Category Archives: Marketing

Trends: Publication figures

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This from a PR rep:

In 2011, the most recent numbers available, there were 347,178 printed books published in the United States. That was up 6 percent from the previous year, according to Bowker, which provides book industry statistics and trends.

For those of you in the book-planning phase, it may be helpful to know which categories saw an increase in publications. They were education, up 20 percent; music, and psychology and philosophy, both up 14 percent; religion, up 12 percent; juvenile, biographies, and business, all up 11 percent; and fiction, up 13 percent.

 

Those are just the numbers for printed books. E-books are harder to gauge, but they’re a large and growing share of the market. For those I could find only sales numbers.  For 2011 they were $1.1 billion to $1.97 billion, according to two different counts.

 

 

Marketing: Blogs for Writers

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Here’s a round-up article on why it’s all right for individuals to blog about topics that are covered in other people’s blogs.

I want to point out the third point in this article. Authors of nonfiction know they should be recognized as experts in a specific area. But fiction authors often are never told that they, too, should present themselves as experts!

This can be a key component in your marketing. A mystery with a cat as the protagonist means the author can blog about everything cat related. The author of a medical thriller can write about how to avoid the next flu epidemic. Works set in exotic or unique locations allow the author to write travel articles for different sites.

And every time you write an article, blog, essay or service tip about that topic, your bio can mention that you cover the same topic in your book. Yes, it’s unconventional and yes, it works!

Next Big Thing

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Had to share this post from another writer on her novel-in-progress.

Her working title is Perigee Moon, which is the technical term for when the moon is right on the horizon and appears gigantic. It’s a very evocative image.

Titles are so important in publishing. In nonfiction, authors have to get the topic and approach across with the title. In fiction, authors have to evoke some emotional response from readers…and Perigee Moon does that perfectly.

 

Marketing with Multimedia

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To wrap up this week’s thread on marketing with different kinds of content, check out this article. It wraps everything together nicely.

Blogs for Writers

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Here’s a pretty good overview of how to approach blogging as an author. Of course, it’s equally valuable to anyone who blogs for any reason!

Effective Press Release

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A video can enhance your press release. Even if you’re a novelist, chat with your webcam about some topic or theme in the book. You don’t need more than a few minutes to have a big impact. More info available in this article. 

Amazon Reviews

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If you’ve been following the recent controversies about Amazon’s reviews (and the reviews that show up on other sites), you know the problem: marketers and/or authors are paying for good reviews to help boost their ratings at Amazon and/or sales.

Here’s the flip side of that review process. This article talks about how fans of Michael Jackson are hitting a new biography with one-star reviews to sink the book’s ratings.

The author calls the attack a way to use the right to free speech against the right to free speech. The reviews themselves aren’t flawed. But the engines that rank according to the number of stars on the review clearly is flawed. Any author who’s works are sold on Amazon or other e-retailers needs to be aware of the kinds of social movements that can impact their sales.

Book Contract

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Here’s a very brief overview about book contracts.

One thing to keep in mind when reviewing your contract is when the book is considered out of print. Make sure that you are able to produce ebooks (or even printed books) within a reasonable amount of time after the printed version is no longer available. If publishers retain all the rights through the creation of an ebook version, you can be hung up forever waiting on their publicity department to do anything.

Marketing: Content is King

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Content marketing for authors doesn’t have to be challenging. Consider making a chapter of your book a free download, writing articles based on the themes in the book (and yes, that includes novelists!), informal chats about the book or its themes, etc. Also try this article for more ideas on how to think about content.

Book to Film

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So many of my clients want to know how to get their books turned into films. There are several pathways for fiction authors.

First is to allow your publisher to set up the deal for you. This is the most common way books are turned into films. However, it’s much more common with the top six publishers. If you’re with a mid-sized or smaller publisher, they might not have the same connections.

Second, you can approach movie agents with a treatment. This means you’re offering the book to publishers and the movie to film agents at the same time. It’s one way to increase your overall changes of success in one or the other field.

Third, you can use your network. A perfect example is in this article about a guy with very little experience who approached a bestselling author. It’s a reversal of how an author would go about approaching directors and producers but it proves the power of persistence!

 

Agent: Juvenile

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Here’s an interview with that most elusive of creatures, an agent who accepts juvenile works…children’s books through young adult.

Marketing: Storytelling

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You thought the creative work was over when you finished that book, right? Well, the creative work has only just begun. Here’s an article about how storytelling helps you market your speaking engagements, books, and other things you might have to offer.

New Trends

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No one doubts that electronic devices have dramatically changed the face of publishing today. For years, doomsayers brayed that print would shrivel and blow away. I’ve always held that the new devices would generate shifts but that print would still be alive centuries from now.

In particular, the bad-news prophets claimed that tablets, cell phones and ereaders were all supposed to suck subscribers from print versions of newspapers and magazines. For a time, that appeared to happen.

Now, however, there’s a big shift. Esubscribers are generating new and stronger sources of income for magazines and newspapers. This article presents yet another new way for readers to access their favorite journals…by paying MORE for the eversions than for print.

Oprah’s Next Big Thing

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The Oprah Channel has struggled since day one to reach the numbers it had hoped for. Part of the reason is that Oprah doesn’t show up in much of the programming. Another very real issue is simple oversaturation…the channel can’t offer the same thing all the time.

She’s trying a reboot by building on this interview with Armstrong. The struggle she’s facing is just a reminder that even the biggest celebrities can’t market just anything…and they can’t rely on their name along. Quality must always come first.

Takeaway: Know your audience and what they want. When you deliver it, you’ll automatically provide quality content.

Social Media: Top 10 Tips

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For anyone looking to expand their reach on social media, check out this post.

I recently challenged myself to come up with the top-ten best practices for social media for a presentation. As it turned out, it was hard to keep list to only ten items.

So I did some research and much scrapping of excessive rules and realized that it all does boil down to ten very basic principles to be successful in social media: