Marketing Plan Seminars. Larry Carpenter

Transcription

1 There are two major forms of marketing: Marketing Plan Seminars Larry Carpenter Trade Marketing- Efforts to sell the book to bookstores and other retailers. Done by the distributor. Author can sell their book to bookstores, but just tell them that your book is distributed by Ingram. Consumer Marketing- Efforts to create awareness and demand for your book among potential readers. This is the main responsibility of the author. Four Major Areas of Consumer Marketing PLATFORM MARKETING The term comes from the concept of What platform can the author stand upon to tell people about their book? 1. Buy and read a copy of Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt. 2. Create your website. Main elements of a book website: Includes the name of the book in the URL Shows the book prominently on the Home page Gives the author bio on the Home page or on a tab Provides an excerpt of the book for the reader to download Provides the book trailer and the author video Provides an opportunity for the reader to communicate with the author Provides a way for the reader to order the book (i.e. Amazon or direct to author) 3. Create a book trailer. Main elements of book trailer: Polished and professionally done About 2 minutes Professional narrator, music and imagery Uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, Godvine, etc. Provided to publicists for use in press kit Included on website 4. Create an author video. Main elements of author video: Author tells backstory about the book About 2 minutes long

2 Can be very rustic, filmed on smart phone camera 5. Leverage your organizations and associations. Do a Google search to determine all organizations related to your book genre Join those organizations Check in to selling your book at their conferences and events Look in to buying ads in their publications and in-house communications organs 6. Take advantage of all speaking engagements. Consider joining a speaker s bureau. Leverage relationships with individuals in Kiwanis, Rotary Club, Elks, etc. Offer to speak at organization s conferences and events. 7. Set up an author signing at your local bookstore(s) Main elements include: Choose your best local general and Christian (if appropriate) bookstores. Don t do two of the same type of bookstores in the same general area. Be careful in doing signings in other cities. It s embarrassing if you have one and no one shows up. Contact the bookstore and ask who coordinates author signings. They usually have a title like Community Relations Manager. Their signings are booked months in advance. Get a good lead time. Don t set up the signing until after the publication date. The stores will want to know how many people you will get to come (i.e. friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers, etc.). Then they will add more for walk-ins and order from the distributors. The store will do some publicity. But you should do your own promotion. PUBLICITY Publicity is the act of making the public aware of the publication of your book (all three words came from the same Latin root word, which means to make known to the people). The two primary objectives of publicity are the two views (and it has nothing to do with a bunch of ladies sitting around talking on television). They are: Reviews- An independent writer reads your book and writes a review (either good or bad) about your book for publication in a magazine or newspaper. Interviews- A magazine, newspaper, radio or television person asks you a series of questions and publishes or broadcasts that in the form of an article or story. You can do your publicity in one of two ways- hire a professional or do it yourself. Publicist- Professional publicists will create your press release and other material to go in to a press kit. Nowadays, this is done in an called an electronic press kit (EPK). It includes the press release, book trailer, author video, and electronic galley copy of your book. This EPK is sent to hundreds of reviewers, bloggers, influencers, producers and editors. The objective is to get a review or article.

3 There are two types of reviews. Trade Reviews are run in trade magazines. The best ones are Publishers Weekly, Christian Retailing and CBA Retailers + Resources. The books are reviewed and the reviews are run at least one month before the book publication date. NOTE: MATERIALS HAVE TO BE SENT OUT FOR TRADE REVIEWS AT LEAST 4 MONTHS PRIOR TO PUBLICATION DATE. The second type of review is the consumer review. Since this is read by consumers wanting to read the book, these run after the book s publication date. In order to get reviews, you have to have galley copies of the book. These are copies with a banner that says Advance Reading Copy Not for Resale. Trade reviewers will not review a book if it appears to be the actual book. Some reviewers still require hard copy galleys. Your publicist will generally need hard copies. We can get those printed via print on demand for less than $5 per book. In order to be able to send out your galley broadly, publicists use a new service called Netgalley. Over 200,000 reviewers are members of Netgalley. We send your book in and it is converted to an electronic format. They provide a widget that you and the publicist can attach to an unlimited number of s. The recipient clicks on the widget and a review copy of your book comes up. Netgalley also has a digital catalog of all of their new books. Reviewers and bloggers can surf through the catalog and select books they want to review. We generally get about 25 to 50 unsolicited requests to review a book. The cost for Netgalley is $500. This pays to get the widget of the book galley and to get the book set up in the digital catalog. How to Do Your Publicity There are three ways to do your publicity: Traditional Publicity- A publicist is not cheap. The average campaign is three months long. The cost is $1500 per month (We get a discount for our clients. It s normally $2,000). For this price, the publicist does all the work. They prepare the press releases, EPK s, mail the press kits and galleys, follow up, book reviews and interviews, coach you on how to deal with the media, and, generally, twist arms on your behalf. We will line you up for a free consulting session with one to three publicists. You can meet with them and then decide if you want to go that route and which publicist you wish to work with. Alternative Publicity- If a book covers the right topic (i.e. controversial subject, popular topic for radio and television hosts, etc.) you might consider using an alternative publicist. They deal with only broadcast media (radio and television). They book you on radio and television shows that you pre approve. The big draw with alternative publicity is that it is pay for performance. You only pay if they get you on an interview. If they don t get you any publicity, you don t pay. Prices (with our negotiated discount) range from $80 for a tier 1 market (up to 30,000 listeners) to $3,000 for a tier 4 interview (i.e. Sean Hannity, Bill O Reilly, Oprah, etc.) Do It Yourself Publicity- In order to prevent you from making mistakes and to increase your effectiveness, we have publicists lined up who will counsel you on what to do. They range from three to six hours of consulting ($300-$600).

