Book Marketing Question

[businesscrazy83]

Hey everyone! I just got done writing and self publishing a book (Time Lapse Collapse) on 7/15/2011 from Aurthor House and I am really having a heard time getting the word out. I tried

My Local Barns and Nobles
My Local Local Library
Facebook
even my local newspaper

But Im having no luck. Anyone have any ideas to get the word out with spending little to no money? Or is it impossible to market a book without a good lump some of money?

[vangogh]

Ideally you'd have an audience in place like subscribers on a blog or to a newsletter or something similar. I'm guessing you don't have that audience built in. You could though seek out someone who does have an audience that's a good match for your book. You'd be splitting the revenue, but if you find the right person you'd sell more than enough to make the revenue split worthwhile and you'd be building a name for yourself.

If you don't already have a site I'd suggest building on. I think a blog a good fit for selling books. It won't necessarily do much for you now, but you can use the book to build an audience for the next book. In fact you could even give this book away to build the audience for the next book.

With a site you can email bloggers and ask if you can send them a copy of the book. You can mention having them review it, but you really don't need to. Most will know that's what you want and will likely review the book assuming they like it and think they're audience will too.

You can set up an affiliate program. Software isn't too expensive and there are services you can use for a fee. You'd need to sign up affiliate partners who would then do much of your selling for you. It's not necessarily easy to build an affiliate network though and you would be giving away revenue. If you have an affiliate program set up it adds extra incentive to the people you ask for reviews.

You can create a digital version of the book and sell it through any of the ebook stores, Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble. Each will take a cut, but they'll open you to a new market. Amazon will also sell your physical book. At least two people here have written books and I think both sell through Amazon.

Even if you can't sell lots right away don't give up. You have an asset for sale and you can still do many of the things above over time. It's possible you won't sell much right away, but a year from now with a blog and audience in place and some connections with other bloggers your book could sell well at that time.

[Steve B]

I would say it's impossible to do it with little or no money.

[Spider]

It's so easy, today, to publish a book that many people publish who would not have been able to do so in the past. The other side of the coin is that book sales are in general decline as the public read less and less and more of what they read is in electronic form. I have written and published a book and although it is available at Amazon most sales come from selling to my own audience- and that seems to be the general pattern.

Favorite outlets are--
Book signings,
Public speaking with back-of-the-room sales,
Paid presentations with the book included.

[vangogh]

book sales are in general decline

Physical books you mean, right? I think people are simply transitioning from reading print books to reading ebooks on the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, etc. I haven't seen anything suggesting that people are reading less, just that they're reading in a different format.

I'd guess most of us here are still mainly print readers, since we tend toward the over 30 crowd. Last year after getting an iPad I started dipping in to ebooks and the more ebooks I read, the more I'm liking the format. I still enjoy print books, but little by little I'm buying more ebooks. John's books looks like a novel and to me those were the most natural to transition to ebooks. Quire honestly I can't imagine buying a print novel again.


most sales come from selling to my own audience

Yep. I think that pattern likely extends beyond you too. I know I've bought my share of books in a similar way. It does require having an audience of some kind. I think today's independent publishers are likely going to need to look to ebooks first (unless they have a prior audience). The costs are less with ebooks and you can gain access to larger markets. Not that it means your book would automatically stand out in those larger markets, but I think it's going to be the preferred route for independent publishers and the one leading to a greater chance of success.

[businesscrazy83]

Great guys love the comments Thanks! Yeah my books are available electronically too. I just have to find out where it is.

[Patrysha]

Fiction is such a hard area...things are so much more straightforward with non-fiction. Since it appears to be children's fiction getting in front of school librarians wouldn't be a bad idea. Why all the focus on local? Why not be reaching out to librarians, book clubs and so on via social media and public relations? Local markets may be appropriate for local stores but not so much for an author...you have to reach much further to find enough readers and to build up readership for the rest of the trilogy.

[businesscrazy83]

Yeah your right good point thx!!! And let me tell yeah I thought marketing would be not to hard, but man was I wrong!

[vangogh]

I thought marketing would be not to hard

Poor marketing or lack of marketing is probably the biggest reason most business ideas fail. It looks deceptively simple until you're faced with actually having to do the marketing. :)

I hadn't realized your book was children's fiction. If that's the case then some of my ideas above probably won't work as well. I'm not sure if an affiliate program would work for example. Om the other hand I would absolutely convert the book so there are .mobi and .epub versions. I'm pretty sure there are tools available to make the conversions. Then submit those versions to online booksellers. .mobi is for Amazon and .epub is for iBooks and Barnes & Noble.

How about volunteering to read the book to school children? Or as Patrysha suggested in libraries. Bookstores might even let you do the same.

[businesscrazy83]

Yeah these are all great ideas! Thanks, I have been taking a lot of notes, I have much work to do!

My book is actually more for young adults, but a older children shouldn't have a problem reading it as well.

Let me ask you guys this. In your opinion, how much ideally would I have to spend to properly market my book and what would I have to do? And you guys recommend anyone to market it?

[KristineS]

If your book is for young adults, you might also look at parenting forums or contact some of the more well known mommy bloggers and see if they would read and recommend your book. Or, alternatively, sell you a banner ad on their blog. The mommy bloggers are a pretty influential group and they're concerned about things like having good fiction for their children to read. So that might be a very fertile market for you.

[vangogh]

John I'm not sure there's an ideal amount of money to spend. I'd say invest what you can in a few marketing channels and see which brings a positive return and which doesn't. Then move some money to the channel that's profitable and spend some money on new marketing channels and again measure the results and reallocate your money.

Online you don't have to spend much unless you want to hire someone to do the work. A lot of online marketing can be done for free where money is concerned, though that usually means spending a lot of time instead. You can try advertising through search engines or even buying banner advertisements on sites who's audience would be a good fit for the book.

[huggytree]

i dont think its possible to make money without spending money

being frugal on advertising for you will keep your book a needle in a haystack

[businesscrazy83]

Man you guys are great! Thanks for all the help. I have made notes of all your recommendation and I will put them to work.

Thank you so much!

[businesscrazy83]

You can create a digital version of the book and sell it through any of the ebook stores, Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble. Each will take a cut, but they'll open you to a new market. Amazon will also sell your physical book. At least two people here have written books and I think both sell through Amazon.

I found out that my book will be available in e-book format for Kindles, Nooks, ipads ext in 3 weeks. I thought that's really neat!

[vangogh]

That's great. That should open it to more customers. Obviously being available isn't a guarantee it will sell, but it's certainly preferable to not being available. The next step will be seeing if there's anything you can do to gain more visibility within each store. I would imagine some positive reviews would help so you might want to do what you can to encourage people who buy the book to review it too.

[businesscrazy83]

Yeah your absolutely right thanks vangogh!

[LFinkle]

Are you selling on Amazon.com? If not see if you can get the book there and then sign up for their Author Central.

[vangogh]

In addition to Amazon I'd suggest looking into selling through both Barnes & Noble and Apple's iBook store. All 3 can be a great place to reach new people.