Here\u2019s a book promotion tip you may not have thought of. It\u2019s one that I suggest to my clients, but I don\u2019t know how many of them actually follow through with it.<\/p>\n
Snoop on your competition. In other words, find out how authors with similar books are selling theirs and emulate that. How? Spend time at these authors\u2019 websites. <\/p>\n
\u2022\tVisit their media page to see what they\u2019ve been up to. An on-the-ball author will post media coverage showing where he\u2019s been speaking, what conferences he has attended, what activities he has been involved in, etc.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tCheck his \u201cSpeaking\u201d or \u201cActivities\u201d page to find out where he plans to speak in the future.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tWhat are the topics of his presentations?<\/p>\n
\u2022\tDoes this author have any contests or other interactive projects going on?<\/p>\n
\u2022\tDoes he have a FaceBook, Twitter, etc. account? How is he using it and how does this seem to be serving him? <\/p>\n
\u2022\tLook at the testimonials page\u2014which experts have commented on his book? Maybe these are people you would like to connect with. <\/p>\n
\u2022\tWhat are his readers saying? Perhaps their comments might give you some ideas about promoting your book.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tStudy his blog entries. What is he talking about? Does he have a large number of followers? What can you do get as many or more followers?<\/p>\n
\u2022\tBe sure to comment at his blog site and others related to the genre\/theme of your book. This will give you some exposure. <\/p>\n
\u2022\tStudy his promotional material.<\/p>\n
\u2022\tYou might also start a dialog with some of these authors and actually discuss some of your promotional ideas. Maybe you can do some piggyback marketing (he\u2019ll promote your book through his channels if you\u2019ll promote his through yours). <\/p>\n
How do you use this knowledge once you get it? This suggestion is not meant to create pirating among authors. No way! Rather, use the information and leads you get to inspire your own promotional material and activities. Get some ideas for groups you can speak to. Learn a few tips and tricks for reaching your audience. Maybe you\u2019ll find ways to make more sales. And, perhaps, you\u2019ll even develop some new friends and allies who really do know what you\u2019re going through as an author and who can help and support you. Use some of these ideas and report back how they worked for you.<\/p>\n
Selling Books Isn\u2019t Always Easy<\/strong> As an author, you will also have to be a salesperson and a pitchperson. You\u2019ll be called on to personally make the sale when your website and brochure didn\u2019t quite do the job. You\u2019ll have to handhold some customers and spend a lot of time responding to questions. Sometimes you\u2019ll go out of your way to deliver a book or to ship it in an unfamiliar way. I had one customer in Australia who placed his order for one of my books something like 11 times. Yes, he hit the buy button 11 times (he admitted to \u201cmaybe a couple\u201d). It took me a good part of the morning trying to make that transaction right for both of us\u2014I had to get techi help from my merchant account company and hand credit each of the erroneous orders. What a pain! <\/p>\n In the end, the customer was happy and I lost out. How could that be? Wellllll, in my eagerness to make things right, I accidentally typed in the wrong credit card number and credited the wrong account with one charge (thankfully, it wasn\u2019t all of the charges). I didn\u2019t know this until the customer came back to me and said that there was still one credit left that I needed to do. I had to go back through the process to figure it all out and that\u2019s when I discovered that I\u2019d credited the wrong account one time. I went ahead and credited his account once more, which meant that he had paid once for his order\u2014he was straight. But I was upside down! <\/p>\n The merchant account representative told me to go back and charge that card that I\u2019d erroneously credited. When I did, I got all kinds of red flags and loud whistles. There was something wrong with this card\u2014it had been stolen, perhaps\u2026I don\u2019t know. But I never got that credit back. <\/p>\n If you want to try out my slick ordering system and experience my excellent customer service and prompt responses to your questions (whether you are a customer or not), order books here: http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com<\/a> and contact me here: PLFry620@yahoo.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here\u2019s a book promotion tip you may not have thought of. It\u2019s one that I suggest to my clients, but I don\u2019t know how many of them actually follow through with it. Snoop on your competition. In other words, find out how authors with similar books are selling theirs and emulate that. How? Spend time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\nI sold several books yesterday\u2014on Friday the 13th. Guess it was a good luck day for me. But every book sale had many extra steps to it. None of them went smoothly. I had to take extra time and extra effort to nail down the sales. I want you to know that I am not complaining. I met some lovely people. But I do want you to know that, no matter how much you streamline your ordering system, you may still have to end up hand-selling each book. Not always\u2014but often enough that this needs to be mentioned.<\/p>\n