What Are The 7 Book Marketing Sins?

 

While recently attending prayer services for the High Holy Holidays at my temple, I came across a text that outlined the seven social sins. It inspired me to identify the seven sins of book marketing.  

Here they are:  

1. Promoting Without Purpose. Know why you are doing what you are doing. Map out a plan and set goals. To just sporadically or half-heartedly market your brand and book will just yield insufficient results.  

2. Making Excuses To Not Market Yourself. You can’t write books without marketing them. By not dedicating yourself to consistent marketing efforts, supported by hard work, creativity, commitment, sacrifice, money, and time, you will betray yourself and deny others from standing a chance to discover and benefit from your book.  

3. Lying When Marketing or Marketing A Lie. You must market with a conscience. Do not break the law, lie, cheat, steal, or harm another when promoting your book. Sure, be creative in your approach, but only bend rules, not break them.  

4. Marketing As If Everyone Is Your Target. Spoiler alert: most people will not read your book or give a crap about it. Most will not ever hear of it. But you can be wildly successful when a readership demographic, no matter how small, can be identified and pursued. Think about it. You can be on a major best-seller list with 10,000 books sold. If you sell a million copies, that means you didn't sell books to even one third of one percent of the population. Target your reader and never assume or expect everyone is your reader. 

5. Ego-Driven Marketing. Do not market a book that you know is crap. Commit to writing a better book before seeking to promote it. Do not market purely for the sake of your ego. It is fine to believe in your book and want others to read it, but do not just believe because you wrote something that everyone should want to read it.  

6. Marketing Without Leaning On Your Network. Marketing a book requires favors. Start by asking who you know and who they know. Guilt, favors, or compensation should be your currency. To not seek help from those who can is just dumb. 

7. Failing To Outsource Marketing That You Won’t, Can’t, or Don’t Want To Do. If you won’t do something to help promote your book, it still has to be done. Don’t ignore or dismiss it. You may lack the skill, knowledge, ability, or resources to get it done. You may have other priorities. No worries. Hire help! 

In case you were wondering, the Reform Jewish prayer book identified these seven social sins:  

*Wealth without work

*Pleasure without conscience

*Knowledge without character

*Commerce without morality

*Science without humanity

*Worship without sacrifice

*Politics without principle  

Re-evaluate your book marketing sins. Avoid repeating them. Forgive yourself. Make amends. Commit to a better approach.  

As a result, you will feel better and do better. It is a win-win.

 

Need Book PR Help?

Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors promote their story, sell their book, and grow their brand. He has 30 years of experience in helping thousands of authors in all genres.

 

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About Brian Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be followed on Twitter @theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2021. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America. For more information, please consult: linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.