How come popular politicians never win 100% of the votes cast? Why don’t few of
them ever get much more than a simple majority of votes? Because they play to
their strengths and appeal, in rhetoric and deed, to a constituency that they
believe adds up to enough votes to win. They don’t need,-nor expect, everyone to
like and vote for them. Authors and publishers need to follow suit in order to
win over readers.
To
find book-buying readers you’ll need to be willing to ignore -- even alienate -- 99%
of the country. Now, you might be saying you can’t do such a thing. But it’s true.
Do the math.
There
are some 200 million American adults. If a successful book sells even a million
copies, it means 199 million did not buy it -- that’s a success ratio of one-half
of one percent.
But
let’s break this down into more realistic numbers. As a debut author you may
hope to sell five to ten thousand copies or even 20 to 30,000 if things go
really well. Let’s say the advertising, marketing, publicity, and social media
that you undertake reaches a total of 10 million people. Just a random number. You’ll
need to win over only a quarter of a percent to sell 25,000 copies.
Your
best bet may be to deliver a hardcore message that appeals to the extremes or
to clearly defined groups that are mobilized to buy what you’re selling, rather
than appealing to the masses, target a niche.
Even
in the case of selling to “everyone,” at least allow yourself to dismiss half
of them. For instance, if you write about love, trash men in order to win over
women. If you write about politics, pick a side. If you write about fashion,
pick a style or era.
By
aligning with one group you may end up dismissing all other groups, but if the
group you support is big enough, passionate enough, and wealthy enough to buy
your book then just go straight to them and don’t worry about who isn’t
buying your book.
Being
neutral, polite, indifferent, or non-partisan doesn’t work when promoting your
book. No book or story is for everyone, not even the Bible, so don’t look to
win everybody over. So does playing to a singular group mean you have to
intentionally dismiss another?
Well,
first play up the group you want to impress. Win them over by appealing to
their wants and needs. Speak their language and reference things that surely
will resonate with them. You don’t have to trash another to build yourself up,
but sometimes that is necessary. Look at sports. Here in New York, you either
root for the Mets or the Yankees. And when you root for one, it’s obligatory to
root against the other.
Think
of all this as if you were getting dressed for a party. You want to stick out and have all
eyes on you. If you dress conservatively you won’t get much attention. You’ll
need to look at everything -- hair, dress, shoes, accessories, make-up, etc.
Every part of your body real estate is a point of sale. Showing cleavage -- or
not? Revealing legs -- or not? Heavy on red lipstick or eye-liner --or not? Three-
inch heels or five? Ladies, you know what I’m saying.
Play
to your strengths and risk -- even expedite -- turning off those who won’t buy your
book. Do everything possible to appeal to a group’s heart and soul and seek to
get it to open its wallet for you.
Book
publicity doesn’t need to be polite and all-inclusive. Sometimes you need to be
willing to start a fight, dismiss a view point, or alienate others so that you
can win over enough readers to make you an outright success.
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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
is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2013
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