Authors Must Market Or Perish

 

The world needs more good ideas — and even more people to implement them. Books offer ideas, so one may argue that the more books we have, the more ideas that will be circulating. But with more books that exist, there will be fewer readers per title, and thus less of a chance that any of these books will be discovered on a wide scale.

Books are starting to cannibalize each other. Everyone has a right to free speech and can publish one or more books if they choose to. But as more people write and publish more books, a bottleneck builds up.

Today, over the next 24 hours, there will be over 7,500 new books published in America. How many of them does society want or need? What percentage are worthy of making a best-seller list, winning a book award, or earning some great reviews from influential book reviewers?

Honestly, should your book be published? Will it add to the conversation out there, contribute something to society, or even help one reader’s life? Is it truly better than most books competing in its genre.

Ok, if you still feel your book should be published, and you fully recognize the burden of discoverability is on you, are you now prepared to commit to marketing your book?

Authors have always been great about writing books. They often failed to get them published, that is until the self-publishing industry exploded 20 or so years ago. Now they lag neither in writing nor publishing, but in marketing.  However, writers won’t go far unless they market what they write.

All of the promotional avenues available to them are crowded with competition, high costs, and a low probability of yielding success or profits. Writers desperately search for readers in a country whose growth has slowed and its population more illiterate than a generation ago.

Authors should market their books — wisely and often — but they should also pledge to only publish what is truly worthwhile. The world is too busy and consumed by distraction to pay proper attention to all or even many of the books that are pumped out.

Market or perish. Heed these words, authors.

P.S. — This is ny 5,000th blog post!

 

Need PR Help?

Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, with over 3.9 million page views, 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!

 

About Brian Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be followed on www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2024. 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 3.9 million pageviews. With 4,900+ 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 director of publicity positions 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 hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, 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. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald