Publishing Insiders Wrap-Up: What Van Halen Can Teach You About Book Marketing15 July 2010, 6:11 amWe added a little touch of rock and roll to Publishing Insiders this week by asking the question: What does Van Halen have to do with book marketing? More than you might realize!
Image via Wikipedia It began with an article in
Entrepreneur magazine about how Eddie Van Halen would test the system when they were on tour. The band insisted their dressing room have a bowl of M&M’s, but the venue would have to remove all the brown ones. Eddie would show up, check the dish, and if brown M&M’s were in the bowl he knew they hadn’t read the contract and there could be something wrong with the setup. Most times he was right.
To take the book marketing angle: What are the telltale signs you need to be looking at to know there is a problem with your marketing? Are you doing the right thing or in trouble?
First, we took a look at a little understood but powerful marketing tool: Autoresponders.
SEO Expert Susan Gilbert explained that autoresponders are the basis of an Internet marketer’s business, a means to bring in prospects to your sales funnel and turn prospects into customers. Internet marketers will tell you the money is in the list, and “we know that’s a fact – the more people you have on your mailing list that are interested in your products and services, the more sales you can make,” she said.
Using autoresponders differs from a newsletter broadcast, which is sent out to all subscribers on the same day and time.
An autoresponder is a piece of software that is incorporated into your website that allows you to send emails automatically. These are not spam or unsolicited emails; people opt in after you give them something of value (some kind of giveaway, it could be a free report, consultation, etc).
Image by
Appfrica via Flickr Once they have opted in by providing their email address, then they get a series of pre-written emails. The series can be sent a variety of ways; via a course, or one email a day for seven days; the key is to have a series of emails that will be sent to the list on a schedule. All you have to do is to prepare material, upload the material to the autoresponder and anyone who signs up will get the emails. Recipients can opt out at any time; the system will take care of it.
Sending out a series of emails is based on the concept that consumers need to see something seven times before they’ll make a purchase. It’s important to give them good quality information and then just mention your product at the end of the email. Your sales will go up!
The number of messages should ideally be endless. Start with something you can organize, such as seven emails you can set for a sequence once every week or every two weeks so they don’t forget who you are. Sign-ups can take place anytime, and they will receive the emails in their proper order: they’ll get the first message, then the second, and so on, no matter when they sign up.
Susan recommends aweber.com, which keeps lists clean and offers a lot of technical support. You can find them listed on her website,
www.susangilbert.com.
For additional resources and tips check Susan Gilbert’s website, www.susangilbert.com.************Where does the Van Halen book marketing concept come into play? Let’s consider some of the signs with Publishing Insiders host Penny Sansevieri:
Image via
Wikipedia When seeking book reviews, if there is no word at all as a result of your pitching, not even a ‘no thank you,’ that’s a big bowl of brown M&M’s. Even with review space being highly competitive (and shrinking), you should get some feedback. At this point you need to ask yourself if you’re even contacting the correct people. Silence means re-evaluate, make sure you are reading the fine print (review policies) on sites you want to pitch, and follow through. Do not pitch reviewers who aren’t in your genre, etc.
In addition, look at all the pieces of your website. Are you getting more visitors to your site? What do they do once they land on your site? You need to evaluate the statistics and make sure your website tells the story about you and your book that needs to be out there – to keep traffic coming to your site.
“There is a business model behind
every successful book,” says Penny – including Randy Kearse, who is selling his self-published book on the NYC subway (and has sold 14,000 copies in three years). “Randy found success because he knew where his market was and went after it,” she noted.
Sometimes starting smaller makes sense; be willing to seek local coverage before you try for the big stage, when you’re inexperienced the local venue is the way to develop the skills you need to take you to the next level. Plus, local media is always looking for good stories and the enterprising author knows what to do to give them a good story. The angle is not that you wrote a book or you live in town – it’s your expertise, your ability to tie your book into a larger cultural issue or event in the news.
Image by
eclecticlibrarian via Flickr “And, treat your book as a business venture. It’s going to take more than a few days, or even a few weeks, to raise awareness on the book,” she adds.
Typically a self-published or small press author will sell 100 to 200 copies of their book. Then sales dry up and authors think they are doing something wrong.
“So, these authors start out with some sales, and then it slows down, and then they are blindsided 3 to 6 months later when they aren’t selling,” Penny observes.
However, once you’ve made those sales, now you’re moving on to the next level. This is the stage where authors need to uncover a larger audience beyond their more immediate circle of friends, family and acquaintances who took the book this far.
Now it’s important to find ways to measure that growth in ways beyond book sales: website hits, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, newsletter subscribers – “if you are building and growing your brand you will see the results in your growing number of subscribers, followers, fans,” Penny explains.
Listen to feedback too, especially from peers in your field, someone respected in your area – such as a reviewer known for that genre. Stay away from people you know, it’s hard for them to be totally honest. Ditto for mom, and other family and friends.
If you feel stuck with your campaign, get an assessment from a professional you trust who can evaluate your campaign and what you’re doing.
Image via
Wikipedia “In the long runway of promotion it takes a while for things to take off and you may need to make adjustments along the way,” Penny adds. For instance, when AME launched a Twitter account, it required some learning and changing before it started to grow in followers and feedback.
Know your audience and message – that’s the biggest piece of it. And think of ways you can help and be helped by your peers. Last week’s Publishing Insiders guest Arielle Ford noted that successful authors love to help others. It’s a win-win; you get promotion, but so do they. Reach out, explain who you are, what you can do to help them and ask for their help in return, and see where it goes from there!
You can download the show at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/brown-mms-or-what-van-hal_b_561029.html.
Please join us July 27, at 4 p.m. Pacific for a new show, From Blog to Book:Numerous bloggers feel they are ready to take their work from blog to book. Maybe it’s the influence of movies like “Julie and Julia,” it’s hard to tell, but suffice it to say the idea of selling your blog to a publisher is very appealing to a good many bloggers. But what does it really take to get your blog noticed? Learn what you need to do to establish the kind of blog that gets talked about, and what you can do to compete in this market. We’ll also discuss why branding is so important – social networking too – and offer insights into marketing your blog so it can be discovered!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thepublishinginsiders/2010/07/27/from-blog-to-book.
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