How to sell more books, and get more speaking and working engagements is THE question for authors.
What does it take to get seen, to be visible and sought after by thousands....
There are tens of thousands of books coming out every year, and books are competing with the most exciting time in human history for entertainment.
We have entertainment on our phones! Our TVs. We can rent movies on our TVs, and access the Internet through our TVs (Google TV with a Sony box). We have Sirius radio in our cars. New ones even have Internet access. TVs and Internet in restaurants and cafes. It’s unending.
So your work is cut out for you.
Alison Hill's Media Ready, Media Savvy Workbook
In addition to doing the Media Ready, Media Savvy work in the workbook – we can’t emphasize that enough – it’s critical to surface all the interesting aspects of your own life and your work to be ready for media engagements, you also need to be pursuing the other social media marketing avenues now available to you.
It’s about relationships and exposure. You’re having to do what politicians have to do to get elected. You need to connect with people, show them that you have something that will help them, that matters to them, and mean it.
When you have traditional media exposure you reach more people, but to get media exposure, the media professionals want to know that you already are someone worth of attention – and for that, you need to have an Internet presence that displays who you are and what you know and do. A major news reporting show reported in February 2012 that resumes may become obsolete, as more and more employers go straight online to see who you are. Some employers encourage you to apply directly with your LinkedIn account. (Are you on LinkedIn?)
What’s available to most of us who are unknown beyond our town?
Have a Twitter Account. Make friends and relationships with people who interest you and who may be able to help you reach a wider audience. Be sure to keep it reciprocal. The writer, author community on Twitter requires courtesy, appreciation and generosity. Take a look at just some of the authors on Twitter here on Listorious. It’s a new experience. Like learning to eat Sushi and use chopsticks. Or sitting cross-legged and in silence in a Zen dojo for hours. But it will be rewarding if you learn about it and practice.
What do you to with your Twitter account?
- Tweet your own links to blog posts (are you writing blog posts on a variety of topics related to your book and to your own interests and expertise as an author!)
- Retweet interesting links from others – other authors, other experts, other important events and fascinating quotes
- Search for people of similar interests and follow them, if you want, send a message to them and acknowledge something from their bio, or their website or blog. (It’s building relationships one little thread of words at a time.)
- Check out guest blogging opportunities on blogger sites that you could offer good content too. Guest blogging is valuable.
- Invite followers to like your Facebook Page, and offer different content now and again on your FB Page.
Have a Facebook Author Page. Some say do. Other say don’t. If you’re a bit shy, maybe you don’t do this right away. Maybe you stay with posting some news about your book on your personal facebook presence. But, if your book gets any traction, people are going to want to connect with you on Facebook, and you’ll either have to consider your personal account open to the public, or you’ll need to create a Facebook Page.
Author Page or Book Page? Author Page if you expect to have more than one book, and do workshops and talks. Author and book page? If you even have the stamina to consider it: when you have multiple books and think they’ll have enough going on individually to keep up a page, you could add a book page. When books get famous like Eat Pray Love and Who Moved My Cheese, and The Notebook (this is the movie FB Page), to name just a few, people want a connection with the book – to share about it. But most books just don’t affect people that way, so it’s much much less work and effort to stay with an Author Page.
What do you do on your Facebook Page?
- You invite your friends to it.
- You post links to your latest blog posts.
- You ask questions that would interest the people who like you and your work.
- You post related photos.
- You share some fun and interesting things that are going on in your writer related life. (And even more personal if you care to go there.)
- You ask other authors about their Pages, so you can follow those too.
- You share content from some of their Pages.
Have a Blog. Why have a blog? You’re a writer, and writing is what you know how to do. It just so happens that with blogs you can weave a rich and interesting net of information and stories that will draw people from online searches, as well as from Twitter, Facebook and your Website if you link everything, so deepen their relationship with you. Get to know you better, and probably want more of your content, including buying your book, if they relate to what you sasy.
So a blog is essential! Word is that agents and publishers are telling their authors to write one blog post a day. Not a week. Not every two weeks. Not once a month. Once a day.
Why so much? What if you don’t have time for it? What if you’re not motivated for it?
The truth is that unless your book is one of the all too few books that sell over 1,000 copies, unless it is a book that rises above 20,000 in sales and starts to get a buzz like The Secret Life of Bees, (1,594 Amazon reviews) and Eat Pray Love, (2,800 Amazon reviews) and The Help, (5,300 Amazon reviews), you’re competing with so much information for people’s attention that if you thought about it you would never try to write a book to earn fame or riches. The odds are daunting.
But we know you write because you love to write, because you have to write, because you have something really important or neat to say, so all we’re doing is giving you a heads up on the things YOU CAN CONTROL – which is how much exposure you create for yourself and your book – in a relationship building, not-in-your-face-selling-all-the-time way.
All of this takes a tremendous investment:
- Your precious and limited time
- Your focus and attention
- Learning new technologies
- Learning new cultures on each social media site
- Researching who to friend, follow and contact
- Thinking of the best content to share
- Trying new kinds of content and interactions
- Looking for the content of others to share
- Looking to build allies and relationships for cross promotion
- Researching bloggers who host guests, and book review blogs
… and a hundred hours later, you may not have sold a single book. Or you may have sold ten. But if you’re not getting out and getting seen and known, in the way that works for you, unless your book is one of the magical ones that takes off ( Remember Celestine Prophecy? (1000 Amazon reviews) We all know of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (5,700 Amazon reviews) ) then your book will die on the vine – on Amazon.com, on CreateSpace, on your website.
Is it OK to let a book die on the vine?
For most of us, it will be decided for us. There is no predicting what will sell. J.K. Rowling has said she had no idea that anyone would want to read her book. Wow was she surprised as she delighted the world.
Having published a book, we will always have that accomplishment, that credit as an author, and that legacy to hand down to those who follow us. So whether or not our book creates fireworks, or sells an honorable 1,000 copies, or the more likely 100, the exercise and accomplishment of writing and completing a book is a worthy act for every writer. Mastering marketing and sales, is a whole other field, one for Olympians or the well resourced.
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If you haven’t already, make a commitment to yourself to really be ready to talk about your book professionally and confidently by doing the work in Alison Hill‘s Media Ready, Media Savvy workbook. Order it from CreateSpace.com or Amazon.com, or as a PDF with an MS Word document to type out the exercises – see the right sidebar of this site.
ClearSight Multimedia is an imprint of ClearSight Creative Resources‘ micro-publishing initiative based in central North Carolina. ClearSight Creative Resources provides author services and social media marketing coaching and training for writers and authors.
