Book Marketing In 2015

The New York Times summed up our culture in one sentence: “Every day, one billion people around the world watch more than 300 million hours of videos on YouTube.”  Just think about that number.

What would the world be like if it took those 300 million hours – over two billion a week – and used them to read a book or do something more constructive and purposeful.

There are so many distractions today that it amazes me anyone reads a book.  Each of these distractions have big companies with vested interests in getting you to stay addicted and to only focus on their service or form of media.  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube don’t want you to leave their sites.  Neither does Amazon, Google, Netflix, The New York Times, Fox TV, or a thousand other sites, stations, or publications.

So how can we make 2015 a banner year for books?  We’ll need to use all of these forums to promote and market books.  You can’t rely on just one, and you can’t afford to ignore too many platforms.  Books can be talked about, sold, or reviewed anywhere.  You need to be where that is.  You need to be everywhere, or you’ll end up nowhere.

There are many approaches one can take to book marketing and often you need to experiment to see what works.  But diversification is key.

Look at it this way.  You can list a method to sell books and put a number next to it, such as what percentage of your day or marketing budget can go into it.  For instance, if you say you have a daily time budget of two hours to promote your book, start dividing up that time accordingly.  You can vary it from day to day.

Here’s one day’s approach:

Blog – 20 minutes

Twitter – 20 minutes

Facebook – 20 minutes

YouTube – 20 minutes

Scheduling Signings – 40 minutes

Another day might be:
Twitter – 30 minutes

Facebook – 20 minutes

Contacting Media – 70 minutes

Each day, have a plan.  Set priorities.  Be disciplined.  Through trial and error see what works best and start to shift your resources to what is most important.

Another way to budget for things is to set goals.  Let’s say you hope to net 5,000 book sales over three months.  How many will be via print vs. ebook?  How will you get these sales?

Set goals like this:
Paperback sales: 1000

EBook sales: 4,000

Total sales/day: 55

How will you generate 55 sales per day – and at what cost in time and money?

Each day will vary.  For instance, you may do a book signing and net 15 paperback sales.  Your blog may have generated 5 sales.  An ad maybe brought in six sales.  A newspaper review generated 10 sales.  Start to set goals on how many book sales you need from each activity that you plan to participate in, such as these:

·         Speaking appearances

·         Media

·         Ads

·         Blogging

·         Twitter

·         Facebook

·         Webinar

Most authors get tired from book marketing, especially when they don’t see an immediate or substantial pay off.  Then they let life get in the way.  They need to work late one day and can’t market their book.  They feel under the weather on another occasion.  Their kids need attention.  The car breaks down.  Shit happens, sometimes daily.  Book marketing gets shelved and then discouragement settles in.

The key is to stay focused on meeting your daily goals and to not let anything distract you from achieving them.  If something needs to be sacrificed, it can’t be book marketing.

You made your resolutions and committed to new ones, new results, and a new you for 2015.  Stay true to your book marketing plan and plan for success.  There will be many distractions and setbacks, but stick with it.  You can do this!

DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR

2015 Book PR & Marketing Toolkit: All New

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

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 © 2015