Have You Attended Book Marketing Camp?

My oldest child, just nine and a half, went off to sleep-away camp for the first time this past weekend. He will be on a four-week journey away from his home, family, friends, dog, fish and an oversized stuffed animal. He could come home wishing he never went or return feeling enriched by the challenge, appreciative of home life, and happy for all the fun moments he experienced. I hope it’ll be the second choice. But camp doesn’t have to be just for little boys being taken out of their comfort zones. Authors and writers would benefit from a book publishing camp.

The Army has boot camp, where it turns ordinary people into soldiers. There are spots camps that turn one’s hobby into a calling. There are training camps put on by corporations to educate their new employees. Colleges have training sessions for RA’s and personnel before school starts. So why not a camp for writers?

There are writer conferences and author retreats, but those are geared towards improving one’s writing abilities and to learn how to get published. But what writers truly need is a camp for marketing and promoting their books.

Ok, so maybe the idea sounds preposterous, but is it? Writers spend years working on their books—from conceptualization and research to writing and editing—but they spend little time marketing and promoting their books by comparison.

So what would they learn at such a camp? They would need to know how to:

·         Write a press release and develop strong story angles

·         Create a targeted media contact list

·         Launch their social media

·         Write a good blog and share it with others

·         Create a functional and attractive website

·         Formulate a book marketing plan

·         Schedule appearances and autograph signings

·         Network

·         Solicit organizations to make bulk sales

·         Advertise their book

·         Devise a 15 second elevator speech

·         Set realistic goals and take definitive steps towards reaching them

Book marketing camp should be fun. It’s a time to experiment and to gain a new perspective outside your normal environment, much like what my son hopefully is doing right now. Whether you are a young kid or an older writer, everyone has something they need to learn.

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.