Tag: marketing plan

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Book Proposals

Make an Irresistible Proposal

Every author has a challenge with their submission to an agent or editor. How can your proposal become irresistible? Other proposals can be passed over but yours must be presented and kept. One of the magic keys is to include special sales in your marketing plans. I guarantee it will separate your book from others because almost no one talks about this important area of the book market.

Can you come up with a special market for your book that will sell 10,000 to 100,000 copies from the first printing? Does this sound impossible? It’s not. According to Jerrold Jenkins, president of the Jenkins Group in Traverse City, Michigan, the majority of special sales (a special sale is anything outside of the traditional bookstore setting) for books originate from the author who turns up these leads and creative ideas to sell thousands of books. Could your book contain a special back cover with the symbol of the organization and be used as a membership renewal gift? Could it contain a special letter from the president on the first page of the book? These books with a special cover or special inserted letter are called “special sales.”

Book sales have a fundamental problem that has been around since the Great Depression.

Retailers can order your book into the stores (good news for that to happen). But it doesn’t remain on their bookshelves forever. If your book doesn’t sell after a period of time, they can return the book to the publisher (not good news). These returns are charged against the earnings of your royalties. Special sales are never returned! They are guaranteed sales for the publisher and the author. I would encourage you to take some time at the Jenkins Group website and study the various examples of special sales. While these examples might not be exactly like your idea, be creative in your plan and potential for sales and include this plan into your proposal under the category of promotion.

As an editor, I love to locate an author who understands it takes more than excellent writing to sell large volumes of their book. I’ve discovered a book that is a valuable resource for writers in this area called How to Make Real Money Selling Books (Without Worrying About Returns): A Complete Guide to the Book Publisher’s World of Special Sales by Brian Jud (One Square Pub). This book documents that more than half of the books sold are sold through non-traditional channels such as mail order, warehouse clubs and other means.

Have you ever read the sales numbers of a particular book and wondered how that particular book ever sold in the bookstore? Some of those big sales numbers have been outside the bookstore.

How to Make Real Money Selling Books is a valuable resource for any writer to think outside the box.

Jud covers many specific strategies for generating special sales. As you read these strategies, determine which ideas are appropriate for your book, then incorporate them into your nonfiction or fiction book proposal. Including this type of information at the beginning of the publishing process will show your publisher your intention to be proactive in the sales process. Proactive authors who understand how to sell books are attractive authors to any publisher.

Jud’s earlier book, Beyond the Bookstore and his newer title are loaded with current statistics and contact information such as, “Today, the worldwide book market approximates $90 billion. Almost one third of those sales occur in the United States. Over the past ten years, the amount of sales through traditional outlets is decreased by 11 per cent (down 19 per cent without factoring Internet sales), and sales through non-bookstore outlets have increased by 8 per cent.” Three major advantages of special sales include control over your destiny, customization potential and nontraditional market segmentation. If you utilize the information in this book to generate a detailed marketing plan for your book proposal, it will help your proposal stand out from all the others on the acquisitions editor’s desk. Only the author has the passion and intense interest in their book. Use this book to increase your sales and strengthen your book proposals.

If you include even the beginnings of an effective marketing plan in your proposal, you send the following messages to the publisher.

Publishers are looking for authors who have connections to their readers—either through an email list or an active social media platform. In a few seconds, any editor or agent can check your social media on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or any number of other platforms. If you blog, have you added recent entries? If you podcast, do you have recent programs? Your active involvement in these platforms will be an important part of your proposal. Make sure you include the links and numbers in your proposal. Those numbers with the right publisher could translate into book sales and readers.

Never forget that there are thousands of proposals circulating at a publisher. Your goal is to make your proposal irresistible—and something they have to publish—before a competitor snaps it up.

Terry Whalin

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link below the image). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.

Morgan James Publishing
Categories
Book Proposals

Create a Fascinating Marketing Plan

Many would-be authors are surprised to see this element in the component of an excellent book proposal. They think to themselves (and some of them verbalize), “I’m not self-publishing my book. Isn’t the publisher supposed to be putting together a market plan with a specific commitment of dollars?”

Here’s the problem

Every publisher has limited marketing and publicity dollars to promote their list of books. The bulk of the money will go to the top authors, and if you are a new author, you can expect that your book will receive minimal treatment—unless you show the publisher that you deserve something different.

I met Jacqueline Deval, publisher at Hearst Books, who has also been a director of publicity at several publishing houses. One of the best resources for authors is Deval’s book called Publicize Your Book!, An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves (Perigee Books). From the opening paragraph in the introduction, Deval provides authors with the following realistic expectation:

The reality of book publishing is that there are too few resources to support every book.

