Book Marketing Strategies: The Most Important Question
Here is the most overlooked questions authors miss that is the critical to developing effective book marketing strategies:
What do you want your book to do for you and your business?
Assuming you are very clear about who your book is for (your ideal reader) and what problem it solves, the next key question is what do you want from the book.
Almost none of the authors (or soon-to-be authors) I talk with are really clear on the answer to this question. I hear vague answers like “get my name out there” and “grow my following on line”.
Why? For most, it never occurs to us that this is a question that needs answered.
As we are writing our book, many times the idea of defining our book marketing strategies never cross our minds.
We just don’t know what we don’t know…that having clarity around this is one of the top keys to success for authors writing a book for the purpose of growing their business.
How Claire went from unknown to best selling author in just few months
One of my clients, Claire, came to our VIP book marketing planning session a little skeptical. Her first book had been out for 6 months and had not gained much traction. Did you know that, on average, self-published authors sell only 57 copies of their book, primarily to friends and family?? Sadly, that is a real statistic. That was the situation Claire was in.
She was not convinced she had the community, reach, influence, and skills to be a best-selling author. But she had a big vision of helping women leaders and knew (based on her 33 years of experience in large corporate in a manufacturing environment) that her wisdom and book content could help thousands of women.
It took some time to work through what she wanted the book to do for her and who specifically she wanted to serve. After much discussion, she landed on helping women leaders untangle the organizational chaos with their teams so they could get the results they needed for their departments and organizations.
I jumped for joy at the magical moment when she said she wanted her book to open doors to bigger speaking engagements and to do 2-3 day workshops inside specific large companies. Now we had some real direction upon which to build her marketing strategy and book launch plan. We knew who we needed to connect with, get in front of, and engage to make her dream for her book and business come true.
Claire and I prepared for the big day. We mapped out and followed a simple plan tied to a proven process that works.
At 1:30 PM on December 6, Claire became a best-selling author!
Let me share (in her words) what this has meant to her.
What a difference having my own book makes!
My success as a 2-time best-selling author led to keynote speeches at major women’s conferences, sold out workshops at women’s leadership events, 35+ radio interviews, several TV appearances, and exposure I could never have expected, including print articles for Investor’s Business Daily and Business First.
The bottom line for me is “differentiation.” My books, in print or on Kindle, set me apart. Being able to use the designation “Amazon Best-Selling Book” in my promotional marketing is a huge influencing strategy.
Want the same result from your book marketing strategies?
Contact me now here for your complimentary Leverage Your Authority for Profit call. We’ll assess where you are now with your book and decide what the next key steps are to ensure the success you want. Excited to talk with you!