We CAN! promote our books

Embracing the New

The New Year has been very generous to me in 2013: new job, new home, new routine, and a new (read: long) commute to work. I've recently made the transition from my tenure are Kregel Publications in Grand Rapids, MI, to my new digs at Abingdon Press in Nashville, TN.

Throughout my relocation, it has been easy to draw comparisons between the multitudes of "newness" in my life and all the new opportunities authors experience as they prepare to launch a new book, particularly where social media is concerned. The online world changes so quickly that what you were used to with your last book may not be the same this time around.

Question: When "new" hits you, what do you do?

You're More Than Just a Pretty Face

Using Your Facebook Avatar as a Promotion Tool

Hello, CANners! Cat Hoort here, sending you greetings from the Kregel Publications offices.

We’ve chatted in the past about promoting on Facebook. Maybe “chatted” isn’t the right word. Discussed? Debated? Deliberated? Whatever you call it, I typically side with those of you who see Facebook as a valuable marketing tool. When I listen to the stats about how many people are on Facebook and how often they login, I find it hard not to use this great social media to market Kregel, our books, or our authors.

The Jewels of Amazon

Hello and happy spring from Cat Hoort and Kregel Publications!

Question for you: have you found the jewels of Amazon?

I’m not talking about any lost treasure, rain forest, or river. I am, of course, referring to Amazon.com: the go-to online retailer that has made it easy for practically anyone anywhere to get our books. We know them as a retailer—a seller. But did you know they also market? Amazon offers several ways for you to interact with your readers—right there on your book’s product page. Here are a few “jewels” that are easy, accessible, and effective ways to market your book on Amazon:

Organizing Your Facebook Contacts

Hi all!

I’m Cat Hoort checking in from Kregel Publications. I hope you are all enjoying a sunny spring!

Last month I wrote a post about the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook profile. The key difference between the two is purpose: the purpose of a profile is to communicate with friends/family whereas the purpose of a page is to promote your product to fans. If you’re like me, you probably started with a profile and (over time) have realized that the profile has been used for both business and personal endeavors. As a result, your personal contacts and your business contacts are all blurred together. Sound familiar?

One option to separate your personal and business contacts is to create a page and invite your business contacts to “like” you on that page, thus creating two different Facebook platforms organized by audience-type. If you’re not ready to create a page, however, what are your options? Is there anything you can do on your Facebook profile to help you start separating friends and business contacts?

Good news. The answer is YES.

It’s called a Friends List. The Friends List feature organizes your profile friends into categories assigned by you. Once a list is established, you can use it to speak directly and simultaneously to members of that list (but not to your other friends at the same time).

Here’s a quick guide on how to set up a Friends List:

1. Go to your profile. Under your profile picture, click the Friends link

2. Click Edit Friends box in the upper right of screen

3. Click Create a List

4. Name your list in the field that says “Enter a Name”

5. Add people to your list either by typing their name into the search box and/or by clicking on their name in the scroll down. If you have a lot of friends to choose from, scrolling through might take a while so searching for specific names might be easier (assuming you know the specific names you want to include).

6. Click Create List

To send a status update directly to that list (and only to that list), type a message into your status bar. BEFORE YOU HIT SHARE:

1. Click the down arrow right next to the send button and select “customize”.

2. Under the heading “make this visible to” select “specific people” from the drop down

3. Type in the name of your list in the field below. Your list should pop up. Click on it to select it.

4. Click save setting.  

Now, when you click the share button on that particular status, only friends on that list will be able to see that status on your wall. All your other friends (and their friends) will not be able to see that status so you can be more specific in who you talk to. Each time you want to talk to a specific Friend List, click the drop down and follow the four steps above before you hit Share.

Last Note: Your lists are private to you and your uses, but there are also Featured Friends Lists that make your lists public on your profile. Email me at marketing@kregel.com if you want more info on that!

Whether or not you are considering the move to a page, Friends Lists can help you improve how you use Facebook by organizing your Facebook contacts. Anyone out there use Friends Lists? Comment here and let us know if they’ve been effective for you.

