your book. You need to be smart in which ones you select. A press release may not be very effective unless the publisher is targeting the release specifically at markets and media outlets that care about what you’ve written. For example, unless your autobiography is unbelievably sensational or moving, general media contacts will not particularly care about publicizing it. Many publishers offer to sell you egotistical junk like posters of your book, bookmarks, business cards, and postcards. Maybe I shouldn’t call the stuff junk; if you are a born salesperson, maybe you can enthusiastically disperse those bookmarks to enough people to create a real buzz about your book—maybe even a buying frenzy. However, after the initial excitement, items like these often end up buried in a drawer of your desk.
Don’t get too excited if your publisher offers to send publicity about your book to 25,000 bookstores. Bookstores rarely seek books published by PODs, partly because they cannot return copies that do not sell. You can pay some PODs $300-500 to make it possible for bookstores to return unsold copies. But before you shell out the $500, question the publisher closely about how many of their authors have sold significant numbers of books through bookstores. If it’s a rare occurrence, you might not want to invest the money. You may also want to question your publisher regarding what obstacles must be overcome before public libraries would seriously consider ordering your book.
If a publisher offers to build you a website, ask to see websites they’ve done, and compare these with other website designers or sites you’ve designed yourself. Also, see how enhanced and optimized they are. If few are ever drawn to the site, it is quite worthless. If a publicist campaign is offered or a personal marketing assistant, find out exactly what this person does for you. Is it worth the extra cost?
On the other hand, if your website is well designed, has plenty of interesting information, and enables visitors to buy direct or easily click to the Amazon.com bookpage, that’s a good start. Then you also have to be willing and able to spend the money monthly to keep the site optimized so you get plenty of hits.
Should you or should you not hire a publicist? A tough question. Not to wound your healthy ego, but you must be brutally honest with yourself about this. Have you done your homework to find the most effective and author-friendly publicist? Is your book really important enough to a niche of readers that you’d earn a lot more in sales than you pay the publicist? If not, of course you could end up seriously in the red. If your book is a personal memoir written primarily with your family and relatives in mind, it’s probably going to be really difficult for a publicist to help sell thousands or even hundreds of copies. However, if your book is the story of how you failed in business six times but then learned the secrets that enabled you to build a super-thriving small business enterprise in one year, it may well be worth hiring a publicist. There are tons of small business owners who may gladly pay for a book like that.
Another hugely important feature a publisher can offer is instructions and addresses of book reviewers you can contact well before your book is actually released. Also, any enthusiastic testimonials you can get from readers beforehand can also help. It is difficult to underestimate the value of testimonials and positive reviews from bona fide book readers, book blogs, and reviewers. These can go in press releases, on the back cover of your book, inside the front cover, on your website, and on fliers and emails you send out. Few things can create respect and a buzz about your book better than great reviews.
Lastly, any “people” place you can contact can be helpful. Book clubs, clubs such as Kiwanis, your church, your network of acquaintances, etc. Placing information/articles on blogs, ezine sites, and related websites can also help spread the word. If you have the means, you may also wish to place a brief video clip on You-Tube or My Space.
You may have gleefully imagined that as soon as your book became available on Amazon.com, hundreds of avid readers would immediately swoop in on it and buy multiple copies. But, the truth is, no one will ever know the book is available unless you or an excited reader tells them. Don’t despair. Just begin gradually with one of the methods above that has been found to work. Then, with time, you can increase your promotion and, in turn, expand your network until you will be prospering as an author. Believe me, you can do this thing.
Ten Signs of a Top Quality Self-Publisher
Good Rep, Baby You’ve got to find a publisher with a decent reputation. Ask friends who have self-published. Go to writers’ forums and websites and quiz individuals on their publishing experiences. Then go to publisher websites and read the testimonials. But, remember, they will not print any of the critical author emails they’ve received. And, by all means, Google a publisher too. Don’t take all the positive reviews seriously and don’t believe all the cries of “Scam! Scam!” But thoughtfully consider all the reports and balance them out against each other.
You’re Not Just a Dollar Sign When it comes to great customer service, again, it pays to ask former authors about their experiences. Also, note carefully when you ask questions on a publishing site or mention interest in filling out an application—what kind of attention do they promise? Too many publishers are wonderfully attentive until you sign on the dotted line and send your money. Then, suddenly your manuscript is just an item on an assembly line. Will they offer you a real live author rep to accompany you patiently throughout the entire publishing process? Can you actually reach the rep by phone or email or do you have to wait hours or even days on end for a response?
