Five marketing actions to perform daily
Part 2 in a two-part series about marketing.
By Kim Catanzarite
Last week, I talked about compounding and how the small things you do to market your book add up if you do so consistently and in a focused manner.
In my quest to discover the best ways to market my books, I came across John Kremer and his 849-page resource, 1001 Ways to Market Your Book. Not everything he says applies to self-publishers, but much of it does. In addition to his book, his website offers a massive amount of information, and you can check it out for free: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/.
The following are some takeaways from John Kremer that I personally find invaluable:
It will always be up to you to provide the motivation for readers to buy your books.
You must get the word out, and you must make sure that your product is available (i.e., through IngramSpark or other distributors).
Every book deserves a three-year marketing commitment. Don’t write or publish a book unless you are willing to commit at least three years to keeping that book alive. You don’t have to commit to each book full-time, but do something every day for each book you really love.
Don’t forget your focus. Take the best five ideas from this book (1001 Ways to Market Your Book), and focus on those until you have really done them justice and they, in turn, have produced significant sales for you.
Do three to five things every day to market each and every book that you publish (or that you still love).
I’m sure at this point you’re thinking, what three to five things should I do? In the past I’ve written about ways to market your books, including setting up free giveaways and e-newsletter promotions, and those tasks definitely count. The following is a short list of things you can do daily that will benefit from the magic of compounding:
Write an email to three book bloggers/reviewers/influencers asking if you can send a free review copy.
Write an email to three independent bookstores or libraries, asking if they’d be interested in carrying your book.
Email a press release to three newspapers, telling them about an in-person event you’ve set up.
Contact other self-published authors who write books like yours and see if they’d be interested in cross-promotion.
Research upcoming book fairs, festivals, and/or conferences that you can attend/get a booth at.
In other words, continually seek out and contact the people, places, and things that will help you get the word out about your book. If you send out three emails to reviewers every day, for instance, you will have contacted ninety people in one month. And remember, too, that the idea is to form relationships with these contacts (in the case of bookstores and bloggers, especially). So, treat them nicely and suggest doing things that can benefit the both of you.
As John Kremer says, “If you want to sell more books, create friends. Create fans. Create advocates. Create a big drumming tribe. But do it because you really care about your new friends, your fans, your advocates, your tribal members.”
Kim Catanzarite is an editor and a blogger, and the author of The Jovian Duology. She is currently marketing her books five actions at a time. Learn more at www.AuthorKimCatanzarite.com.
