While attending a Christian Apologetics conference last week, I was inspired and challenged to view every area of life in light of God’s Word. This got me to wondering what the Bible has to say about marketing. So this week I’ve started a study with the aim of discovering A Biblical Approach to Marketing. I am starting with the presupposition that the Bible speaks to every issue and that from it we can learn principles to apply in every situation. I have done a lot of reading in the past month on self-publishing and marketing and have learned a lot, but I’m really excited to begin this study and see what God has to say about it.

The first step was to define the word:
Marketing – n. 1. the act of buying or selling in a market; 2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

The next step was to come up with key words that I can use as a starting point for looking up applicable passages in the Bible: sell, sold, seller, buy, pay, profit, business, merchant

I’m sure I will add to these as the study progresses, but those are the words that came to mind right away. I invite you to join me on this exciting adventure. Please feel free to add your own insights along the way!

I feel like my brain could explode at any moment. I finished reading How to Make Money Publishing from Home by Lisa Shaw this week while I was out of town and got about halfway through How to Publish Your Nonfiction Book by Rudy Shur before I realized that I was reading words but my brain was no longer processing what I was reading. This may be partially because the latter of the two books is so geared toward preparing a book for submission to a publishing house that the information seemed too irrelevant for my situation. So I did something I almost never do. I quit reading it. I abhor the thought of leaving things unfinished and often continue reading a book even if I’ve lost interest just to “cross it off the list”, so this was a big step for me.

In my efforts toward “vigorous self-education“, I’ve allowed myself to do something else I rarely do – skim or [gasp!] even completely skip certain paragraphs or chapters that I don’t perceive to be beneficial to me at this point. Normally I’m a read-and-process-every-word sort of person, so you can see I’m really branching out these days. 🙂

While these weeks of intense study and absorption in the field of self-publishing have been incredibly beneficial, I think I’m ready to adopt a slower pace as I try to retain the things I’ve learned and explore some new resources. I’m also really excited about some new approaches I’m going to be studying in the coming weeks as I start outlining the next steps in the self-publishing process for my book. Stay tuned for new developments and exciting announcements in the coming days!

Last week, I mentioned that I signed up for a workshop on self-publishing. I’ve been out of town and without Internet access this week (I finally found a Panera with free wi-fi so that I could catch up on some other projects!), but I wanted to do a quick post with my notes from the workshop…

A couple of friends and I attended the Write it Right workshop at Perfect Peace last Friday night. There were approximately 20 other people in attendance and Gina Nachtigal, author and self-publisher of On the Same Page, did a wonderful job giving us an overview of the self-publishing process.

She started out by highlighting some of the key differences between using a publishing house or self-publishing:
Publishing House – has total control over your idea and work, long delay (at least 9 months)
Self-Publishing – you have all the control, possible to have a manuscript printed and available within 5 weeks, you keep the profit

Once you have a finished manuscript, there are two ways to self-publish:
1. Hire a printer and you can be your own publisher – must print at least 1,000 copies to make it worthwhile
2. Print-On-Demand (POD) – good for a fewer number of copies, not as much profit margin

Cons of self-publishing:
* You have to finance the whole project yourself or find someone willing to fund it for you.
* Big responsibility on your shoulders (editing, design, printing, distribution, etc.)

The Process
* Pray a lot! Ask God for wisdom (James 1:5).
* Know what your goal is. Who is the book going to benefit?
* Decide if printing with a commercial offset printer or POD will better serve your needs. (You can literally feel the difference.)
* How to get a copyright – effective upon creation; $35 to register the copyright – http://copyright.gov
* ISBN – uniquely identifies a book – block of at least 10 required ($275)
* Barcode – $25
* How do you know when the manuscript is ready? When you think you’re almost done, have somebody else read it. And then have somebody else read it. Sometimes what we want to say doesn’t come out right. It is perceived differently than we intend. Have five or six people read it before you hire an editor. Have an editor in the profession edit the book.
*Shelf appeal – no typos on the back cover! Get endorsements – local friends, ask God to open doors. Take time to research what you want the book to look and feel like. Spend a lot of time comparing and researching the competition.
Weight of text pages – ask printer what they would recommend (50# or 60# paper on the inside)
* Once you choose your printer, find samples to make sure that your customer service rep is on the same “page” as you.

