Do you have business cards for your books? I suppose if I was a prolific author with a multitude of books, I might just have a general author business card, but since I’ve only got one book, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to have a business card specifically for the book. In fact, in my previous post, How to Market While on Vacation, I shared one strategy for using business cards. Here’s a picture of what my cards look like:

Pajama School Business Card Front

Pajama School Business Card Back

I give these out frequently, and all of my family and several friends distribute them to interested persons. They serve as a great little bookmark, and convey just enough information to give people an idea of what the book is about without overloading them with a brochure full of information.

It seemed to make the most sense to use the cover of the book as the full design for the card since a key component of marketing is developing brand familiarity. I want to get the image of the book in front of people’s eyes as much as possible. Then, perhaps someday when they are browsing a bookshelf, they will see it, be drawn to it out of familiarity, and feel more inclined to buy it.

Since I’ve been out of town all month, I have just been doing little bits of marketing work here and there as I’ve been able. Honestly, it’s been a much-needed break. Marketing is such a challenge for me, but I’m still learning a lot and growing through the process. On my recent road trip, I visited a really neat used book store. After making my purchase, I paused on the way out to look at the bulletin board full of miscellaneous information adjacent to the door. As I stood perusing the varied literature, the thought suddenly came to me that this would be a perfect spot to stick a business card for my book. (Don’t laugh if this is so obvious that you’re appalled that I didn’t think of it sooner…)

After this, I started keeping a lookout for other such spots and ended up placing another card at a coffee shop where I ate lunch a couple days later. Not to worry, I don’t expect to be deluged with orders as random passersby happen to observe my card. (I think my “eternal optimism” has dropped several degrees through this whole marketing process!) Nevertheless, you never know when a well-placed business card will catch someone’s eye and prompt further curiosity and maybe, just maybe, even a book sale. 🙂

Anyone have any other ideas for how to use business cards or how to market while on vacation? After all, this seems like a great way to spread the word in markets that I wouldn’t normally go out of my way to reach. Plus, if I’m taking marketing trips like this and spending all this time putting up business cards, then I should be able to write the vacation business trip off as advertising expense on my taxes, right?!

Some time ago I subscribed to the Biblioscribe blog, however I just finally got around to perusing the site in greater detail. I was thrilled to see that you can sign up for a free membership and submit press releases, articles, and other promotional information that can be included on their website and made available through their databases. And, of course, I was kicking myself for not discovering this sooner! You can check out the profile I set up a few minutes ago. I also submitted a press release and article. We’ll see what happens with it!

One of the ways that I determine whether to take the time to register and submit information with different sites is based on their Alexa rank. Do you have the Alexa toolbar installed on your browser? If not, you definitely should! Here’s a helpful post about what the Alexa rank means. If you read the article, you’ll see that an Alexa rank is not a perfect measurement of website traffic, but I find that it does give me a general idea of the traffic level of the various sites I visit, especially when those sites are likely to attract the same demographic.

So, here’s how I make a quick decision based on Alexa rank. I click over to Biblioscribe and notice that it has an Alexa rank under 1,000,000. Seems like a worthwhile investment of several minutes to register and upload my info to their site. A little while later, I come across another site that has an Alexa rank above 30,000,000. Maybe not such a good use of my time right now, so I close the tab and move on. There are exceptions to this, of course, but right now with time at a premium and the potential for overload at a high, I have to set up boundaries for myself so that I can “budget” my time wisely. And this is one way that is working well right now.

As you all know from my last post, I was practically drowning in the murky waters of marketing. Things are looking better now. Why, you ask? I did what any normal, dedicated, intelligent person would do…I buried all the books on marketing that are currently on loan from the library, closed all the marketing-related tabs on my browser, shut down my computer, and took a day off. I love Sundays! On top of that, I was particularly encouraged by some things the Lord laid on my heart as I read my Bible and spent time resting.

Now that I’m feeling more refreshed and have a better sense of direction, I thought I would direct your attention to this Creating a Marketing Roadmap that I came across. This was helpful and encouraging, particularly because I’ve already done most of what is recommended (be prepared for a surprising number of typos, though!). However, it provides a good structure for keeping all these various marketing ideas and initiatives organized. And for an author or self-publisher just launching into the marketing aspect of things, this step-by-step list might help preserve some sanity. :-0

This week has been full of marketing-related work for my book, Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate. Much of it is just on the thinking and planning and making contacts level, but I’m realizing that in order to be effective I am going to have to keep branching out – way out! – of my comfort zone. Ever the optimist, somehow I think I subconsciously embraced the notion that my books would pretty much sell themselves once they were on the market. Haha. Hahahaha.