Friend or Fan? (There Are No Foes Here)

Understanding the Difference Between a Facebook Profile and Page

Hello from Cat Hoort and Kregel Publications. I was just visiting the Kregel Publications Facebook Page and found an interesting question from an author:

I’m finally joining Facebook, but I need some advice. HOW should I be using Facebook?

This is actually a very common question. I first congratulated the author on asking the right question. He didn’t ask SHOULD I be using Facebook? (he knew the answer to that was “yes”); instead he asked: HOW should I be using Facebook?

Out With the Old and In With the... Old

How to Reinvent Your Merchandising

Greetings from Cat and the marketing department at Kregel Publications!

Postcards, bookmarks, business cards and flyers have all been consistent elements in book promotion for several years. Together they make a standard part of a publisher’s marketing plan and an asset to an author’s promotion toolbox. And yet, they are just so… old.

Marketing is about creating a splash and catching someone’s attention. More than that, our industry requires marketing campaigns to build relationships with readers. Merchandising pieces have traditionally offered a take-away that not only catch attention but also give the reader something to look at later to remind them of a book’s title, an author’s name, or a character description. But once that reference has been made, what happens to the postcard? Inevitably, it will be discarded.

It will be discarded unless you make it something worth keeping. But how do you do that? How do you reinvent something so basic? How do you move from a traditional mass-marketing approach (printing hundreds or thousands of recyclable pieces) to a unique and targeted promotion that has lasting impact? How do you prevent the tried-and-true from becoming the same-old, same-old?

Here’s one idea: Instead of printing large quantities of one design, ask your publisher to print smaller quantities with unique designs.

1. Design your merchandising pieces around a theme. It’s really easy to put the cover on the front and a book description on the back and call it a day. But what would happen if you featured elements of your book instead of the book itself? If you’re a nonfiction author, choose different quotes from throughout your book and feature a different quote on different cards. For fiction, maybe you can focus your theme around your characters. Offer a behind-the-scenes profile of each character, giving readers a deeper look at the people who move your story.
2. Place the different cards and bookmarks strategically. Ask your local library and book stores to offer them near their cash register or even as bag stuffers. One of my authors got permission from the bookstore manager to place one of her cards in other novels that were stocked on the same shelf in that store—a little cross-merchandising, if you will.
3. Position the merchandising pieces as trading cards, letting readers know their card is one of a set. Tease them with clues to the other cards and where they could find them (maybe you offer different cards to different stores so readers can go on a “scavenger hunt”). Maybe you’re at a writing workshop or conference and every time you hand out a card you encourage the reader to talk to other attendees and find the rest of the set. If you’re interacting with your fans online, consider hosting online book discussions where readers share the behind the scenes notes they have on their cards.
4. Use the design of the pieces is other ways. One of the novelists I work with kept the designs of each of 6 postcards she used and turned them into web graphics that were then formatted into an animated introduction into her website.
5. Offer specials or giveaways to people who promise to pass our cards for you. Have then email or Facebook you with details of how they distributed your cards and then award a prize (could be as simple as an Amazon gift card) to the most creative. Your readers aren’t just readers. They can be great marketers too!  
6. Be creative in your messaging. A business card doesn’t have to be boring. Communicating your basic contact info is one thing, but what if the card could provoke further interaction on your website? Think of a catchy line that begs people to look at your site for more information. Kregel novelist Patti Lacy’s bio starts with the line “I was born in the front seat of a Buick. I guess you can say my entrance into this world sparked a love for travel and the unpredictable.” How’s THAT for catchy? Offer a statement like that on the business card, followed by a URL, and your website unique visitors will skyrocket.

What else? How do you use postcards, bookmarks, business cards and flyers in unique and exciting ways? Share your ideas! We’d love to hear them!

 

Cat Hoort is the trade marketing manager at Kregel Publications. She wasn’t born in the front seat of a car but still considers herself lucky to be able to work with fabulous authors who have such amazing stories to share. Find out more about those authors by liking Kregel’s page on Facebook and following our tweets on Twitter.

