The author of a classic book, What
Color is Your Parachute: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career
Changes, died at the age of 90 this past week. Over 10 million copies
of the self-help and career classic were sold, making Richard N. Bolles one of
the more successful non-fiction authors of all time. His passing inspires
me to write this post.
What color is your book marketing? Do you know what type of
book promoter and marketer you want to be when you grow up?
Whereas Bolles’ book helped people assess and define their natural
interests, talents, and curiosities so they could narrow down a job search that
focused on a steady and defined career path, no such book exists for authors
who need to determine where their preferences, experiences, talents and desires
should lead them when marketing their books.
Authors have to market their writing career/brand, so they have no
choice. They could ignore book marketing at their own peril. They
could outsource all of it, but that gets expensive and may not be practical or
necessary. Authors just need to narrow down the things they need to do,
can do, and like to do. In order to pull this off, they’ll need to know
what their options or choices are.
To promote and market a book, one can:
·
Pursue traditional media for reviews, interviews, stories, bylined
articles, book excerpts, and profile pieces.
·
Seek out online media for reviews, interviews, feature stories,
guest posts, book excerpts, and profile pieces.
·
Generate buzz via social media, including penning a blog, hosting
a podcast, posting video, and networking across the Internet via FB, Twitter,
YouTube, etc.
·
Go on a speaking tour before bookstores, churches, libraries,
non-profits, government agencies, corporations, universities – either for a fee
or free.
·
Advertise a book.
·
Participate in book conferences and literary events.
·
Conduct a book give away.
·
Utilize direct mail.
There are many other ways and combinations to market and promote a
book. Which one fits you best?
Authors need to assess the following and
to ask themselves:
·
What are my goals for my book?
·
What are my long-term career goals?
·
Am I seeking to sell books or to brand my name – or both?
·
How much time do I have available to promote and market?
·
Which skill sets are needed – and do I possess them – in order to
promote and market a book?
·
Do I have budget or resources to promote a book?
·
How big is my network of connections and am I willing to invest
time into building it up?
·
How do I feel, psychologically, about getting involved in
self-promotions?
Once you start to open up to all of the different ways a book can
be marketed, promoted, and advertised – and once you come to honestly assess
your needs, goals, passions, abilities, and resources for such activities – you
will begin to understand the color of your book marketing parachute.
Good luck. May Richard N. Bolles rest in peace while his
great work lives on and perhaps inspires your book marketing efforts.
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Brian
Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and
not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email
him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in
the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book
marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs
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