4 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING If you do your own blogging and tweeting, that s your platform. If you want to get retweeted, reposted, and reblogged, that s social media marketing. Some experts feel that more books are sold off of social media marketing than any other traditional form of marketing. If you don t have a Twitter account, you need to set one up. There are two companies that we recommend for helping you with your social media marketing. The first is SuzyQ. Suzanne and Shawn are former bookstore owners. They understand what makes consumers tick. But they understand what appeals to bookstore buyers. The second company is Special Guests. The offer a basic Facebook campaign for about $1,000 per month. This program ties in nicely with their book trailer production and their alternative publicity programs. Once you begin your social network marketing activity, there is a company that can help you download excerpts of your book to those people in your network. The company is called BookGrabbr. They create an excerpt of your book (or you can send people the whole book if you choose) and send it to you in a form that can be added to your Twitter, FaceBook, or through any form of social networking. PAID ADVERTISING Most of our clients can t afford to pay for advertising. But for those who can, it can be very effective in selling books. Here are the paid advertising opportunities we recommend: 1. Ads in organization and association publications 2. Ads on websites and publications for Book Clubs. If you have a Christian book, we highly recommend the Book Club Network. They have a monthly emagazine with a circulation of over 200,000 people in over 50,000 book clubs. We have negotiated a program where you can get a full page ad, article of 750 to 1500 words, list of bloggers in your genre, possible review in their magazine, chat room and nominated for Book of the Month for about $ Ads in Bookstore Catalogs. Most are too expensive, but if it s a Christian book, we do recommend the Parable and Munce member store catalogs. The cost is $1,000 to $3,000, depending on the catalog. Christmas and Spring/Easter are the biggest. The circulation is 400,000 to 750,000 households who have shopped in that store in the last year. The number of stores distributing the catalogs ranges from 50 to about 300. Not only do you get a very targeted consumer ad, but, if the book is in the catalog, the member stores are obligated to buy your book and put it in their store. So, it s a great way to buy shelf space. Suggested Resource: Parable (54 stores) and Munce (277 stores) catalogs. I send out s when it is time to sign up for these marketing opportunities. Suggested Resource: For general and Christian books, I recommend an ad in BookPage, This is magazine that general bookstores subscribe to to give away in their stores.

5 4. Display your product and do an author signing at trade shows. There are three major trade shows a year at which we set up a booth and display our clients products. The biggest is the Book Expo America (BEA). Held in May, it is the large general bookstore show. The biggest Christian show is the International Christian Retailer Show (ICRS). It is held in June or July at different cities. The Munce Consumer Product Expo (CPE) is held twice a year in January and September. All of the Munce member stores come in for a show. It s a must if you have a book in one of their monthly catalogs. 5. Ads in Major Trade Publications. The three major trade magazines are Publishers Weekly, CBA Market and Christian Retailing. Ads can be very expensive but they offer discount for new advertisers and have some smaller sized ads that can still be effective. 6. Send a mailing or blast out to the target audience for your book. There are numerous companies from whom you can purchase mailing lists. The best one we have found is Tri-Media. You can order a mailing list of 3,000 targeted readers or influencers for about $300. You can purchase the lists of addresses or physical mailing addresses.