Smart Phone, Dumb People

When it comes to book publicity and book marketing, it often falls to authors to drive media exposure and book sales, whether he or she is self-published or traditionally published. And authors are only as good as the resources they are given, including time, budget, and technology.

But even authors who have a good book, solid credentials, and a tie-in to the news cycle can manage to underperform. Why? They simply fail to take the initiative when it comes to promoting and marketing a book. Authors need to realize it is up to them to make things happen.

You can have a smartphone but still be clueless. You can have your youth but lack maturity. You can be wealthy but poor in social settings. You can be a genius but fail to understand people.

You can be tech-savvy but deficient in your knowledge about the world. We have many people who are incomplete and fall short of being well-rounded. Authors need to be able to not just write well, but market and promote just as well.

Though I don’t advocate a social media only PR and marketing strategy, I would say that it is a good third  of what you need to do to brand, promote, and market yourself. It’s accessible 24-7, it’s free, and it’s not complex to operate. Why authors don’t utilize the tools in their grasp is beyond me.

I do know that social media in the collective seems like folly and a time-suck, which it can be, but it also can be used to find and connect with potential consumers and like-minded people.

Why let others control the gates or dictate how and if you’ll be ahead. Use social media to equalize the field and help you get the word out.

What social media does is this:

·         Establishes your voice or brand

·         Connects you to your book reader

·         Builds up connectors that can lead to sales

·         Helps get a message out, unfiltered

·         Allows you to establish a platform for other media to see

We all think that books should sell on merit, not hype, but truthfully, many books need the hype so the content can be discovered. Once someone gets attention it’s hard to sustain it unless there’s merit or substance to their book. Content quality is important. It’s just secondary to the PR, though.

Just as we judge others by outward appearances or status symbols, many books are discovered by others because of PR and social media. You’ve written a great book -- now let others know about it!

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, 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 © 2014