|
|
You might not believe it, but there really is a secret to marketing your books. It's sometimes simple, and sometimes difficult. But it will work 100% of the time.
We'll get to it in a minute (no peeking!)
For now, though, we thought you might appreciate hearing these five tips on how to market your work.
|
|
|
|
KNOW YOUR READERS
You may have heard the advice that you need to have an 'ideal reader.' This is the person you have in mind while you write your books. And you should know every nuance of this person's personality.
What movies or televisions shows do they like? What authors do they go crazy for? What kind of music are they into? Where would they prefer to spend their weekends?
The more you know about your readers, the better prepared you are to wow them with your work. Start by imagining who it is you see on the other side of the page, reading whatever you write. Create a dossier on them-make up a name for your ideal reader, and define him or her in as many ways as possible. Think of it like creating a new character, and flesh them out as much as you like.
The point is to know your reader as well as you know your own family, so that you can always judge what will work or what won't when it comes to marketing to your audience.
|
|
|
|
GO WHERE YOUR READERS ARE
This might take a little research, but you should find out where your readers like to spend their time. Are they into Facebook or Twitter (or both)? Do they love going to matinee screenings? Are they big fans of Octoberfest?
Wherever your readers hang out, there you should be as well. Knowing the habits and preferences of your readers will allow you to target advertising and promotions better, which means a bigger bang for your buck.
|
|
|
|
ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT
Everything you've ever gotten in life, you've asked for, in one way or another. The problem is, most people fall into the habit of just letting things happen by default. So basically, they're asking for "whatever you want to give me."
You're smarter than that.
Now you're going to start asking for exactly what you want, and if someone says no, it's no problem-because some readers will actually say yes!
Ask your readers to pre-order your book. Ask them to buy it as a gift for someone they care about. Ask them to review your book on all the various eBook retailer websites. And ask them to join your mailing list so they can hear about new releases and all the things you're discovering and exploring on their behalf.
If you ask and they say no, then they aren't your reader. And that''s ok. Your time and your work are both too precious to throw away on readers who aren''t your readers.
But if you ask and they say yes, then you get exactly what you want. And those are definitely your readers!
That's simple, isn't it?
|
|
|
|
BE CONSiSTENT
Whatever your marketing method of choice, make sure you stick with it! One of the biggest mistakes that authors (or any other entrepreneurs) make is to start and stop frequently when they're trying to promote their books. They try Facebook ads for a few weeks, and if they don't hit the New York Times Bestseller list right away they throw their hands up and call it a failure. Or they do a blog or podcast tour, and after a couple of goes they decide it's too much work for too little return. Or they do a couple of speaking engagements, sell no books, and call the whole thing off.
The trick to making any marketing strategy work is to be consistent in deploying it.
If blogging is your thing, set a regular blogging schedule-once a day or once a week, whatever works for you. The same goes for using social media, running ads, doing tours, or speaking to groups.
Whatever marketing technique you enjoy doing, stick with it until you start getting results. Do just about any
marketing long enough and you're sure to see some movement and improvement, but you have to be willing to stick with it.
The caveat? Don't stick with something that simply isn't working. This may sound contradictory, but you'll know the difference if you give something a try for long enough. If you've spent six months running Facebook ads and only sold one book, then Facebook ads may not be for you. Try something different, and give that enough of your time and energy to see how it pans out.
Test and try many things, but stick with the things that work best for you for as long as it takes.
|
|
|
|
BE EXPERIMENTAL
Talk to any fifteen authors, and you probably get twenty-nine different marketing strategies. Everyone has at least one, and many people end up creating more than one, testing and trying new things often. And all of them work for someone, so they're hard to ignore.
Not every strategy will work for you, but it's worth your time to try things every once in a while. Look around and see what's new out there. What new services have popped up? What new strategies are your fellow authors using? What new markets have opened up for you to explore?
Experiment with how you market your books, and
you may find that you've stumbled onto something that really works for you.
Again, be consistent-but that doesn't mean you have to stick to just one form of marketing. Try new things often.
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah, that may actually feel a bit like a let-down, after all the build-up. But truthfully and for sure, writing more books is hands-down the best marketing strategy you can possibly have.
Consider magic numbers .
Let's say you want to make $100,000 per year as an author.
If you write one book and sell it for $4.99, and get 60% of the cover price for that book, that means you'll get $2.99 for every book you sell. Not bad. You only have to sell 33,445 books to make your goal!
Which means you have to find 33,445 people to buy your book.
It's not impossible. It can happen. But it's tough.
Now consider if you have ten books for sale at $4.99 and a 60% royalty.
You still have to sell 33,445 books, but now you're dividing that amongst 10 different titles. Which means that if a reader discovers your work, they may buy all 10 of those books! So that one reader is as good as 10 readers, if you only had the one book.
Now you only have to find 3,345 readers like that guy-still kind of a big number, but a lot easier to manage than 33K!
And the more books you write and publish, the smaller the number of readers you have to snare in your net of awesome writing. Math is fun.
|
|
|
|
|
If you're using Draft2Digital for conversion and distribution, then you're already using one of your best marketing tools, when it comes to publishing and getting your work in the hands of readers all around the globe. Congratulations!
We call that 'going wide' versus being 'exclusive' with one distributor. We talked about this a couple of emails back. But the general idea is that you want your books to be readily available and discoverable in as many markets as possible, and the more books you have, the more easily you can be discovered.
So, if you haven't already, make sure you've hit 'Publish' and chosen as many eBook retailers as you can! We make that part as easy as possible, and it can help you in more ways than we can count.
NEXT UP: D2D's Amazing Partners!
In the next email, we'll introduce you to a few brands and services that have the same love for authors that we have. These are people we've worked with in the past, or that we wholeheartedly support because of their demonstrated benefit to the author community. You'll want to stick around for this one, because it could make your author life even easier!
The Draft2Digital Team
|
|
|
|
|
|
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM FUTURE?DRAFT2DIGITAL?EMAILS OF THIS TYPE PLEASE?CLICK HERE.?
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM ALL FUTURE?DRAFT2DIGITAL?EMAILS PLEASE?CLICK HERE.?
Draft2Digital
9400 N. Broadway, Ste. 410
Oklahoma City, OK 73114
United States
|
|
|
|
|