What do you do once the books have been printed and delivered?
* Don’t put them in the basement! See if bookstores will take the books on consignment to sell them. Perfect Peace will consider book proposals – the message must be compelling and go through an extensive review process.
* It’s also easy to put your book on Amazon.com. The Internet is a good way to market.
* Write a press release. The fact that you have written a book is news! Look for places to get book signings – church, library, school, bookstore, etc. (Watermark Books is very open to local authors.)

Deb Raney added some tips on how to have a successful book signing:
* Don’t give out the book to all your friends. Encourage them to come to the book signing. Crowds generate enthusiasm.
* Ask the location if there will be multiple events that day. Try a multiple self-published book signing with several other authors.
* Have your own website. Absolutely essential in the 21^st century. Keep track of your site visitors.
* Give something away. (Pens, chocolate, matching bookmarks, bookpads, ask for overs from publisher and cut down to use as postcards, cut the spine off and use as a bookmark)
* Stand instead of sitting, be welcoming, (sitting behind a table seems to turn people away)

Once you’ve self-published, you have a finished concept you can send to possibly get picked up by a publishing house.

Each workshop attendee received a $10 gift card for Perfect Peace and a wonderful packet of materials provided by Mennonite Press in Newton, Kansas. The packet included a booklet with information for self-publishers, a brochure for Mennonite Press, a lovely pad of paper and several sample print jobs from Mennonite Press. It was very impressive!

Gina was incredibly encouraging and gave all of us hope that it is not impossible to successfully self-publish our books. She also reminded us that God is the one who has compelled us to write and we should continually ask Him to provide guidance and contacts along the way to help us finish the job. The workshop was very well done and I look forward to attending the next one in a couple of weeks.

This book – How to Publish and Promote Online by M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy – is a collection of very short chapters contributed by a variety of authors with expertise in the areas covered. Although overall the book is geared toward online publishing, there are a number of helpful chapters that are equally applicable to the print publisher. The edition I have is from 2001 and it’s amazing how much technology has changed in these seven years, making some of the ideas and references obsolete. It’s an easy-read, though, and has numerous lists of specific resources, like Where to Send Book-Related Press Releases and Announcements Online, Where to Get e-books Reviewed, Cheap Advertising, More Essential Online Resources, and more.

The book is divided into three parts:

Part I – Everything You Need to Know About Publishing On- and Offline

Part II – Self-Publishing Success Stories

Part III – Pounding the Virtual Pavement: Selling Your Book Online

One of the things I really found helpful in this book were a couple of chapters of interview questions and responses from people in the book review and radio industry. Their input was varied, but gave an interesting perspective of their preferences when dealing with authors. That, and a number of other factors, assisted me in coming up with my 3 Keys to Marketing for the Self-Publisher. The authors are also forthright in identifying and revealing ideas and marketing strategies that didn’t work for them. Their experiences enable them to give good advice for where to spend money and what strategies to pass up.

Overall, the book provides a handy reference tool for authors and self-publishers trying to navigate their way around the web and the lists are especially time-saving in that someone else has done the legwork in identifying good places to publicize your work. I probably won’t buy this book, but it’s definitely one worth checking out from the library again when I get to that stage of my marketing plan.

Several friends sent me information they saw about a workshop series being hosted by Perfect Peace for aspiring authors and self-publishers. I signed up for the July workshops and am looking forward to attending the first one tomorrow. It is titled, “The Self-Publishing Experience” and the presenter is Gina Nachtigal. In addition to learning from the experience of others, I’m also anticipating meeting other authors and self-publishers in the local area. I’m hoping to take lots of notes and post them on here for easy reference in the future by myself and others.

In the course of my reading, I’ve boiled the immense world of marketing into 3 easy-to-remember tips. Although I have been garnering lots of great marketing ideas from the books I’ve been reading on the topic, it is easy to feel like marketing a book successfully is an impossible task. But by the time I finished reading How to Publish and Promote Online by M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy tonight, some common themes seemed to emerge.

