Authors Try To Outscore One Another

Authors  Can Win A Slugfest With Good Book Marketing

My eight-year-old son’s baseball season just concluded.  They won three and lost nine.  Not a very good winning percentage.  In fact, we needed a tie-breaker to determine that we finished next to last, just edging out the 10^th place team and avoiding basement honors.  But it was a fun season in which the kids learned and enjoyed the game of baseball. I enjoyed being an assistant coach. Though our team could only win one out of every four games played, it appeared on any given day that we could win.  The competition was fierce but fairly level.  Almost any team could have finished above or below any other team. 

I think the same is true with authors.

Many books are comparable to one another.  Certainly, some are better than others, but the vast majority of books are in the same boat.  So what separates them from each other that gets one book to outsell another?

In baseball, the team that made the fewest mistakes won.  We lost many close games, including slugfests.  We lost 28-27, and 20-19, both coming down to the last inning and the final out. 

Authors slug it out too.  They try to out-tweet one another, out-blog, and out-press release each other.  It comes down to who will have the better book marketing campaign for even a superior book – story, writing, editing, layout, cover design, title, price – can only sell well if it’s marketed properly.

So I don’t know if it comforts you that you are just as good or as bad as 95% of your fellow authors, but it should inspire you to look for an edge, for something to separate you from the pack.

Book marketing and publicity can take many forms – and many hours and dollars – but it’s worth it when your book begins to beat the competition, even if by the slightest of margins.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. 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 blog is copyrighted material by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2013