This means that some books will get publicity campaigns and budgets while others will go without. Additionally, most publishing houses are not staffed with enough publicists to mount a full-fledged campaign for every book. Because of this, editors must compete with one another to lobby the publisher, and the marketing and publicity departments, for the funds and staff attention to promote their books.

What type of marketing ammunition can you include in your book proposal so your editor can champion your cause? Because of the expense of publishing a book, a publisher will expect you to actively work at marketing your book to your connections. Many writers are stumped about what to include in this section of their proposals, so they write, “I’m willing to do radio, television and print interviews to promote my book.” Of course, you will be willing to do these interviews. If not, you have no business even taking the steps of creating a book proposal and writing a book. Publicizing your book comes with the territory after the book is published.

Other authors will write, “My book should be featured on The Today Show.” Every publisher long for their books to be featured on The Today Show because these appearances help drive books to the bestseller list. The reality is few authors get this opportunity—even though their publisher may try. The producers at The Today Show (or Good Morning America or any other talk show) are bombarded with literally thousands of new books. It’s not realistic to include such plans in your proposal.

To achieve success in your marketing plan, you need to get into a different mind-set.

As Deval says in the first chapter, “An author who thinks like a marketer, and who starts thinking about marketing before the book is even completed, will help the book toward a successful publication. The author is in the best position to offer suggestions for marketing that the house might have overlooked and sometimes to help bridge any difficult internal relationships among the publishing team that might impede the book’s success. (In-house squabbles do happen in business, and while in a just world they shouldn’t interfere with a book’s progress, sometimes they do.) Most important, the author can be the catalyst to motivate a house’s enthusiasm about a book (page 4).”

Deval’s perspective in her book is valuable to anyone writing a book proposal or with a book to be published. As an insider, she understands the stresses and limitations within a publisher. She helps the author come alongside the publisher with creative and cost-effective ideas without being a pushy, high maintenance author (yes, they exist).

Take some time to creatively think about the topic and the book that you propose.

Which specialty groups are potential targets for this book? Do you have a connection to these markets through an organization or network to reach them with your book? If you don’t presently have a connection with the target group, how can you acquire one? You have the passion and drive for your particular topic, and you need to pass this passion on to the publisher. Through the marketing section of your proposal, show the publisher that you understand the marketing for your book and your willingness to be involved.

Terry Whalin

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.

Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success
Categories
Guest Posts

10 Effective Marketing Strategies for Authors

Guest posts

____________________________________________________________________________

Source: InviteReferrals

It has become difficult to stand out in this competitive era, especially for small entrepreneurs, like authors. Therefore, you need to come up with unique marketing strategies if you want to stay ahead of competitors.

Although the traditional ways of marketing a book is still important, merging that with new strategies helps you reach a broader range of audiences. Not only this, understanding the 5 Ps of marketing will help you better shape your business strategy.

10 Effective Marketing Strategies 

1. Pair Your Strategy With Google Ads

Google Ads is one of the effective online marketing channels. Although it may be a bit expensive, it is competitive, and once you master this platform, you can get a lot of benefits. Also, keep in mind that doing your on-page SEO perfectly, will give you the relevant search results to stimulate traffic.

2. Explore Content Marketing

Source: InviteReferrals

You should generate relevant content that showcases what your book is about and answer any queries or dilemmas you think might come up.. Then, spread the content through a wide range of channels online. This way of content marketing is a powerful tactic to direct traffic from varied sources.

However, content marketing requires patience, as the results will take time to evolve. Therefore, don’t forget to leverage content marketing for the sustainable growth of visitors and readers of your books in the long term.

3. Partner With Publishers

Authors need to reach out to more publishers for expansion by partnering with other ventures, like anthologies and other collaborative works. This is a powerful way of marketing your writing  or services as you promote yourself and your books. Moreover, leveraging pragmatic marketing becomes important here as it allows you to relate with not only your readers but with other publishers’ audiences as well.

4. Use Social Media

Source: InviteReferrals

Most of your target audiences are on distinctive social channels. In addition, most of your target audience is utilizing social media for customer support. Therefore, your books need to be showcased on all the significant social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Therefore, you have to ensure that you devote effort and time to the growth of your social media audience. Several smart marketing professionals invest a lot of time and money toward developing their social media presence.

5. Create Facebook Ads

Facebook advertising is an effective social media strategy that your book can benefit from immensely. In addition, Facebook is an affordable platform to reach out virtually to a wide audience.

You can set Facebook ads to target your particular set of consumers based on their location, online behavior, sex, age, etc. Facebook Ads Manager will lead you through creating, running, and testing various ad tests so that you can see which ad formula is getting the attention of your readers and audience.

6. Promote On Ecommerce Platforms

eCommerce sites such as Flipkart and Amazon have a huge number of your target audience. Therefore, you must explore marketing opportunities offered by these sites. Even big companies allow limited-time discounts to their members on these sites.

