Market a Book: Get Organized
When it comes to the point at which we market a book, the story is all too familiar in the world of the independent author/self-publisher. The book is written after being painstakingly reviewed for months, probably years. The ebook or paper version doesn’t matter, the direction and the outcome are unfortunately often a well-trodden road to marketing failure. Do not go there. There is another way and the key is organization. To market a book it is necessary to be organized and disciplined. Of course, there are no guarantees of success, but you have to give yourself the best chance you can to get as far as you can but, and here’s the key part for me, you have to maintain a balance between your writing and your marketing at the same time. Can be done. Marketing your book doesn’t mean you can’t keep writing. Just get organized, write a plan, don’t get sidetracked, stick to the plan and make sure you have a clear vision of the future. Above all, be patient. Most books don’t sell in large numbers right away and the marketing strategy for each book is improved as other books are added to its author’s portfolio, perhaps sequels, or perhaps an entirely new novel or issue is written. new. One method I’ve come to use, not just in my writing, is to create a structure with a clear center point, or hub as I like to call it. This method can be applied to absolutely any situation in life, whether it’s on a large scale, if you might be moving house, or on a smaller scale, if you’re planning a birthday party, for example. For the purposes of this article, I will refer only to using this method when marketing a book. I hope, however, that it is obvious how it can be applied elsewhere.
First, create a stable hub, a static website (in the case of book marketing), which will house the core of your marketing strategy and become a place where you can refer other people who express an interest. at your job or whom you reach 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
It also shows some reviews on the center page.
Make this place, the hub, yours, whether it’s a self-hosted blog or website or one you’ve commissioned. Choose a domain name that is easy to remember, relevant to your book or to you, and one that you think will be easy to recommend to interested parties. I hope you can now see that in its simplest form, bringing all the threads of your author life together in one place is hugely beneficial in keeping clutter out of your mind and showcasing your work, and it’s an incredibly simple concept really.
The situation actually gets even better, as once this center 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. Since the hub is literally a storefront, it doesn’t suffer from the same flaws as social media pages like Facebook or even your blog. What I mean is that no one expects the ‘hub’ content to change, so it doesn’t need your constant attention, unlike your Facebook page, Twitter or Blog which, if not updated regularly, your visitor’s perception it is that perhaps you have lost interest and quickly move on. As book seekers and buyers, we’re a fickle lot, I assure you.
Of course, a hub can be modified, but I realize that once it’s set up, it just sits there quietly doing its job and actually needs a minimal amount of attention from you. Imagine, as it happened to me, bumping into a friend you haven’t seen in the supermarket for a long time. He wants to tell you about his book and wants to tell you where you can find it online. In an instant you know there’s a simple and relevant web address you can rattle off 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 could even sell your book directly from this hub using their easily configurable 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 disorder’. Give it a try. Works.