Marketing 101 for Authors

So you’ve written your first or second or 10th book and while they may be wonderful, there is something missing – sales!! You wonder why your current marketing strategies aren’t doing the job, but you don’t know how to fix it because marketing is not an area where you have any expertise, so you continue doing what everyone else does and end up with the same result – poor sales!! We all know that the numbers of authors who write M/M romance are increasing exponentially and so of course are the numbers of books released. On this site alone, in the months of January 2011 and December 2010 we added 47 new authors to the alphabetical listing. These are just new authors whose books were reviewed here, so if you take into account the books actually released by publishers every week you can imagine how many authors there are out there in M/M land. Several months ago 482 M/M authors identified themselves in a poll conducted on this site and I’m assuming that there are at least 3 times as many authors who write M/M who didn’t participate in the poll.

I’ve seen your promotions for your new book(s) but what strikes me is the sameness of the approach and messages from authors, experienced and new, and in this very competitive field it is extremely important to differentiate if you want to be noticed positively. Why is it important to stand out from all the “noise” that readers hear and see every day? Because unless you or your books have something special to say, or you have a built-in reader base, or you’re an auto buy for a large number of fans, your book sales will suffer if your message is “ho hum.” Today, more than ever, it’s difficult to be heard and be memorable, and being remembered is important when readers are ready to buy books. So what are the new approaches to marketing your book in addition to that great review or word of mouth recommendation?

I asked an expert in this field, Chandra Years, to give you some free tips. Chandra is an experienced marketing and publicity executive whose former employers include Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. She is a long time member of RWA and Publishers’ Marketplace, and she “sees the impact of digital technologies on publishing as an exciting opportunity for writers to connect more directly with their readers.”

Here are Chandra’s Top 10 Tips for writers to help them market their books and themselves. REMEMBER: Start small! You don’t have to do everything to get good results.

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1 Come up with a brand. You’ve developed your characters, plotted their emotional arcs and internal/external conflicts. Now it’s your turn to plot a course for yourself as an author. What is your author brand? Are you dark and mysterious? Sassy and bold? Sharp and witty? Heartfelt and straightforward? Quirky and off-beat? Cozy and warm? Think about what attitudes and emotions you, as an author, want to evoke in the reader. THEN talk to your web designer. And keep all your marketing materials consistent, once you’ve come up with a basic template (i.e. Twitter background, blog, newsletter.etc.)

2 Make your website user friendly: Keep the design simple (remember not everyone has a superfast internet connection, so a graphics-heavy website may be difficult to load for some – and cause them to navigate away.) Provide excerpts of your book so readers can taste before they buy, and make sure a “buy now” link is displayed at the end. Make it easy for readers to find your Twitter, Facebook & Goodreads accounts (if you have them and update consistently.) And make sure readers can easily sign up for your newsletter.

3 Send out newsletters: If you aren’t sending out a newsletter, you should be. Newsletters are an awesome tool because the reader has already said, “Yes, please, market to me!” And they’re a great opportunity to make readers into superfans by giving subscribers extra content they wouldn’t get otherwise: a peek into the WIP, a special contest, a short story “gift” for the holidays. Many authors use MailChimp to manage their e-mail lists and newsletter distribution, but there are other services such as Constant Contact that do the same thing. I do recommend using a service that will give you feedback on reader activity, i.e. how many are opening the e-mail, how many are deleting without reading, etc., so you can judge if the newsletter is effective or not.

4 Blog: Ah, to blog or not to blog, that is the question that stumps many an author. If you are a natural blogger, that’s great. Blogs are a great way to provide fresh content for readers and to keep them feeling connected to you. But if the thought of turning out traditional blog posts on a regular basis makes you cringe (or you’d rather be, y’know, writing your novel), yet you’d still like to share photos, articles, and random thoughts too long to squeeze into Twitter, check into microblogging sites such as Tumblr or Posterous. Like regular blogs, you can build follower lists on these sites, so they’re another way to connect with readers and fellow authors. And if you do blog: remember that nothing really dies on the internet, but lives forever thanks to cached pages and screen captures. So no matter how well-deserved that rant may be, think twice before posting something you might not want to see splashed all over Twitter, Facebook and e-mail loops, often with snarky comments attached.

5 Create a Facebook Page: Keeping in mind that Facebook makes changes to its services and the rules for using them at a dizzying speed, but for now: if you don’t have a business page, you should get one. After all, you are in business as an author. The difference between pages and profiles are explained here. A page allows you to use the “insight” function so you can see what type of status updates and links receive the most feedback, letting you tailor the information you put on the page to best please your audience. And if you have a page (and want to spend some money) it allows you to easily create a Facebook ad, which is one of the most cost-effective forms of paid advertising around right now.

6 Tweet Tweet : Twitter is about conversation, not about marketing. However, it can be an effective way to talk directly to readers, book bloggers and other interested parties, and to build relationships that will hopefully follow you to the “buy” button. But, you need to have a fairly consistent presence on Twitter for it to move the needle much.

Twitter has a few features that make it worth checking out. Twitter’s use of the hashtag means you can follow chats such as #bookmarket, #writechat or #litchat to pick up tips on marketing/writing, and connect with fellow publishing colleagues. Or create your own hashtag such as #TitleofNewBook to celebrate your book’s release day.

And like Facebook, you can measure the effectiveness of your tweets if you use an application such as HootSuite to manage your account, or Timely.Is to schedule your tweets for maximum impact.

