You spent months or even years writing your book. Boy was it a lot of work\u2014fun, enjoyable, inspiring, stimulating\u2014but work, nonetheless. Now you want to give it the best sendoff possible into the world of publishing, critics, readers, reviewers\u2026 What are your expectations?<\/p>\n
I can tell you what mine were the first few times around. I expected a lot more fanfare when A.S. Barnes published my first book, Hints For the Backyard Rider in 1978. If I\u2019d had one iota of knowledge about authorship, I may have sold tons more books than I did. Or maybe it was the day\u2014the times\u2026 Perhaps authors, then, weren\u2019t expected to promote their own books. I certainly don\u2019t recall the publisher asking me about my platform or my marketing plan. I wasn\u2019t even required to write a book proposal. I just celebrated the publishing of that book, did one book signing and went to work on my next book. <\/p>\n
I knew and readily accepted my responsibilities for promoting my second book because I was the publisher. That\u2019s the publisher\u2019s job, right? This was a local history book\u2014easy as pie to promote because promotion would occur locally. Easy, maybe, but it still took work, effort, energy, creativity and a lot of stretching. That experience taught me that your book sells only for as long as you promote it. <\/p>\n
It was while I was promoting this book that I developed and enhanced some of my marketing skills. I joined a Toastmasters Club and worked hard to become a better public speaker. I read books\u2014many books\u2014on book promotion. And I started taking my book to book festivals and flea markets. I even had a booth at our county fair one year. That was a very good bookselling event.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until twelve years later that I came out with my next book\u2014in fact, two books at once. What was I thinking? And these were my first self-published books for national distribution. Was I prepared for this? I thought so. I had many ideas for promoting these books\u2014I would get reviews published in appropriate magazines and newsletters, speak on these topics, approach specialty bookstores (cooking\/foods and New Age\/metaphysical) and create marketing material and do mass mailings (I was not on the Internet, yet). I also bought a mailing list and sent fliers to hundreds of traditional bookstores telling them about my books. While I found it quite easy to get my book into specialty bookstores, I was not very successful when it came to regular bookstores. In fact out of the 300 or so fliers I sent, I received exactly 0 responses. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve discovered since, that, at least in that time period, the best way to get a book into a bookstore was to show up in person, book in hand, and offer the bookseller a consignment agreement. That is, \u201cpay me when the book sells.\u201d And I\u2019m talking independent bookstores. Unfortunately, there are not many of them left.<\/p>\n
Now, I maintain that the best way to get your books into bookstores is to promote outside the bookstore and send customers to the bookstore. Speak locally, do radio\/TV gigs, write articles for local publications related to the theme\/genre of your book, etc., to bring attention to it and people will go out looking for it. But I also maintain, as do many other professionals, that bookstores may not be the best place to sell books anymore.<\/p>\n
Boy have things changed since I started learning about book promotion. The advent of the computer, word processing systems and the Internet have made it possible for thousands more people to become authors and for thousands more avenues of promotion. There are many, many more reviewers, e-publications, online bookselling opportunities and ways to present a book to the public. The one thing we don\u2019t have more of are readers, unfortunately. <\/p>\n
For much more about book promotion in 2011 and beyond, read my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author<\/em>. Read some of the 18 reviews at the book\u2019s page at Amazon.com<\/p>\n