Words of wisdom

Susan Meissner here to welcome a special guest to We CAN! Promote Our Books. Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary has some great marketing wisdom to share with us today. There's a a lot great stuff here so we'll take it in two doses, half this week, and half next.  Chip is a savvy literary agent, but he's also a writer, and a former editor and publisher, so he can see book marketing from every angle. Here, then, are some great marketing insights from an industry insider. Take it away, Chip.

First, your publisher isn't going to do that much marketing. So that means YOU have to take charge of the marketing of your book. You've probably heard me say this before, but if you're waiting for your publisher to create a great plan that will take you to the next level, you may be waiting a long time. Publishers are doing more books this year, but they're not hiring more marketing people... and that means the poor publicist who is working on your title is also working on 20 other titles. Show her some love, and say something about how much you appreciate her work, but plan to do your own marketing. Decide right now that you're going to take charge of marketing for your book.

Second, you're probably wondering, How do I do that? Well, you need to become familiar with the process of marketing, so that you can begin to create an actual plan. To start, that means you may have to do some research. Let me suggest a couple books to consider. To understand the basics of marketing, consider reading Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries and Trout, or a marketing textbook like Philip Kotler's Principles of Marketing. You can also look at a Dummies guide - the have them on marketing, publicity, web marketing, internet marketing, and email marketing. If you want to focus on internet marketing, take a look at David Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR or Mitch Meyerson's Mastering Online Marketing. For specific marketing ideas, try 1001 Ways to Market Your Book by John Kremer, Publicize Your Book by Jackie Duval, and You Can Market Your Own Book by Carmen Leal. These are good when you're beginning to wonder, "What should I do?" If you want to focus on basic marketing steps, take a look at Brent Samson's Sell Your Book on Amazon, Steve Weber's Plug Your Book, and Word of Mouth Marketing by Sernovitz and Kawasaki. For small budgets, Penny Sansevieri's From Book to bookseller and John Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing are both good, as is Bruce Brown's How to Use the Iternet to Advertise, Promote and Market Your Business With Little or No Money. That will at least get you started. You can find any of these books at Barnes & Noble, or find them online. Spend $150 on getting a basic marketing education isn't a bad place to begin. The principles of marketing aren't difficult: get your product in front of likely buyers. That means you're going to need to study HOW to get your product in front of people, as well as figure out WHERE those people are. Then you want to begin to figure out how to get the most bang for your buck in terms of spending your own money on worthwhile marketing ideas.

Third, ask yourself who reads your books. What sort of person (gender, age, interests) can you identify as a reader? Where do they gather? What sites do they visit? If you don't know, you haven't done enough research on this yet. Do some research. Ask around. Check out web sites and organizations. Determine where your book-readers might go, especially if you're writing for a niche.

Fourth, you already know this, but you really need a web site. A site will give readers a way to find out about you and get introduced to your books. Don't scrimp here. If you can, work with a pro to get a great web site -- something interactive. And include an online store, so that interested readers can buy your books (either directly from you or linked to a web retailers like Amazon or Barnes&Noble.com).

Fifth, you might need a blog too. It's not absolutely essential, in that many successful writers don't keep a blog. But if you can create the time to keep it going, consider it. Our culture is in love with interaction, and a blog allows the reader to feel that they get into your life. And that means you're going to visit other people's blogs -- in fact, you'll probably want to visit a lot of them. When you're promoting your book, you're going to want to participate in as many blog interviews as you can. You'll go on as your book is releasing, answer questions from people, and chat up your work. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of reading group and book review blogs. It may seem tedious, but you're going to want to hit as many of them that fit your audience.

Susan here, breaking in to close for today. But check back next Saturday for Chip's Tips, six through ten! Have a great weekend, everyone.

Comments

[Kristi Holl]

Thanks so much! I'll be waiting for next weekend for the rest of the story! I've done a lot of this, but I can see I have quite a ways to do.

[Linda Leigh Hargrove]

Thanks Chip (and Susan), especially for that great list of books. I've only started scratching the surface of marketing my books and I feel like I'm way way way behind. But I'm determined not to give up.

The first hurdle (which I've finally scaled over) was to stop saying 'I'm not good at marketing. I don't have a business mind.'

Thank goodness there are folks out there like you guys that are. And thank goodness that you're not keeping it to yourself. Bless you.

[book marketing newbie]

Thanks, I was unaware of some of the books mentioned so I will pick those up - and of course tune in next week for the rest of the interview.