You can efficiently target your readers. As a result, it encourages brand awareness amongst the audience, grows manifold, and new readers come exploring your newly launched books.

7. Email marketing

Source: InviteReferrals

An email marketing campaign is essential to your cold outreach marketing strategy. Since customers get numerous emails per day from marketers, you should make a plan that stands out from the rest and transform your leads into followers and buyers of your book.

First, your emails should be customized for all recipients along with a responsive and device-friendly design.

Today, with the help of automation, it has become easier to create an effective email drip campaign and send emails to numerous people with ease.

8. Start Writing Blogs

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to engage your audience. Now you must be wondering why? Because writing blogs is a great way to showcase your expertise and produce leads. Blogs are intriguing because they involve interesting topics and let viewers see what you write about and that you care about your audience. When they feel connected to you and encouraged about their particular problems, they also feel special and fulfilled.

9. Podcasts

Source: InviteReferrals

Podcasts are a great way to gain insight into books and spread information on other aspects of your writing business. The content you or a business representative highlight in a podcast is another way to share your entertainment or encouragement with your followers. The best part about a podcast is that you can make use of other people’s audiences while still marketing your business. You further get affirmation from various audiences and build your online authority.

10. Launch a referral program

Referral marketing, also known as word of mouth (WOM), is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. Referral marketing statistics show around 92% of consumers worldwide believe referrals from their peers. A referral program is where businesses incentivize people to refer their products or services to others – a particular type of promotion. Simultaneously, referral programs facilitate you to recognize its loyal customers to do word of mouth for your book. 

Conclusion

In today’s time, there are a lot of marketing strategies that you can leverage for your business. In this post, we have enlisted some of the best strategies that are affordable and proven business tactics. Further, word of mouth is an organic way to drive new customers to your products and services. 

Shivani Goyal is a content writer at InviteReferrals, which provides referral software that allows businesses to attract new customers from existing customers through referral campaigns.

You can find Shivani on social media. Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram

Categories
The Intentional Writer

Stop Feeling Overwhelmed, Adopt a Quarterly Focus

The intentional writer

I am easily overwhelmed when I think about all the things I should be doing to market my book and increase my platform. Grow social media following, SEO research, lead magnets, guest posts, ad split-testing, etc. (Not to mention working on my next book and dealing with the rest of life.)

I work on one thing for a day or two, then I hear I should be doing that other thing, so I switch to working on it instead. And at the end of the week I feel like a failure because I haven’t made any significant progress in any of them.

Does this sound familiar?

Then read on…

A simple strategy to avoid feelin project overwhelm

Stop trying to do it all!

Really.

It’s impossible to focus on every marketing tactic at once, anyway. Not only is is impossible, it will lead to poor results and lots of frustration. Instead, focus on one area at a time.

Big projects like marketing a book—or writing, polishing, and submitting a book—are marathons rather than sprints. The overall success is an accumulation of efforts over a long time span.

This allows us to prioritize one aspect for a period of time and then switch to another. The key is choosing a long enough time period to allow for success.

Try the quarterly approach

Break your year into three-month quarters. Assign a different marketing focus for each quarter. Plan out at least four or five quarters, so that you can cover all the important bases.

An example of using the quarterly focus strategy:

QuarterMarketing focus
April-June:Grow email list
July-Sept.:Grow social media following on one or two accounts
Oct.-Dec.:Run ads and offer a discount to boost sales
Jan. – March:Get spots on podcasts or radio shows
April-June:Learn how to use a new platform effectively (such as Facebook Live, or YouTube, or TikTok)

This quarterly focus strategy helps you:

  • Stay focused
  • Stay motivated
  • Manage time wisely
  • Avoid feeling overwhelmed and giving up
  • Have more time to really do something well
  • Assess how your area of effort affects book sales (because you aren’t trying five things at once.)

Of course, you shouldn’t completely ignore other marketing tactics in the meantime, but you can give yourself permission to do the bare minimum to maintain them while keeping the chosen area the priority.

I hope this quarterly focus strategy helps you face your next big project with more confidence and less stress.

Lisa E. Betz worked as an engineer, substitute teacher, and play director before becoming an award-winning mystery writer. She brings her analytical mind, quirky humor, and positive outlook to all she writes. She draws inspiration from thirty-five years of leading Bible studies to create entertaining mysteries set in the world of the early church, and then she fills that world with eccentric characters, independent females, and an occasional sausage-snatching cat. Her first novel, Death and a Crocodile, garnered a gold medal in the Illumination Book Awards.

In addition to writing novels, Lisa blogs about living with authenticity and purpose. Visit her at www.lisaebetz.com. Facebook LisaEBetzWriter Twitter @LisaEBetz and Pinterest Lisa E Betz Intentional Living.

