Tag Archives: Marketing

TBR Tuesday: Giveaway!

If you enjoyed Marketing Mondays last year, today’s giveaway is for you!


Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook
by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo

More about the book:

The rules of marketing have changed. Savvy marketing professionals know that they must engage with individuals directly on the Web, and smart businesses know that customers can become friends—with benefits. Friends With Benefits shows you how to get into the online marketing game. A guide filled with tips, tricks, and real-world case studies, Friends With Benefits shows how you can increase your company’s online visibility and Web traffic and win over online influencers.

Friends With Benefits explains how to:

  • Connect with potential customers and join their conversations
  • Tweak your website to support your social media marketing campaigns
  • Promote your products or brand and manage the toughest negative online feedback
  • Track marketing campaigns, monitor discussions, and measure success

With viral videos racking up millions of views and Twitter mavens influencing thousands of their friends, social media marketing is an essential new tool for every marketer’s toolbox. The expert authors of Friend With Benefits guide you through the social media landscape, where authenticity and connections are more important than the size of your marketing budget, and real results can be just a few clicks away.

FWB came out over three years ago (an eternity in Internetdom), and while some of the more specific advice is a little dated, the overall principles endure. It’s not tied to any particular platform, but focuses more on the high-level strategies to find potential customers and promote yourself online.

What do you have to do to enter?

  • You MUST leave a comment on this blog post AND fill out the Rafflecopter giveaway form (which will display below, I hope!)
  • Extra entry: Like my page on Facebook
  • Extra entry: Follow me on Twitter
  • Extra entry: Tweet about the giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What are your favorite marketing resources?

Marketing 101: Tailoring Your Marketing Strategy to You

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Marketing 101

Because it won’t work without you!

We’ve talked about strategy before, and quickly mentioned how important you as an individual are in your marketing strategy. At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll say again that beyond knowing your book and what’s unique about it better than anyone else. Your role in your own strategy is the key player, the mover and shaker—and yes, the marketer.

What does that mean for your strategy? It means that you’re going to have to stick to things you know how to do or are willing to learn. It means that you need to focus on tactics and campaigns you enjoy, do well, can reach your audience through, and, yes, have the time for.

Last time, I noted how important it is that you look at your past Internet habits as a clue to what kind of Internet marketing tactics might work well for you. But first, of course, you need your strategy to guide you.

You’ve already got your unique selling proposition statement and you already know how your book fits into the market—what it’s like and what it’s different from. You know why it appeals to your potential audience—and now it’s time to figure out how to apply strategic information to your tactics.

Moving from strategy to tactics

(Just in case you missed that the first time)

A lot of people out there will tell you that you must must MUST do X, Y, and Q7. But worrying about what someone who doesn’t know you or your audience thinks you “should” do—and forcing yourself to use tactics that crush your soul—is seldom a recipe for long term success.

In that vein, I’m not going to tell you that you have to use email, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, blogs or any other online or offline tactic. (Don’t forget about offline marketing!) Instead, we’re going to talk briefly about how to identify the tactics you want to use and how to figure out the best way for you to use them.

We’ve already mentioned using tactics that you’re comfortable with or willing to learn. Using that to narrow down your options is a good way to start. Let’s use Twitter as an example, and assume that you’re already comfortable with Twitter or have taken a little time to learn. (And yes, we’ll probably discuss Twitter as a tactic some time in the future on Marketing Mondays.)

The first thing you’ll want to do is observe. Watch how people use Twitter, both for marketing purposes and for personal purposes. You’ll note that on Twitter—as on many other platforms (and in person)—constantly talking about yourself and your book is generally considered bad form, and it’s a turn off for many people.

You’ll also see how people form friendships and connections on the site, and hopefully jump in and form them as well, moving into a connect phase. With social media, it’s usually the personal connections that count the most—something I hope you’ll see if you observe 😉 . These personal connections can be the most important part of your strategy. Look for people who are part of your audience, whom you would actually like to talk/Tweet to. Their Tweet streams look interesting, and they’re having conversations you’re interested in. You can also use site features like Lists (or groups on other sites) to look for people with similar interests, and watch how they converse with one another, then connect with them as well. Remember: we’re talking about building real connections, not just saying, “I’m going to target you because you are in my audience! Now I will address you as an audience but will never actually respond if you happen to acknowledge me! Prepare to be spammed!”

Ahem.

Once you’ve observed and connected, you’ll want to implement your observations. Maybe you saw someone with clever Tweets about their characters, or who retweeted good reviews in an interesting way, or whose site you checked out just because s/he was so friendly and helpful.

Naturally, you’ll also want to highlight your USP when it’s appropriate—perhaps in a quick reference in your Twitter profile. (Note that there, it’s less obtrusive—you’re kind of supposed to talk about yourself on your profile, after all.)

