Eleven Steps to Massive Book Exposure
If youâre a newbie to the publishing world, either youâve self-published or had your book cooperatively published, youâll be thinking about getting your book out there, telling the world about it. You may be in one of two places. Either you will be standing in a forest, crowded by trees, seeing so much you need to do, and wondering what to do first, or you will be standing in a desert, wondering what to do at all. My experience with marketing my book has certainly been one of learning, making mistakes, and of facing my fears and doing things Iâd never have believed I would one day be doing.
Wherever you are standing, understand that any results do not come about instantaneously, that it is your consistent, daily efforts that, over time, will pay off. You need to get your book known, talked about. Here are a few pointers:-
1. TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW about your book, through phone, email, letter. I made a simple website ( http://www.chilledparent.com ) and sent the link to everyone I know, family, friends, and also asked them to send it on to others. Itâs good to draw a spider map, or mind map, with all the communities in your life â your kidsâ parents, your relations, work acquaintances, church acquaintances â absolutely all your communities, and every name you can think of. Donât pre-judge anyone â through a chance conversation one of those people may know of someone who could help you in your marketing, through some avenue.
2. HAVE A6 CARDS, OR BOOKMARKS PRINTED, with your book cover on one side, and information about the book on the other side, like price, ISBN, where the book is available, as well as your website address. Have these distributed. Mine is a parenting book, so I approached toy shops, baby clothes shops, childrenâs play venues, pre-schools, toddler groups, anywhere to do with kids, where I thought parents might frequent. I asked the proprietors if I could place the cards by their tills, or in a prominent place for parents to pick up. At schools, I asked the Head Teacher to have one given to each child to take home to their parents. You need to know the people you are targeting who will be interested in your book, and think of as many ways as possible to get it known to them.
3. APPROACH BOOK STORES. Now this can be a minefield. My experience has shown that small, independent bookstores are more likely to support you, especially if you are local to them. To be able to get your book in a prominent place in your local bookshop, and do a publicity campaign at the same time, directing customers to the shop, can give your book the initial boost it needs. I wrote on the back of each A6 card âavailable at â¦.. bookshopâ. This not only gets your book known, but helps your relationship with the bookshop, who welcome the custom â itâs both good for you the author, and for them.
4. GET YOUR BOOK PROMINENTLY PLACED IN BOOKSHOPS. This is tricky. As an independent author, youâre competing with the big publishers who (I am told by bookshop proprietors) can command a good placing for their books in the shop, and sometimes pay for it. If you can get your book placed in a prominent position, then you are going to sell many more books. I used my testimonial from my local bookshop to convince the big shops that, when prominently placed, my local shop sold X amount of copies.
5. GET YOUR BOOK KNOWN BY THE PRESS. Produce a press release about your book, and distribute it to all newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. Now, your local press are likely to be interested, especially if you can give them a good story. My local paper picked up on two lines in my press release about how I was inspired to write my book after my daughter nearly died from meningitis. I must say, they werenât going to write anything, until I phoned them to follow-up on the press release, and until they spotted the possibility of a good story in the text.
6. ORGANISE BOOK SIGNINGS. Your local shop may support you in this, but approach as many shops as you can. Advertise the event, and make sure the bookshop is advertising too. Tell all your communities (in 1. above) about the event. On the day, unless youâre famous and well-known already, donât expect people to be crowding around you for your signature. Get up from the table and go approach people with your book, strike up a conversation, be yourself, build rapport with them, and invite them to buy it with the added bonus, today, of having your signature. This approach can be the difference between you selling 10 books or 50 books.
7. MAKE A SIGNATURE ON YOUR EMAIL with your website link, so that all emails you send will have your signature for potential customers to click on.
8. APPROACH LIBRARIES to stock your book. This will involve some research on your behalf. Libraries donât necessarily buy books on a local basis, but have a central buyer. Itâs not difficult to find their name and contact details by talking to a librarian at your local library.
9. SEND A COPY OF YOUR BOOK TO POSSIBLE REVIEWERS, national newspapers, local newspapers, magazines relevant to the topic of your book.
10. ATTEND EVENTS AND TRADE SHOWS relevant to your book topic, where you will meet possible customers. For example, I attended a holistic baby show where health professionals dealing with parents and children attended, and mothers-to-be and parents came along.
11. HAVE YOUR BOOK WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES. Many times I travel on the London Underground, and I carry my book with me. It has a distinctive cover and title, and I notice people looking at it. If youâve got your book with you, people are likely to ask about it. You need to get it seen. If you donât show it to people or tell them about it, it will not get known.
Books donât have the habit of jumping off the shelf and dancing about shouting âhere I am, come and get meâ. Theyâre inanimate objects. They donât even necessarily get seen on the shelf, along with all the other books. They need publicity. Of all the methods above, number 5 is by far the most powerful, but also the most difficult to execute. Your book in the press, either a review, or most powerfully, as part of an article, gets people walking into bookshops asking for it â it sells books, and the shops love it â they order more. You want the maximum exposure with the minimum effort, and this is the way. Good luck!