How
do you develop good ideas to market and promote your book?
Some
people have an uncanny ability to generate ideas, be it about book marketing or
any aspect of life. But even the most
creative people hit the wall and find good ideas are coming to them at a
premium. But ideas for promoting your
book can come from any number of sources, including:
·
A
book, blog, newspaper, or Web site
·
A
seminar or convention
·
Another
author
·
A
school
·
A
movie, TV show, or play
·
A
marketing or PR expert
·
Another
industry
·
A
friend, spouse, colleague, or relative
·
A
stranger
·
Your
curiosity and ability to experiment
Ideas
come to those who intentionally focus on something while remaining truly open
to observing, learning, and acting, without assumption or bias. When you are jaded, desperate, angry, or
fearful, you are not of the frame of mind to develop great ideas.
Good
book marketing ideas don’t have to come from professional marketers or even
those in book publishing. They can come
from the unlikeliest sources and develop out of the oddest situations. An eight-year-old may accidentally inspire
your ideas. Or someone who has never
written anything longer than a grocery list could influence your ideas. Some marketing ideas come accidentally or
come as a result of a loss, a hurt, or some deficiency.
There’s
no lab for crafting genius book publicity ideas. Your strategy should simply be to try – to
try and come up with ideas, to try to be open to the ideas of others, to try to
experiment and make use of any resources or opportunities available to you.
Sometimes
the simplest idea is the one that works best, especially when you execute it
well. An idea is only as good as your
ability to implement it.
There are some excellent book marketing ideas floating around. All you need to do is grab hold of one and turn it from a concept to a reality. Good luck.
THE 8th ANNUAL 2014 NATIONAL INDIE
EXCELLENCE BOOK AWARDS
ARE NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!
ARE NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!
Celebrating Self-Publishing Excellence!
The National Indie Excellence Awards (NIEA)
was created to help establish self-publishing as a proud, legitimate, and
strong facet of the publishing industry.
NIEA is proud to be a champion of
self-publishers and small & independent presses that go the extra mile to
produce books of excellence in every aspect.
The National Indie Excellence Awards is open
to all English language books available for sale, including small presses,
mid-size independent publishers, university presses, and self-published
authors.
EXCERPTS FROM: Enough by Bill McKibben
“But
now the hour draws near. Faced with a
challenge larger than any we’ve ever faced – the possibility that technology
may replace humanity – we need to rally our innate ability to say no. We will be sorely tempted to engineer our
kids, but it’s a temptation that we need to resist as individuals, and to help
each other resist as a society.”
“The
choices that we face, in fact, will settle this question of specialness once
and for all. If we cannot summon our
self-restraint, or if it proves too weak, then we will leave our uniqueness
behind forever. Once we start down the
path of turning ourselves into machines, of writing ineradicable programs for
our proteins, there will be no way, and no reason, to turn back. We’ll do what our programming indicates,
never knowing how much choice we really have.
We’ll be like obsessive-compulsives, for whom some accident of wiring or
chemistry has overridden the ability to choose.”
“Once
you accept the idea that our bodies are essentially plastic, and that it’s okay
to manipulate that plastic, then, in the words of Lee Silver, ‘there’s nothing
beyond tinkering.’ The list expands exponentially, till there’s not a feature
of the human body that can’t be ‘enhanced’ in some way or another. You might, say some advocates, start by
improving ‘visual and auditory acuity,’ first to eliminate nearsightedness or
prevent deafness, then to ‘improve artistic potential.’ But why stop there? ‘If
something has evolved elsewhere, then it is possible for us to determine its
genetic basis and transfer it into the human genome,’ says Silver – just as we
have stuck flounder genes into strawberries to keep them from freezing, and
jellyfish genes into rabbits and monkeys to make them glow in the dark. ‘Relatively
simple attributes that fall into this category include the ability to see into
the ultraviolet range or the infrared range – which would greatly enhance a
person’s night vision… More sophisticated animal attributes include the ability
to distinguish and interpret thousands of different airborne molecules present
at incredibly low levels through the enhanced sense of smell.”
“The
great danger, in other words, of the world that we have built is that it leaves
us vulnerable to meaninglessness – to a world where consumption is all that
happens, because there’s nothing else left that means anything. In a way that once was unthinkable, we now
have to ask ourselves, ‘Is my life amounting to something? Does it have weight
and substance, or is it just running away into nothing, into something
insubstantial?’ And the only real
resource that many of us have against that meaninglessness, now that the church
and the village and the family and even the natural world can’t provide us with
as much context as before, is our individual selves. We have to, somehow, produce all that context
for ourselves; that’s what a modern life is about. There’s no use moaning about it; it may well
be better than what came before. In any
event, it’s who we are, where we are, how we are, what we are, why we are. We’ve got to answer those questions pretty
much on our own.”
“Individuals
make the calculation that they have no choice but to equip their kids for the
world that’s being made. Once the game
is under way, in other words, there won’t be moral decisions, only strategic
ones. If the technology is going to be
stopped, it will have to happen now, before it’s begun. The choice will have to be a political one,
that is – a choice we make not as parents but as citizens, not as individuals
but as a whole, thinking not only about our own offspring but about everyone.”
Interview
With Author Michael Infinito
What
type of books do you write? So far I'm leaning toward the thriller/horror
genre, but some of my future projects might stray from that path. My short
story plots span a wide range.
What
is your newest book about? My latest published novel is called 12:19. It's an
intricate good versus evil horror tale involving a mental patient who claims to
be the son of God. The story is very dark and creepy, and the reader is never
sure who's telling the truth until it all unfolds in the end.
What
inspired you to write it? !2:19 originally began as a short story, but then
ideas just kept coming at me, so I started over and let it flow. I can't say
the plot inspiration really came from anything specific.
What
is the writing process like for you? I'm a little nutty when it comes to my
writing procedure. I'm very methodical. I write a chapter, and then I edit that
chapter until it meets my liking. I always go from point A to point B. To date,
I have never written a chapter out of sequence. My original drafts are usually
hand-written during my breaks at work. I transfer them onto the computer on
weekends. I hear a lot of authors say how they have four hundred pages of
material that needs to be put together and made sense of. I just can't work
that way.
What
did you do before you became an author? I run heavy machinery. I still work
construction full time.
How
does it feel to be a published author? It's awesome. The best part is when
someone you don't know gives you a great review. It's not about the money.
Any
advice for struggling writers? I think we're all struggling writers. You're
only as good as your last novel. I say just keep writing, even if you haven't
had anything published. Find some people who will read your work and give you
honest feedback, and then don't be angry with them if they are critical. Listen
to their concerns and keep an open mind. Write because you enjoy it. Don't view
it as a business venture, and don't get discouraged by rejection, because it
comes in tsunami waves.
Where
do you see book publishing heading? Unfortunately, it seems to be going the way
of electronic readers. I'm old-fashioned. I want to hold a book and flip the
pages as I read. E-books are cheaper, but I'd still pay extra for the print
version. Also, self-publishing is taking off. I'm not a huge fan of that route,
mostly due to a lack of proper editing in some cases.
Don’t Miss These Recent
Posts
How Does
Time Impact Your Book Publicity
The Role
Of Connectivity & Book Publicity
How Can Authors
Measure Social Media Success?
25 Ways
For Authors To Break Through & Establish A Legacy
Do You Market
Your Books Doggy Style?
Will Social Media Save Your
Book? http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-big-is-your-social-media-following.html
Why Authors – and Publicists
& Publishers Need A Therapist
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 is copyrighted by
BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.