Marketing is such a nice word. I think whoever coined it did so to gloss over the not-so-nice connotation of the word, “selling.” But in reality, I’ve realized that “selling” is exactly what I have to be good at in order to sell these books. (imagine that…) The bad news? I really, really, really don’t like selling. And I’m not very good at it (which is probably why I still have a couple thousand books sitting in our garage!).

Anyway…all that was the lead-in to say that I came across a very brief post that nicely summarizes this whole world of book publishing – be it traditional publishing, vanity press publishing, or self-publishing. Any writer would do well to carefully read and process the statistics and advice offered in it, especially noting the concluding paragraph:

“And so, if you are about to embark on a new manuscript, educate yourself thoroughly about the industry, its scams, and potential pitfalls. And more importantly, learn to market yourself well, for this, more than any other skill, is the determining factor in your success or failure.”

In my opinion, this marketing business is the hardest aspect of any of the book project thus far. I suppose for the naturally gifted salesperson this would not be the case (and if that happens to describe you, will you please call me? 🙂 ). It’s a LOT of work, with little results to show for it…at least not yet. But the repeated reminder from Proverbs is that labor – of the persevering, daily variety – is what eventually ushers in the harvest.

All of my research indicated that one of the biggest drawbacks to self-publishing is lack of access to distribution channels. I’m not totally convinced that this is true…yet. I think marketing on a small non-existent budget could at least tie for that designation. However, while I have experienced pretty favorable reception as an independent publishing company, it is a LOT of work! I have been in touch with several distributors who are interested in carrying my book, Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate, but I haven’t decided for sure yet what route I’m going to take. As in most things, there are certain advantages and disadvantages to working with a distributor.

One of the things that was still a little fuzzy in my mind was the difference between a distributor and a wholesaler. This article, Understanding the Distribution Channels, was incredibly helpful in sorting out the differences. One of the major advantages to having a distributor is that they handle some of the supply-side marketing. (This is in contrast to marketing to the consumer. The distributor works with bookstores and wholesalers to convince them to stock your book.) Not to mention that some bookstores and wholesalers will only purchase books through a distributor.

At this point, I don’t see any way to get my book listed with Ingram if I don’t use a distributor. As far as I can tell, Borders also only works through a distributor. I am in the process of getting it listed with Baker and Taylor, though, and am in the final stages of establishing an account with Barnes and Noble. And of course, Pajama School has been listed with Amazon.com since prior to its official release. Other than that, I have a number of local stores and libraries carrying it, but I still have a lot of work to do as far as contacting other independent bookstores outside the local area.

It’s really kind of mind-numbing trying to keep track of everything that needs to be done and then following up after initial contacts have been made. This is an area that I have really neglected. Once I check something off my to-do list, I tend to just move forward and forget what’s been done or what follow-up might be required. Definitely a glitch in my system…except for that my system right now is more of a non-system – more like chaotic randomness, perhaps. I keep telling myself that I need to do a better job of organizing all of these different facets of the wonderful world of self-publishing, but for the moment my brain is trapped in the world of distribution…

For the past three months, Bryce Beattie, of the StoryHack blog, has been compiling and posting The Self Published Carnival. I’ve been a bit delinquent (as if you all didn’t already know that), so I just finally got around to looking over them in greater detail. They are fabulous! From writing to editing to marketing and more, the links on these carnivals are a treasure trove of helpful tips and tools for the self-publisher:

The Self Published Carnival #1

The Self Published Carnival #2

The Self Published Carnival #3

Last weekend, I experienced my first out-of-town book-related event for Pajama School. My sister and I traversed to the adjacent state of Colorado where I had secured a booth as a vendor at their annual state homeschool conference. A costly sum was required for a booth, but with approximately 4,000 attendees I was hopeful that I would sell enough books to break even.

The Vendor Hall opened at 5:00 on Thursday evening and remained open until 8:00. In those three hours I didn’t have a single sale, although I did have some wonderful conversations with other vendors and conference-goers. I also utilized this time to closely observe people and make notes for improvement. One thing that was peculiar to me was that many people looked at the back of the booth to see what the sign said (the sign identified the booth name and number), but then passed by without even looking at the display table(s) in the booth. I gleaned from this observation the importance of having an eye-catching banner that would draw people in (which I did not). Since that could not be remedied by the next day, I had to come up with an alternate idea if I hoped to sell any books.

So, Friday morning I arrived first thing at the conference, armed with my new approach: a brief 4-question survey. The idea was that I could collect answers to homeschooling-related questions of interest to me, generate conversations, distribute business cards for the Pajama School website, and hopefully sell books. The first three objectives were met quite nicely, but the fourth…not so much. It took me a little while to work up the nerve to stop people and ask them to take the survey – mainly because I don’t like to feel like I’m imposing on people. There were a few people who declined, but most people were more than willing to answer the questions. This helped build my confidence considerably.

