Aloha from Karen,
I returned last night from two TV interviews and speaking as well as a side trip to visit grandchildren. I ended up with a second show when the station had a cancellation.I had sent more ideas than could be done in one show to let them know I could do more topics in the future.
A few months ago I interviewed a group of women who co-authored a book and
had great marketing plans. The group is called Word Quilters and the book is A
Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts. Let's find out how the promotion is coming since
the book's release in September.
I have the photos of the women below.
Do you think you began on time to promote the book? If so, when did you begin? When would you advise others to begin a book’s promotion?
Trish: The book release date was delayed which put a rush on our PR activity for 2008. I think we may get more hits this winter for magazine articles for Christmas 2009.
Brenda: We, as the 6-author team, began in July with the launch of our Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts blog. Each day of the week is a fresh blog entry with an exciting idea, tip, suggestion, memory, etc. related to Christmas. Our blog is informative and inspirational and is beginning to garner comments so we know we’re reaching internet readers. I advise others to begin a book’s promotion and build enthusiasm months before its release. Take the example of marketing guru Mark Victor Hanson of the Chicken Soup empire. He and coauthor Jack Canfield began offering the original Chicken Soup for the Soul to audiences months before the book’s release. Consequently, they had 10,000 pre-orders, which made their publisher HCI quite giddy.
Leslie: Personally, I wish I had started a little sooner with regard to booking speaking engagements. Some of the civic groups I queried already had booked choirs and bands for their December meetings. In other areas such as the blog tour, article writing and media interviews, I definitely had enough lead time.
Karen: Speaking as blog tour organizer, we planned well in advance and everything was up and ready to go well before our start date of September 15. The difficult part was creating the early stir and then finding out the books were delayed from the printer. But I think the dates of the tour fell nicely into place, creating so much interest that Amazon sold out twice when the books came in. I credit that to lots of pre-orders.
Have you implemented everything you wanted to do?
Trish: No, I don’t think I could implement everything I want to on any book marketing or publicity plan if I worked 70 hours a week on it. You have to prioritize, and we have. I think our blog tour was very successful, and we are getting some great online reviews. So far, so good.
Cathy: No, it seems there’s always one more thing I’d like to do.
Brenda: Not yet, but things take time. I’m juggling publicity and signings of A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts with other writing assignments, building my brand as the “go-to” lady for parent questions and encouragement, media interviews and speaking engagements on parenting, and working with my Revell team on the January release of The Birth to Five Book.
So, timing is important and some marketing plans take more time than others. The blog was a key part of the plans.
If not, what are the marketing ideas you have not done and what’s been keeping that from happening?
Trish: I think with publicity, we are limited by funding. We have some great radio interviews coming up, but financing travel to do TV interviews when many stations do not cover travel is a challenge. We are, however, each handling TV interviews in our local and regional markets.
Cathy: Time constraints are the main reason for keeping me from getting around to more local shops and offering to do demonstrations or give presentations where they could invite their customers to attend.
Leslie: I would like to have seen the book in more chain specialty stores—such as Cracker Barrel and Hallmark.
Karen: I think the election coverage the month of October had media so busy that there wasn’t much room for “interest stories.” I’m hoping now that it’s over, perhaps we may see more media answering the e-blasts, mailings, and follow up calls made by Kathy Willis’ team and inviting us for interviews. Still waiting on Oprah to give us the chance to all meet face to face on her show [grin].
Notice the limits vary with each person: time, money, and being blocked out by national news (the election). We can't control it all.
What do you think has had the most positive influence on book sales of your marketing plans?
Trish: Getting the book into people’s hands. Once they hold it and see how amazing it is, they buy it. Bookstore owners are buying them by the dozen from us, as authors, once they see the book and hold it. So I think our individual speaking platforms will impact national sales in a huge way.
Brenda: In my experience, personal contact makes the difference. For example, I’ve gone into two bookstores to speak with the owner. Once each saw the quality and content of A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts, each owner put in an order to her distributor. Then I offered a signing. I spoke with the owner of a floral Nursery and Gifts Center, who promptly ordered quantities and scheduled me for a signing (with Terra’s amazing gardening tips, it fits in well!). I suggested to the owner of a small appliance store that he gift his best customers with a signed copy of Scrapbook . He promptly ordered quantities. After showing the book to a postal clerk, she ordered a copy as did the vet where I take my mini dachshunds. There’s just something about beating the pavement and making personal contacts.
