Do You Practice Loss-Leader Book Marketing Techniques?

 

Big box stores like Costco do it. Discount retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon do it all of the time. So do supermarkets. They take one or more products and sell them

at their cost or even at a loss. They just need to get customers to walk into the door — and then they will spend more money on other items. 

All stores and websites do door-busting sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  

There is no reason you can’t take the same approach to the marketing of your book.  

You certainly can:

* Make introductory offers for a specific book of yours with a special discount that gets people to your site, where they can then pay for other books that you are selling

* Pay for book reviews, hoping they generate sales

* Use ads to lure people to your site by promising a giveaway of something others perceive to have value

* Provide free content to capture names of those who sign up for it

* Price one book in a series low to hook readers into the whole series

* Donate a certain percentage of the book’s proceeds to a feel-good non-profit or an organization with a good cause, endearing goodwill from potential consumers

* Give free speeches in the hopes it generates book sales or visitors to your site.

* Give books away to drum up word-of-mouth buzz

* Donate books to places that will visually display your book

* Bundle other books, services, events, or products with your book  

* Do favors now for cashing-in later 

Be opportunistic and sacrifice something, even profits, to help brand yourself as a writer and to position yourself to get more book sales.  

Do You Need Book Marketing & PR Help?

Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, with over four million page views, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com  He is available to help authors like you to promote your story, sell your book, and grow your 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

This award-winning blog has generated over four million pageviews. With 5,000+ 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.”  Copyright 2024.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity 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.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully).

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, 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. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

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.

 

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