It was curious to me how many people got genuinely excited about my book and exclaimed profusely about the need for it, but then walked off without purchasing it. I think if I was a better salesman, I could have turned some of that interest into sales, but I know how much I react to pushy salespeople, so I didn’t want to come anywhere close to earning that sort of a reputation. Instead, I just did my best to communicate effectively and encourage people, and then prayed that God would impress on their hearts to purchase the book. This resulted in a total of five books sold on Friday.

Saturday morning, it quickly became apparent that most people were in too much of a hurry to participate in the survey, so I adjusted my approach to just handing out business cards and giving a 15-20 second spiel about the book. This captured several people’s interest enough that they came over to the table and looked more intently at the book. Again, though, the interest it generated far exceeded the actual sales. Saturday’s sales total: five books.

Thus ended the conference – we packed up all but 12 of the books that we brought with us (in addition to the 10 sold, we traded 2 for books from 2 other vendors). There is certainly an element of discouragement in such an experience (not to mention a considerable loss of money!), and several of my other marketing strategies have fallen through as well. But I firmly believe, as John Quincy Adams said, “Duty is ours; results are God’s.” It’s proving to be a lot of hard work to learn how to market and sell my books, but I’ve still got 2,000+ in our garage that have got to go. So, let the work continue!

I just came across this interesting post that outlines 7 Ways Authors Can Avoid Being Scammed by Online Book Promotion. It is a response to an author’s article about problems she encountered trying to promote her book online. These are the seven lessons the blogger highlights in the post:

Lesson #1: Don’t spread yourself too thin.
Lesson #2: Don’t wait until the book is out to build community.
Lesson #3: Need to manage expectations and time.
Lesson #4: Clarify your goals.
Lesson #5: Community leads to sales, not necessarily vice versa.
Lesson #6: All traffic is not the same.
Lesson #7: Social networking sites don’t sell books. You sell books.

Read the full post for the full explanation of each lesson.

There are some helpful additional remarks in the comments section of the post. In particular, I appreciated this thought, “You need to develop a clear message that is compelling and memorable and one that will spark interest in your book. You can spend an enormous amount of time marketing your book, but if you don’t spend the time preparing a great message, your efforts will fall flat.”

I’m lined up to do a radio interview next week – my first ever, which is both thrilling and scary! So, this is what I really need to spend some time thinking about and preparing. What is the main message that I want to communicate? What are my “talking points”?

HT: @John Kremer

One of the best marketing strategies for a self-published book (or any product) is to generate buzz. In a nutshell, you want to get people talking about your book. I just read an informative question and answer post on The Art of Generating Buzz. I really have no experience yet in this area (at least not enough to know if what I’ve done will be effective or not), but I thought I’d list some of the steps I’ve taken toward this end:

1. Create an e-mail list of friends and other interested parties to keep them informed about the progress of your book. I’m just using a free list software that works in conjunction with my free website software (find out more about these options here). I imported my personal e-mail address book, and then add new contacts as people express interest. About once a month I send out a personal update letting people know how the progress is going and what new developments have taken place since the last update. This generates good feedback – both via e-mail and when I visit with people in person.

2. Involve others in the process. As much as I like to think that I can do everything myself (that’s why we’re self-publishing in the first place, right?!), I cannot express strongly enough how much it has increased the quality and value of my book by tapping into the expertise of friends to help me with various aspects of the project. I also implemented a unique idea I’m really excited about that involved 26 close friends (more on that another time, though!). One of the benefits of this is that more people have a vested interest in the book and thus their desire to see it succeed is increased even more. Plus, they have a greater level of confidence in the product and are more eager to talk about it and recommend it to friends.

3. Solicit endorsers and reviewers liberally. So far I’ve sent out 23 Advance Review Copies (ARC) of Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate. Eleven of those are for potential endorsements; nine have been sent to bloggers who have agreed to post a review and host a giveaway of one or more copies of my book. My goal is to hit my target market from a variety of places and hopefully start to create some buzz. I’m still hoping to find some more homes for my remaining ARCs – my Marketing Manager is hard at work in that department. The books certainly won’t accomplish anything sitting in a box in my basement!

4. Maximize Social Networking Utilities. I know I could do much, much better in this area. But I do have a Facebook Page that imports notes from the Pajama School Blog. And I just recently started Twittering – I’d love to have you come Follow Me! I’m also in a couple of self-publishing e-mail groups (that I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with lately!) that have helped me connect with and learn from some wonderful people.

No doubt there are many more ideas for effectively generating buzz, but these are four primary steps I’ve taken in regards to my book so far. More ideas are always welcome! I’m trying to be more alert to what’s buzzing in the world around me, too, so that I can learn from the effective strategies of others. Now if I could just figure out what the secret is behind Twilight… 🙂