The power of co-marketing (interview part 2)

Aloha from Karen,
                                           

    Today we'll continue to hear from the Word Quilters and the marketing of their new book, A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts.
 

What has taken the most time with the lowest results?

Brenda: While I can’t confirm the “lowest” results, I’d say the most unreported results come from blog tours. One never knows how many books are sold as a direct result of a blog tour. Even if a blog receives hundreds of comments about a book (I’ve been on those blogs), that may not equal higher sales. On my first parenting title, I was conservative when doing a blog tour. While it increased visibility and networking, my out-of-pocket financial and time investment is questionable because there’s no way to follow sales spikes. Interestingly, I’ve discovered the publisher of my upcoming parenting book doesn’t feel a blog tour nets a qualifiable investment and refrains from paying for one.

Karen: I will respectfully disagree somewhat with what Brenda has said. Yes, there is no way to truly assess how the blog tour affected sales. But considering that it was the biggest promotional effort we made to start with and the fact that Amazon numbers hit well below 100,000 for quite a while at the start, I’d say it had to have had a significant effect. And I believe there will be a residual effect as our bloggers receive their copies of Scrapbook. There will be reviews which will create more stir, bloggers will themselves consider buying more copies as gifts, and word of mouth, whether by conversation, blog post, Twitter, etc. will spread again. You see, the six of us don’t always agree but we do respect each other’s opinions—kind of like a good marriage.

Leslie: It’s hard to assess what has and hasn’t worked. So far things seem to be going really well.

Measuring results of marketing efforts is difficult. Amazon numbers can encourage or discourage us. As more people blog, less people and we have more choices it may be harder to draw people to a particular blog. Some emerge with large readerships and those may be the best targets for the marketing.

What has taken the least time for the results?

Trish: Blogging, social networking, online stuff. . .

Cathy: The least time, and the best results are simply asking your hairdresser to put a basket of book in the salon with a self-pay envelope. Mine is a small salon, but my hairdresser sold 8 to individual customers and one woman took care of her full shopping list and bought 23! 31 books sold through her shop before Nov. 1. As my eight-year-old grandson would say, “Sweet!”

Karen: As I stared at 1000 postcards, I wondered what I was going to do with them. I got out my address book and sent out two cards to each family member and friend listed along with a letter that reminded them of the commercial that used to say “ . . .and she told two friends . . .” and asked that they keep one card and send out the other two. I’ve gotten lots of positives from that. The most fun however was when I sent out two cards to our local TV news gal who does cooking segments in the morning. The cards have a recipe on the back. She featured our Toffee Treats this morning during the news, posted the recipe at their site, and when Trish and I left comments referring to Leafwood’s website for our book, there were three sold before the morning was over and each mentioned the link from the TV website. I also passed out postcards while aboard the Queen Mary 2 on an April cruise. Amazon in the UK sold out too. I’m going to take some credit there.

What great ideas! This shows how getting the news out there makes a difference. I have used postcards myself in the past, but never thought of sending multiple ones to pass the word on to other people!

How have you used social networks for your book promotion? If so, how? What results have you seen?

Trish: I am on Facebook and Twitter, and have had an amazing response from women around the world who see my background image of the book cover, or read about the book or blog, and then go and purchase the book. To me, this is the wave of the future, and the impact is huge.

Cathy: I haven’t been as active in online groups, but my weekly newsletter does go out to several thousand and, of course, there’s news about A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts.

Terra: Twitter is powerful; three bloggers I met there asked me to guest blog about our book. Several Twitter followers read my tweets, bought our book and wrote to tell me they love it. On Twitter I am www.twitter.com/terragarden. Darlene Schacht, publisher and owner of CWO, interviewed me as the featured CWO blogger for the entire month of November, and we discussed Scrapbook, including all ordering information, and a photo of me holding the book. You can read the interview at www.christianwomenonline.net.

Karen: Trish and Terra have coerced me into Twitter. I’m still a newbie there but Facebook has been a great connection and way to get excitement stirred about Scrapbook. I also blog about it frequently.

Social networks are indeed a new wave of connecting to people everywhere. Twitter allows us to do it in seconds with a very tightly focused, short message.

Have you created your own press releases? If so, where did you send them?

Trish: No—Kathy Willis did that for us. What a blessing!

Cathy: The publicists created them and mass mailed them to top media across the country but they concentrated on the locales where each author lives.

Brenda: Our publicist created press releases. When you’re contracted with a traditional royalty publisher, the publicity team will design and send out releases. If you self-publish, I encourage you to lean about creating powerful attention grabbing releases. Then gather, from a variety of sources, a radio/TV/blog/magazine/newspaper list of contacts to send your release. Follow-up on that release; it’s not good stewardship of your time and talents to blindly blast the media with a release if you don’t follow up at least once—twice is better—three times best.

Leslie: No, our publicist Kathy Carlton Willis, took care of this. We did, however, provide her with a list of top regional markets to target. That’s how I got my TV interview.

That brings up the question of whether to do it yourself or hire a pro. It’s something to pray about and the money is always a factor.

Have you done many media interviews on the book? Who set those up? How did you develop a pitch for media?

Karen: One of the greatest helps to promotion has been winning the Cecil Murphey Publicity Scholarship. It allowed us to work with publicist Kathy Carlton Willis. She worked with us to come up with a customized media mailing list, media release, interview questions, and e-blasts. With six authors, we targeted regional media as “local authors.” She also encouraged the use of current events to tie in pitches to media, such as: Economy=Top Ten Economical Christmas Gifts or Top Ten Economical Family Christmas Traditions; Simple=Simple Ways to Celebrate Christmas, Simple Recipes for the Holidays, Stress-free Ways to Celebrate Christmas; Green=Very Green Ways to Grow Christmas Memories.

Trish: Yes, I have done a couple of radio interviews myself, as have the other coauthors. We expect there will be lots more.

Cathy: By mid-December, I’ll have done three radio interviews, and hope to schedule more before then. Kathy set up one, I set up another, and Leafwood Publishers set up the third. Kathy Willis and Larry Fitzgerald from Leafwood have worked together to develop our pitch and coordinate the media blasts.

Brenda: So far, I’ve given two radio interviews on A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts. One was the result of my relationship/history with the host and one coming up in December is due to the media efforts of our publicist.

Leslie: Yes, I’ve had one radio interview thus far—which I loved! And I do a TV segment on Dec. 1. The book content lends itself to great media interviews—lots of practical ideas and demonstrations.

Thanks ladies. Next week we will finish the interview as we look at your future plans.