Categories
Book Proposals

Make Your Proposal Stand Out

Recently I met one of my long-term friends, a publisher of a well-known book company. Speaking about how I manage author expectations, I said, “I tell every author it is 80% up to them to sell the book.”

“That 80% is the same thing we tell authors,” he affirmed. Are you taking your responsibility for selling your own book? This attitude is critical in any proposal because it will shine through your words.

Editors and literary agents receive hundreds of submissions. You have seconds to catch their attention before they move to the next one. How can you distinguish your book proposal? Consider these seven keys:

Create an Unforgettable Title. For example, I recently received a proposal from a former nun who wrote a marriage book. The juxtaposition of “nun” with “marriage” caught my attention.

Begin with a great story and continue with thoughtful well-organized content. You don’t just throw the words on the page to have this dynamic. Your writing and rewriting will capture attention.

 Target a specific audience that you know and knows you. Books are not written for everybody but to a particular audience. Your proposal identifies this audience.

  Write a detailed marketing plan to reach your audience. Practical author plans get attention from literary agents and editors.

 Identify five or six competitive books in your proposal. Every book competes and if you understand your competition, you will stand out.

 Carefully craft the first few chapters of your book and include these chapters with your proposal. The sample chapters showcase your writing to the literary agent or editor.

Use my proposal checklist (http://terrylinks.com/bookcheck) to ensure no critical elements are missing.

 A standout proposal takes hard work but you can do this work. This important tool will snag a top agent or get an editor’s attention.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. He answers to your proposal questions at: www.AskAboutProposals.com.

Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Categories
Dear Young Scribes

How to Create a Marketing Plan for your Book—Before it’s Contracted

Marketing isn’t exactly an author’s favorite job. After all, aren’t writers supposed to keep producing books and rely on their publishers to sell their books for them?

That used to be the case. But now, agents and publishers search to sign with authors who understand how to market a book. They want to trust that the writer will be committed and work hard toward placing their book in front of its target audience.

This is why it’s vital that aspiring authors don’t just learn how to write a book; they must also learn how to create a marketing plan. And yes, it’s smart to do this even before your book is contracted.

For my clients at Hartline Literary Agency, I like to walk them through the process of creating a marketing plan in their proposal. A plan they can put into action when the book releases.

Most writers, I’ve noticed, only include brief promotional ideas under the “Marketing” section of their book proposal. But rather than writing a brief paragraph about a few of your marketing ideas, why not create an action plan—just like you’d do if the book were preparing to release?

Doing this will do 3 things:

  1.  Prove to the editor that you know what it takes to market a book.
  2. Increase your chances of selling the book to a publisher.
  3. Make marketing easier for you once the book is released. How? Because you’ll already have your plan in place.

Even if you haven’t reached the book proposal creation stage, I highly recommend that you go ahead and begin crafting the first draft of your marketing plan.

That way, once it’s time to put your marketing section together for your proposal, you won’t be tempted to write the following paragraph:

“To market this book, I’ll hold book signings at bookstores and sell the book at writing conferences. Some other ideas include: hold giveaways and contests on my social media accounts, do a blog tour, and speak at schools and libraries.”      

Please do not write that into your book proposal. If you really want to stand out and impress the editor, then you’ll want to create an actual marketing plan.

Here’s how:

  1. Categorize your plan into the type of marketing.

For example…

ONLINE MARKETING

PRINT MARKETING

TV/RADIO MARKETING

CREATIVE MARKETING

SPEAKING

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

  1. Beneath each category, list about 3 – 7 steps you’ll take once the book is published. Be specific by listing the newspapers, magazines, radio stations, etc. that you’d like to reach out to once the book is published.

For example:

ONLINE MARKETING:

  • Arrange a 10 – 30-stop blog tour surrounding the release of the book
  • Submit articles to teen websites, such as [list here]
  • Hold a 15-day Instagram challenge using the hashtag #PursueYourDreams
  • Invite my street team to read an early copy of my book in exchange for an honest review
  • Plan a book cover reveal with my street team members

As you create your marketing plan, keep in mind that you are not expected to do it all. If your marketing plan is too extensive, then the editor probably won’t take it too seriously. Be sure to write a plan that you will put into action. Make it realistic and reasonable by giving ideas that you know you can follow through with.

Only choose marketing efforts that 1) you’re passionate about, 2) you can logistically put into action, and 2) that will reach your target audience. Even better if your marketing strategies can intersect the three!

My advice? Familiarize yourself with how to market a book. Don’t wait until you have a contract. Not only will this impress an agent/publisher, but it’ll also take pressure off of yourself once you do sign a contract and begin navigating the intimidating waters of marketing.

Who knows? You might even discover that you enjoy the idea of marketing more than you thought you would!

What are your favorite marketing strategies? Do you enjoy the process of marketing, or would you prefer to spend the time writing instead? Let me know in the comments!

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