Cathy: The most positive aspect of this particular book is having six co-authors. Our contacts vary widely. It has helped broaden the scope of our marketing. To piggy-back on Brenda’s answer, the bank where my sister is branch manager does fund-raisers throughout the year to gift charitable organizations. My sister’s branch of the bank ordered a case of A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts to use in their 2008 fall fund raiser. We’re hoping that other branches might follow her lead. This will be interesting to watch.
Terra: It is the synergy of having 6 authors and a publisher and PR team with plenty of energy and ideas and contacts. We tell each other as we do something to promote our book and this gives the others sparks for new things to do.
Leslie: The power of 6+. With six authors promoting in six distinct regions of the country, plus the publishers doing all they can in central Texas, we cover a large geographic area. When you can multiply speaking engagements, book events/signings, media interviews and articles times six, you have a lot more coverage.
Ah, the power of numbers and the influence of people/readers comes into play here.The synergy of doing it together must have been great. So, if you are not a co-author, consider co-promoting similar or complimentary books with other authors. And getting books to people is so key. Give away a lot to get a fire going!
Blog Promo
You had a big blog interview/giveaway. Has that increased you blog subscribers and did they stay with you after the contest?
Cathy: We do have quite a few followers and just this evening someone new left a comment, happy to find the bog and our ongoing daily postings of Christmas tips.
Karen: We saw an initial surge in hits at the Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts blog as many participants tried to leave comments each day to increase their chances of winning our valuable Christmas Basket. Personally, I also saw the number of hits on my own blog climb as well and it has stayed steadily higher. The number of people commenting has dropped some but I think our hit numbers are still staying up there.
How did you find the blogs who interviewed you?
Terra: Several were readers of my personal blog who were enthusiastic when I mentioned co-writing a book about Christmas. Many people simply love this season and when I noticed from their comments on my blog that this is their favorite season, I asked them to host our tour. Yahoo groups and Cafe moms have several groups dedicated to celebrating Christmas and I found several bloggers in those groups to host also.
Karen: Once again the power of 6 helped here. Everyone sent me a list of bloggers they knew through their networking contacts. I think initially by the time we collected names of anyone we knew from publishing, our own blogging, our families, our friends, and blogs we followed, there were around 150 names. I emailed them all and we ended up with 55 who agreed to host us. The experience has taught me to keep good records of contacts and build on that.
Offers and commitment don't always follow one another. 155 offers ended up in 50 commitments. That's why we must work hard and know that not every lead brings the results we desire. Start collecting contacts now if you have not already done that. Build a database.
Next week we will continue this interview to see what else happened as the group worked on speaking,media interviews and more!
For those who also struggle with time for marketing,check out my book on time management.
Karen, Thanks for hosting this interview about our marketing. One of the things I'm doing today is sending a scout to the Nutcracker Market in Houston. This Christmas sale started Thursday, runs through Sunday, and is an annual sale that has been around for years.
After research, I found that they they have 60,000 visitors over that four days and take in about nine million dollars. As you can imagine, booth space is very expensive. I can't go today, so my daughter and a friend will go and scout for vendors who might be willing to stock A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts in their booths next year.
Going to all the local Christmas sales at churches and such could be very time consuming, but finding vendors who are already set up with booths who could sell our book on their table is one way to promote sales....Thanks again for hosting us...Cathy Messecar, co-author A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts.
Posted by: Cathy Messecar | November 14, 2008 at 08:24 AM
It's a great idea to get a vendor to carry a book! When I did a teacher resource book on puppetry I knew many puppet vendors and had a few pick up the book for all the conferences/shows they did plus a speaker picked up my book for a 60 city ministry training tour. Those two marketing activities were all the book needed to be the top selling teacher resource vendor for that publisher.
Posted by: Karen H Whiting | November 14, 2008 at 08:32 AM