7 Socialize with Readers (aka Goodreads, LibraryThing and Shelfari.) You probably already have a Goodreads account, and you’ve joined the M/M Romance group, and you know to hold a giveaway when your book is released in print. You’ve linked your blog to your Goodreads author profile, so your Goodreads fans will receive an e-mail when you update. (And if none of this is sounding familiar, get to know Goodreads.)

Shelfari (www.shelfari.com ) and LibraryThing (www.LibraryThing.com ) offer some of the same benefits. You can also hold giveaways on LibraryThing, and Shelfari allows you to “shelve” your books in the appropriate genre groups. Both sites have less web traffic than Goodreads, but Shelfari is owned by Amazon while LibraryThing is the oldest reader community on the internet. At the least, boosting your presence on both sites and filling out your author page will help with search engine optimization. And that can’t hurt.

8 Use Video : I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that YouTube is the second most used search engine, after Google. Which means that having a presence on YouTube is quickly becoming a must. Book trailers are one way to take advantage of YouTube, but there are other creative ways you can promote yourself and/or your book. And it doesn’t have to be directly related to your book, just your author brand.

Xtranormal.com makes it easy to create an animated short film. Erotic romance author Daisy Harris used it to create a “So You Want to Join Fetlife ?’ video – a video that doesn’t talk about her books, but does showcase her witty, smart writing voice. (Caution: NSFW, and it’s currently entered in a contest based on views. Bookmark it for later if you are curious but don’t want to be part of the contest activity.)

Video blogs are also popular, and require nothing more exotic than a late model cell phone with a video camera to produce. A mini digital HD video recorder such as a Flip is not a large investment, and if you really want to get fancy, video editing software comes standard on Macs (sadly, I’m not as familiar with PCs these days.) The best length is one to two minutes; anything longer and people tend to tune out.

And of course, there’s always the book trailer.

(Don’t forget audio. Podcasts, audio book excerpts and internet radio such as BlogTalkRadio.com are another way to reach potential readers.)

9 Get some attention: Traditional publicity involves writing a press release and using it to pitch your story to newspapers, magazines and television. Unfortunately, competition is so strong, usually only non-fiction and bestselling and/or celebrity authors will attract attention from the major media outlets. However, just like pitching your book to an agent or editor, you might face rejection but you can also hear “yes.” If your novel has a strong local tie, or a plot point that makes it topical, then it might be of interest to the appropriate media. Newspapers list their editors on their websites; local television stations usually have a “send us a story” link on their sites. To look professional when contacting them, you’ll need a press release. A good guide to writing a press release is here . And once you have the release, there are several free press release distribution websites, as well as paid ones, that will make it available to press outlets worldwide.

You might also consider creating an author media kit, which consists of a high resolution digital headshot of you, a succinct bio, a high resolution JPEG of your book cover, and a book synopsis, including information such as genre and ISBN. The media kit is used to provide background on you and your books to the journalist. A sheet of pull quotes, or critical praise for your work, also comes in handy when pitching to the media or giving background to a reporter or blogger. And get to know the book bloggers in your genre. They’re an invaluable resource for the reading community. Just remember that giving them a book does not guarantee a good review, or even that a review will appear. (And don’t blog about how a reviewer is unprofessional and incapable of writing anything but a grocery list should you receive a bad review, as one – not a M/M! – author did last week. Best way to get mocked across the internet.)

Finally, consider giving away a free book on a book blog. Just be sure that you promote the giveaway on your website and/or social media accounts so as to drive some traffic to the book blog as a thank you (and see if you can get a link from the book blog back to your website for some reverse traffic!) Most bloggers are very good at providing their review guidelines and contact information on their websites.

10 WRITE A GOOD BOOK. Then write another. And another.

Concentrate on your books – and don’t get so hung up on the marketing that it takes away from your writing.

I wish there were some magic formula to marketing and publicity that would guarantee everyone who followed the steps instant New York Times bestseller status.  I worked in television marketing at two major Hollywood studios, and if anyone could buy their way to success, you’d think it would be them.  But still we watched as multi-million dollar, carefully crafted campaigns resulted in television series cancelled after one episode.  Sigh.

So please keep in mind that these are tips.  Some may work for you, some may not.  Some you may have already tried and found wanting.  Some may be too time-intensive, or not worth the bother for you.  And that’s okay.

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I want to stress again that you don’t need to do everything on Chandra’s list. This is the optimum of what every author should do for maximum impact. Marketing may seem overwhelming, so pick and choose where you want to start and do what feels comfortable to you. I used to provide marketing and promotion services for small businesses years ago, so while I don’t have Chandra’s expertise, and don’t pretend to, this is an area that’s not exactly unfamiliar to me. I know that most of you don’t have the time to do anything but the most basic promotion for your books, and sometimes your efforts may not have that professional patina and polish to make you stand out in this very competitive and oversubscribed field. If you have just written your very first book you probably don’t need, nor can you afford a Publicist like Chandra, to go beyond the basics, so just do what feels like the right thing to do. However, if you would like to email Chandra I have included her contact information at the end of this post. One author who has worked with her had this to say:

“I cannot imagine ever working without a publicist. It’s just one more way I spend my time writing, not doing publicity or eighteen other things that have nothing to do with making stories. …. she did help me find some new avenues. And I also think there’s just something more elegant about the promotion coming from a third party, or at least the overture. It’s fine when you know the person, but for the new places, no you don’t. Just one more way to make it all more smooth and professional.”

Heidi Cullinan

Chandra holds a BA in Cinema-Television Critical Studies from the University of Southern California and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Chandra Years Contact Information

email: csyears@gmail.com
website: under construction
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ChandraYB