Expectations: The Good and Bad

Happy New Year from Cat and everyone at Kregel Publications! I know we’re a few weeks into it, but I haven’t said it to y’all yet, so I hope you’ll pardon my tardiness.

I love this season and relish the opportunity to start fresh. The motivation to try new things, test new markets, and friend new authors is inspiring. My problem, however, is keeping that motivation going throughout the year. We’ve all made and broken resolutions—probably far too quickly. Why is that?

Could it be that waning motivation is the result of unrealistic expectations? At the beginning of the year, I make goals, plans of action, and timelines that are all—in some way—based on what I expect my year, my job, my church, my family, my responsibilities to require of me. If that expectation is set at a level I probably can’t reach, the most likely outcome is disappointment or exhaustion. Those emotions are all too common, aren’t they? And they make talking about expectations rather difficult... so difficult that many people have ruled out expectations all together, believing that nothing good can come from them.  

Setting unrealistic expectations is a bad habit. But here’s the thing: expectations are still good. And good expectations can make your efforts to promote your book much more effective. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Managing expectations will help you avoid potential conflict.

I sit behind the marketing desk at a small publishing house. But I’ve also done my time at a larger house. Several of you have also worked with more than one publisher, so you know the differences—in marketing and sales strategies—that can exist between houses. Understanding what your current publisher expects is a large part of managing your own expectations. Because if your expectations don’t align with theirs, there could be conflict.

For example, imagine you have published a novel with one house and are now working on a devotional with another. The fiction house could have set a first year forecast of 10-20,000. If you assume those same sales would apply to the devotional, imagine what would happen if your publisher is forecasting 8-10,000. You would be disappointed that your book didn’t sell “better” (even if it sold right on target). And the conversation where you and your publisher hatch this out would probably be tense.

It works in the reverse as well. If you only expect 5,000 sales but your publisher is hoping for 10,000, they may need more promotion involvement from you than you are expecting. If you aren’t prepared to be that involved, there could be conflict between you and your publisher and between you and anyone else who needs some of your time. Managing expectations will help you avoid conflict.

2. Setting appropriate expectations will keep you on track.

Let’s go back to the example of your publisher requesting more involvement from you. If you don’t set appropriate expectations with your time, your calendar can get so full and your pace so hectic that you could fall behind on some tasks while trying to keep up on others. If you have to decline an interview or appearance, someone—your publicist or the media outlet—will be disappointed. Even if you work so fast and hard that you never have to say no, you will be exhausted by the end of the year. Setting appropriate expectations will keep you on track with all your responsibilities.

3. Understanding expectations will result in satisfaction, not disappointment.

While I love this time of year because I can start fresh, there’s another season I love more: the week a long-term project finally comes to fruition, the day I get to look back and evaluate my work, the minute I cross an important task off my to do list. I would much rather do that and think “Job well done” than think “I could/should have done more.”

If you understand your expectations, set them realistically, and manage them appropriately, you will be satisfied at the end of the year, not disappointed. And what an awesome feeling that is!

So let’s do it, shall we?

Look at your list of planned promotions.

Come up with some realistic expectations.

Set some “checkpoints” to keep you on track.

And then celebrate a job well done.

 

Happy New Year, Friends!

 

Cat Hoort is Trade Marketing Manager at Kregel Publications. She has set completely unrealistic expectations when it comes to updating her website and blog, but you are still invited to take a look and help her get back on track.

 

 

Give a Little

Merry Christmas from Cat Hoort and everyone at Kregel Publications! We hope and pray that your holidays are filled with family, friends, and numerous blessings.

I love the Christmas season. I’m a bit of a sap when it comes to decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music (both of which I find excuses for doing as early in November as possible :-). But I also know how easy it is to get lost in the hustle and bustle, to be weighed down by the rambling to-do list, and to lose sight of what we are really celebrating this season.