The 10 Minute Book Marketing Plan

Create A Compelling Masterpiece
Your book must appeal to multiple markets all at once in order to be optimally successful. One of the best examples of this is Godine Publishing. They sell books that are interesting and compelling, have a retro appeal, sell well by mail order and by specialty retail stores. The most compelling books strike a chord, fulfill a dynamically pressing need, provide must have entertainment, share information that is so profoundly valuable your buyers have it now, etc. Great selling books have the ideal pitch in the ideal packaging. Perhaps you have a hardcover book that looks like a gift book, that will sell well in gift stores, and can be given as a gift, with an inspirational edge, in addition to being a great read. Sometimes packaging adds another dimension, such as an organic doggie toy packaged with a book on dog training.

Your sales will be a result of audience size and response from your marketing tests. This is critical because most people only factor in audience size when estimating sales potential, and mistakenly do not conduct multiple tests to determine response rates for each of the marketing methods that will be employed.

Creating Your Marketing And Distribution Channels
Most first-time authors do not know the best way to distribute their book. For most, the knee-jerk answer is to sell them through bookstores. This is one of the worst ways to sell because bookstore superstores sell over 300,000 books daily. Putting your book there is like throwing it into a heap of books. It gets lost.

The best way to pick your marketing and distribution methods for your book is by obtaining solid answers to a few excellent question. You must discover:

• How and where do people in your market shop for your kind of book? When friends tell about it, do they buy from Amazon? Do they call a toll-free number from a magazine? Do they call after receiving a full-color postcard or other mailing piece? Does a friend give it to them?
• Will your book be one that people will purchase on impulse, or will they purchase it because it has highly specific information? Information-based books are readily purchased in bookstores, on the Internet, and by direct mail, etc. Impulse purchases are sold on the counter, next to the register in a retail store.

Once you do some research, talk to potential readers in your market, observe them buying at length--you'll be in a better position, in fact the best position, to make conclusions about which marketing and distribution channels will help you reach people in your target market best.

Perhaps your marketing and distribution channel list--which you should be creating continually, adding to it as time goes by--will look something like this:

• Library distributors to sell the book to library acquisitions buyers.
• Selling to specialty catalogs who in turn will resell to your market who tends to purchase with them.
• Selling to online resellers--Amazon, your own Web page, other Web page resource centers, etc.
• Selling to corporations, associations, and other organizations--in their bookstores, as giveaways, on a cooperative promotion.
• To specialty retailers who attract your market in droves.
• Selling to larger department stores nationally.
• Conducting workshops and seminars in selling your book on your book table.
  

Generating Promotion
The key word is exposure. Gaining exposure in the media, with opinion leaders who are nationally recognized, being mentioned in trade journal articles or consumer magazine writeups, etc.--can open up your market in exciting ways. Exposure is created through advertising and publicity. The more books you desire to sell, the more publicity and advertising you'll need to reach your market.

Publicity Keys
The more tightly targeted your book is--for example, How To Operate Your Own Successful Bakery--the more you should expect publicity in the coverage only from niche trade magazines. Otherwise your publicity efforts don't really belong in the mainstream media.

People perceive news stories as trustworthy. When a TV personality says that a book is the most exciting book she has ever read, people believe her. If they sell the same personality on a commercial, they would assume she's being paid to say which she said--and wouldn't believe it as readily.

For books that need a very strong bookstore presence, publicity is a mandate. Obtaining editorial mention in newspaper, or doing a telephone interview, costs so much less than paid advertising.

Your media publicity reality is that people must hear about your book 89 times before the will ever purchase it. Repetition is the key success factor in advertising.

One of the best starting places for publicity--as well as initial advertising purchases--is a well-defined niche magazine, or radio show that also targets your subject matter tightly.