I think that condensing the broad concept of marketing into these 3 general areas will give me a better sense of structure and enable me to focus my efforts more effectively in the days ahead. And actually, come to think of it, I almost feel a twinge of excitement at the thought of marketing now, whereas before I felt only dread and total incompetence in the field. Now I can develop specific strategies in an effort to achieve each of these three goals. So, here are the 3 keys:

1. Know your target audience. Be specific. Identify your niche market. Don’t just assume that everyone is interested in your book or you will be lost and ineffective when implementing marketing strategies.

2. Be creative. Look for new, unique ways to present your book to the public and potential reviewers and publicity outlets. While there is certain protocol that should be followed for certain situations, don’t be afraid to branch out and try new approaches to get your book noticed.

3. Market early and often. Don’t wait until your book is published to begin publicizing and promoting it. Take time early on in the process to develop a plan and set it in motion.

If you disagree with the primary importance of these 3 keys or have other suggestions, please don’t tell me. I rather like the simplicity of this system and don’t want anyone to complicate it for me again. 🙂

I just realized a day or two ago that all my self-publishing library books are due back this Friday. Since I’ll be out of town next week, I decided to try to take in as much as I can from the books before Friday and then catch up on my writing next week. Hence…less content on this blog. But I plan to post some reviews soon!

Anyone who does any research in the field of self-publishing will quickly learn that there are three keys to selling books. 1. Marketing, 2. Marketing, 3. Marketing

For anyone feeling uncertain about how to approach the vast world of marketing possibilities (and I’m pretty sure that includes just about every author-turned-self-publisher!), just pick up this arsenal of “100 No-Cost Low-Cost Weapons to Help You Sell Your Work” – Guerrilla Marketing for Writers by Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman & Michael Larsen. One can’t help but feel as they read this book that the authors are really serious about wanting to help writers achieve success in their marketing efforts. Although it’s written with the assumption that the author’s goal is to be picked up by one of the big publishing houses, it is equally useful for the self-publisher. Perhaps even more so, because every time I read, “Your publisher should…” or “Ask your publisher if…” I made a mental note that I am my publisher and those are responsibilities that I too must shoulder.

The book is divided into four parts as follows:

Part I – Guerrilla Marketing: The Right Idea at the Right Time

Part II – Weapons that Make You a Guerrilla

Part III – Weapons Galore to Help You Sell More

Part IV – Weapons that are All About You

Each of these is subdivided into smaller categories into which are placed each of the individual “weapons” – specific marketing ideas. The Table of Contents lists each of these individually and serves as the perfect place to mark the strategies you want to use first. If I wasn’t borrowing this book from the library, that’s exactly what I would have done. In fact, the book would have been very well-marked by the time I finished it if it was mine.

In addition to all the practical strategies, the authors share numerous additional “guerrilla tactics” – ideas submitted by other authors, and “war stories” – real life examples of the guerrilla tactics and weapons in action. I can’t wait to get my own copy of this book and start marking it up! I’ve also just begun perusing the wealth of information and resources contained on the Guerrilla Marketing website. Between the book and the website, it’s almost as good as having an experienced mentor guiding you through the steps to effectively market your book!

After reading several times about Publisher’s Weekly, I finally remembered to check out their website and subscribe to their free e-newsletters.

At the recommendation of someone on one of the self-publishing groups I joined, I also signed up for a free subscription to Book Business, another trade magazine.

Publisher’s Lunch is another highly recommended trade e-newsletter, so I went ahead and subscribed to that as well.

I figure I’ll try these all out for a month or so and determine whether they are beneficial or not. If not, I’ll just cancel my subscription. In retrospect, if I had thought of it before I finished subscribing, I would have created a separate and specific e-mail account (i.e. subscriptions@journeytoselfpublishing or something like that) to handle these, that way if my e-mail address gets phished by other companies, I could just delete the account. Rats! Wish I had thought of that sooner! Oh well, maybe someone else can learn from my mistake. 🙂 If you know of any other good (and free!) on-line or print subscriptions, please let me know!

You will notice that I’ve started a blogroll on my right sidebar for blogs related to self-publishing. I’ve only got a couple there at the moment – blogs that I’ve just happened across in my research thus far. Surely there are many more self-publishing blogs out there! If you have such a blog or know of a good one that you would recommend, please leave a link to it in the comments or drop me an e-mail with the info. I would love to connect with other bloggers who are traveling this path or have already traveled the path to self-publishing!