More Great Life Advice When Marketing A Book

 

 

1. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, especially when you have little to lose. Any setback is temporary; you will flourish.

2. Be willing to experiment and diversify your approach to things.

3. Always take a New Yorker’s approach to book marketing— question, seek, push, challenge, ignore some rules, assume competition, act with a sense of urgency, plan but revise along the way, and enjoy the hunt. Resilience. Work-Arounds. Opportunity. That is the way.

 

4. Be optimistic but question everything — something can always be made better.

5. Have an opportunistic mindset — create your own opportunities and be prepared to recognize ones that materialize.

6. No is a delayed yes — just because you initially get ignored or rejected doesn’t mean you can’t try again, in another way on another day. They may have not heard enough or in the right way or right frame of mind to commit to a yes just yet. But then they will say yes!

7. Have strong convictions and work from a determined belief or mindset.

8. Ask people their opinions — you can dismiss, oppose, or ignore them, but hear them out. Either they reinforce your thinking or give you something to think about. It is your choice. You are in control and can benefit from listening.

9. Do more of what serves your purpose, passion, pleasure, and has a pay-off.

10. Life is a numbers game — ask enough people, enough times, in enough ways -- and some will cave in to what you want. You sometimes just need one yes or a few yesses out of dozens or even hundreds of inquiries to get what you want. Forget the pile of rejections. Life is more rejection than not. You can still win the war even when it seems you have lost many battles.

11. Be the hero of your book marketing life — set your standards and live up to them.

12. Whatever you want to become, act as if you already are that person.

13. Most of life is about narrow victories by a 51-49 margin. Many decisions can involve nearly equal choices but that 51% gets you 100 percent. Some champion sports teams may only be a little better each night than their opponent, just a little more than half the time.

14. Exceptions are the norm — nothing is ever perfect or 100%.

15. People do things based on the past, emotions, fears, greed, and distorted impressions — not always based on facts, truth, and how things really are.

 

16. Winners choose to do what losers can’t do, don’t know to do, or choose not to do.

 

17. When feeling boxed in or confronted with a dilemma, explore all of your choices. If one is not viable, create new choices by re-writing the problem or by changing something in order to free up additional choices. Always know that you have choices, and that one is better than another — even when they seem similar.

18. The words you use matter — so choose your words carefully.

19. Express things in the ideal when you sell something — people want to envision perfection.

20. Most people will act based on money, health, family, beliefs, nostalgia, and how they see themselves. They also often act out of emotions: fear, desire, anger, lust, and insecurity. Play to what triggers them.

21. We get rejected by others because of their wrong assumptions, incorrect perceptions, lack of info, or their misinterpretation or misunderstanding of circumstances, you, events, or choices. You can still change their minds.

22. Neither assume — nor fear — tomorrow is today.  A setback, defeat, or shortfall today is not necessarily a script for tomorrow — nor is today’s success a guarantee that tomorrow is a repeat performance.

23. Under-promise but overdeliver — you will win people over with the potential for results, but not a hyped-up promise of un-deliverables.

24. Know your values and limitations before you find yourself in a situation where you make bad decisions. Have a foundation of principles from which to act. 

 

25. Learn from criticism — don’t just dismiss them as assholes, dumb, jealous, or mean — even if they are some of those things.

26. Discover and define your DNA: What would YOU say or do or think in a certain situation? What makes you an original? What is your unique selling proposition?

27. Act humbly to others but burn with competition inwardly — the key to winning is not to let others know there is a game being played.

28. You only compete against yourself — always do your best and seek to improve.

29. Turn a perceived weakness into being seen as a strong point. 

 

30. Believe to achieve. You need to think it, feel it, and envision it before you can do it.

 

31. Assume there is an answer or best solution to any situation. Think of life as a puzzle — you know it is solvable even if the pieces don’t connect the way you have tried so far.

 

32. Surround yourself with positive, resourceful, and smart people, but diversify the different voices and perspectives in your inner circle.

33. Improving something bigly that you are ordinary or weak at could be just as important as making minor improvements to an already valued strength.

34. Always be thinkin’ but take action over analysis paralysis.
 

35. Avoid being the bottleneck. Take small steps today to avert big problems tomorrow.

 

36. Balance yourself when it comes to the time, effort, money, and thoughts put into your:

 

* Health

* Wealth

* Fun that you do

* Entertainment that you passively consume

* Rest

* Chores

* Charity/volunteer

* Education

* Job

* Travel

* Family/Friends

* Relationship/sex life

 

37. There are some things we will never get to do because of circumstance, and there are other times we shouldn't take action, not because we cannot, but because we should not.

 

38. When you find yourself raging over something, simply take a timeout and let yourself cool down. Once the rage disappears you will be able to look at things in a reasonable, level-headed, clear manner. Little good can come of an action or statement that comes as a result of a tirade. Take a deep breath. Separate all the elements to the situation and diffuse the tension.

 

39. Decide how hard you are willing to work, how much pain you are willing to suffer, how much loss you are willing to experience, how much risk you are willing to take. You can only achieve in proportion to the price you are willing to pay.

 

40. Know that you have blind spots — find them.

 

41. Follow the 80-20 rule when it comes to life’s work, investments, and friends. 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts, clients, or products/services.

 

42. Don’t sweat the small stuff — know what is truly important.

 

43. Always sleep on an important decision. If it's right, you will still have time to act on your instinct. If it's wrong, you will be spared the pains of having acted impulsively. However, do not procrastinate or put off major decisions indefinitely. When a crisis arises, action and not avoidance is needed.

 

44. Delegate tasks and responsibilities as often as possible. Whatever you can do can be farmed out. Your strength is to monitor and manage the production of others, to be an innovator and an initiator.

 

45. By carefully observing and scrutinizing yourself you will come to know all others.

 

46. Know the probability of all possibility. Meaning, before you make a choice, list all that could be, and then narrow down your choices.

47. Think like others in order to anticipate their actions and then predict their next steps, project outward into the future, and then imagine their pivot point— the moment they abandon their strategy.

48, The old ways still have value — a physical world of seeing people in person, mailing a paper card filled out in handwritten ink, driving to a store, walking down a street… you need to touch and see things no matter how much you do on your digital pocket rocket. Don’t Gen Z things — Gen X them!

Need Book Marketing 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 over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!

 

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About Brian Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be followed on LinkedIn. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2023. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This award-winning blog has generated over 3.4 million pageviews. With 4,600+ posts over the past dozen years, it 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 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades, including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and two jobs at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America, and has spoken at ASJA, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. He has been featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald. For more information, please consult: www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.