Market Your Books Like Colleges Promote Themselves

 

My teen-age daughter is a high school junior who is navigating the college maze, and it feels fascinating, stressful, and exhausting to both of us. She feels like she is shopping not just where she will be for the next four years, but for her future. She isn’t wrong.

I already went through this a few years ago for my son. Last year he did the FOMO exploration of whether he should transfer, but then reaffirmed, after some Hamlet-like contemplations, that he was exactly where he should be.

There is more than one right college for a student, just as there is more than one person that we could marry. Sure, some schools or dating partners simply feel good to us, and we become drawn to them, but a soul mate in dating is utter bullshit. And if she really picks a wrong school, she can transfer.

Still, no one, even with reassurances of a viable backup plan, want to screw this up.

I also noticed that schools need to market to students, to recruit them even when they say they have low acceptance rates. They are trying to raise the value of their brand, which allows them to charge more, solicit for big alumni donations, and to get students who will likely have successful careers that will make the college look good.

I also noticed that colleges market themselves the way many authors do their books. Consumers invest in a college or book by gaging similar factors:

Cost
The tuition at private schools is out of this world, approaching 90 grand a year all-in. It would have to be an exceptional opportunity to buy into that.   Similarly, don’t price your book out of the market. No one is paying $25 or $30 for a paperback of a memoir about an unknown person.

Sales
Discounts from schools can be negotiated or a child may qualify for scholarships. This could sweeten the pot to close a deal. Same with books offering big discounts. For a buck or two, you may lure some readers in for the ebook.

Benefits

What is the promise offered by a college? A fun experience. An educational experience. A means to a career and a job. Maybe. And a book? Fun, educational, and possibly to serve a purpose (ie you now know enough to lose weight, make money, have a better relationship).

Vibe

Colleges give off a look, a vibe, and a persona with the campus’s layout, location, and student body energy and demographics. So do books, with the cover and title, the book’s layout and paper texture, its font, its use of images, and the voice of the writer.

Specialty
Books are purchased based on genre. If you wrote poetry and I only read thrillers, no sale. Colleges offer certain majors and areas of concentration or specialty. If a university is known for engineering, pre-law, or business, it may not be the place to pursue your art history degree.

Competition

Nothing exists in a vacuum. There are thousands of colleges and universities competing for your bank account and there are millions of books seeking your attention. You need some mechanism to filter what you are looking for. As an example, if you can narrow down schools by cost, program, location and your perceived ability to gain acceptance into their institution, you likely are only giving serious thought to a few dozen schools initially. And books, based on genre, sub-genre, publication dates, reviews, or certain authors, you need only survey a few dozen book descriptions to get something palpable.

Distractions

Some make college choices based, in part, on what I call the shiny new toy factor. Colleges offer many colorful distractions, starting with attractive tour guides, overemphasizing things that are not important but sound cool, and stating things that play into your psychology of perceived 

needs or wants. They will share some selected distorted statistics and show you a fast-edit, drone-endowed, everything-is-great promo video and give you some swag. With books, a dazzling cover, provocative title, and colorful book description accompanied by unbelievable endorsements from people who are famous or important will bedazzle you. So will the author’s website or social media pages.

But, a key difference in comparing a book purchase with a college selection ends with the results. 

 

Of course, buyers of books can buy many books but they only choose one college. Screwing up a buy decision for a book is nothing compared to choosing the wrong college. 

 

Still, authors and colleges, as you can see, have a lot in common with how they market. You may even want to copy some of the strategies practiced by thousands of colleges and universities.

 

 

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