Their Prices Are Reasonable Isn’t “reasonable” a very relative term? After all, to some people $100 is a lot of cash and, to others, $1,000 is pocket change. However, perhaps we can at least settle on a happy medium. Tate Publishing’s lowest priced package is about $4,000. Dorrance charges you $7,500 but you get 550 copies of your book. Book Pros charges $13,000 and that’s their low-end price. In spite of all the book copies, Dorrance offers the least bang for your buck. And, admittedly, Book Pros includes a huge publicity punch with their package. There are probably some writers who’ve had good experiences with these publishers. However, there are print-on-demand (self publishers, by our definition) companies that offer packages ranging from $199 to $1,500. Of course, for $199, you’re not going to get much more than your book in print. But for $1,000-1,500, a number of publishers custom-produce your book with a surprisingly impressive list of perks to go with it.
They Offer Genuine Publicity Five hundred bookmarks and a few postcards does not a PR campaign make. Does the publisher help you get your manuscript out to book reviewers? Do they give you a custom book cover that will really grab readers? Do they help you advertise your book to targeted blogs, ezines, and directories that cater specifically to your topic or genre? Do they set up your book for Google searches and do they include benefits such as the “Search Inside” feature on Amazon? Do they have an active distribution program through a reputable distributor such as Baker & Taylor? Do they offer such features as the religious publisher that offers contact information to thousands of pastors and churches? These are truly valuable publicity methods that can really help.
They Coach Authors Long-Term The typical commercial publisher tends to push a book hard for 1-3 months. Then they have to move on to other books. Most print-on-demand publishers don’t individually publicize a book for much more than one week. They primarily set certain features in place that enable the author to help publicize it. However, there are a few publishers that truly assist authors for months or even years after they’ve published. One such publisher is Outskirts Press, which offers an email coaching program that continues for at least two years after publishing. This is invaluable to not only inform writers but also motivate them toward success in a very tough and competitive field.
Author Copies Offered at a Significant Discount For a 200-page book, a Dog Ear author will pay $5.28 per copy, and an Outskirts writer will pay $6.16. For the same book, an Xlibris author will pay $13.19, and a Publish America author will pay a whopping $15.96. Now that’s a huge variance, and guess who pockets the extra money in these little transactions?
Retail Book Prices Are Not Inflated Let’s stick with our handy 200-page paperback book and see what several different publishers charge in the retail market. Aventine charges $12.95 per book, Xulon charges $14.99, Trafford charges $17.59, and Universal charges $19.99. If the retail price of your book is too high, even your most loyal fans may flinch when they go to buy. So make sure your book is going to be affordable in the marketplace.
ISBN, UPC Bar Code, and Distribution Through Retailers The ISBN and UPC bar code are required if your book is going to be offered in bookstores or online outlets such as Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Most print-on-demand publishers include this, but you may have to pay extra if you’re using a “desktop” publisher such as Lulu or CreateSpace. It’s also nice if your publisher registers your book with R.R. Bowker’s Books in Print and at the Library of Congress (LCCN). As I’ve mentioned before, it is also a sign of professionalism if the publisher offers distribution through one of the biggies such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, or Spring Arbor.
Fair Return of Book’s Original Production Files If you ever decide to switch publishers or, for some other reason, you wish the return of your book’s production files, how easy or difficult is it to obtain them? If you terminate your contract within 18 months, iUniverse makes the author pay $750 for the PDF press-ready book cover file and another $750 for a press-ready PDF book interior. That’s a lot of money. BookSurge refuses to give departing authors their production files. And Aventine gives authors a digital copy of cover and interior production files as part of their package. Go figure.
Lastly, it’s nice if your publisher offers extras such as an editing service. A select few publishers do offer free light editing, but it may well not catch all errors. If you need editing, it shouldn’t cost more than $.01 to $.03 cents per word. If it’s much above that, you might consider finding someone on your own. Some publishers appear to make more money editing authors’ manuscripts than they do publishing them. So, my friend, if a publisher checks out to your satisfaction in these ten ways, you have found yourself a darn good company, and I would stick with them.