Using a marketing model

You can also identify a book—in your genre, similar in style, or in some other way comparable to yours (or it’s not really very useful: don’t try to emulate Harry Potter with your futuristic thriller!)—that you feel was positioned and marketed very well.

Then investigate how it was marketed: stalk follow (the social-media-ly acceptable way 😉 ) the author and look back at their Tweetstream/Facebook timeline/blog from the months leading up to the release. Search out where they were reviewed. Find groups/pages/lists on social sites that liked or discussed the book. And hey, why not see if you can find anything about the offline marketing? As you do this, think about how you can do this the same, but different for yourself: maybe the same blogs/readers/sites/events, maybe something similar more targeted toward your audience or book.

If you’re very, very lucky, you might even be able to track down something I’ve seen all of one time: an ARC that actually featured a brief overview of the marketing plan on the back cover.

Thinking outside the box

As my friend Rachelle Christensen mentioned last time, the same, but different is as important in marketing as it is in writing. We want plot lines that fit into the successful structures and formulas, that are familiar enough we can understand the events of the book, but aren’t the same old clichés we’ve seen a jabillion times.

The same thing goes in marketing. If every book is marketed with the same mix of commercials, end caps, billboards, blogs and social media, it becomes easier and easier for them to run together and potential readers to tune those out.

Thinking outside the box is a great way to attract some extra attention to your book . . . although that attention might not always be positive, depending on how far outside the box you go (just like when you break genre conventions).

I can’t tell you what to do when I say think outside the box. I do recommend brainstorming and keeping a file of marketing tactic ideas. Just like when you’re plotting and freewriting, don’t censor yourself. You can always delete dumb ideas later, but sometimes even the stupidest stuff can spur you on to greater creativity.

Once you’ve generated and developed those ideas, really evaluate them before implementing them. Will they fit in an existing framework—is this possible on Twitter? Is that too self-promotional for the Goodreads crowd? Is this just too far out there for the blogging crowd?

Don’t be afraid to be adventurous! Just take a little extra care when you’re doing something “not so traditional” (because we have such long-standing traditions on teh Interwebz) that you won’t alienate your potential readers.

What do you think? What else belongs in a marketing strategy? How do you figure out what tactics are right for you?

Image credits: social media strategy by Matthieu Dejardins; connections by Matthew Anderson, Montage Communications; think outside the box—Lefteris Koulonis

Marketing 101: When do I start?

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Marketing 101

So, now that we’ve established that we’re designing marketing strategies instead of aimlessly using disparate tactics and touting the emotional benefits of our novels, let’s talk about when we need to start marketing. The answer is pretty simple: today. And also tomorrow.

Before you sell a book

Before you sell your first book, you can begin marketing. A lot of that marketing will be in the form of query letters, pitches and other interactions with publishing professionals. But once you’re ready to query, you’re ready to market the one thing you do have: yourself.

While I do know people who have had editors approach them based on the excerpts on their websites/blogs, most of our audience before we have a book (or a deal) won’t be agents and editors. You definitely need to make your online presence professional, especially if you mention your site in your query or email signature—but you also want to keep in mind your audience, often other writers.

One way to do this, obviously, is a blog. You do NOT have to blog about writing unless you really want to (I did and I do). But when you’re ready to enter publishing, a blog is a great way to start putting yourself out there, making yourself known. We’ll be talking more about blogging soon, but one more note before we change the subject: I also recommend approaching blogging before a book deal as a way of networking. Make friends with other writers! Aside from not feeling like a lonely schizoid, you can help and get help from writer friends in strengthening writing craft, finding critique partners, researching and just having fun.

If you feel your writing is ready to submit to agents and editors, then it’s probably ready to put a sample up on your site, too. Because that’s what it’s all about, right? However, you don’t have to treat your blog audience as potential book buyers. They may or may not be—and before you have a book, they won’t be.

When you have a book!

Whether you’re going with a traditional publisher or self-publishing, marketing a book falls pretty heavily on the author’s shoulders.

Naturally, once you have a book in the works, you want to start working on promotional plans. Of course, with a traditional publisher, you will probably have a long lead time—and even you will probably get tired of hearing about your book by the time it comes out if you spend a year or two in hard sell mode. It’s a weird state of limbo—and where I find myself now. My biggest marketing activity right now is polishing up my strategies and tactics for sometime next year. But whenever I can share some good news about the process—a release date, turning in edits, a cover—of course you know I will!

But as your real live release date gets closer, you’ll want to start putting your bigger plans in action. A couple years ago at the LDStorymakers writing conference, author Heather B. Moore recommended this timeline for marketing an upcoming release:

6 months before release: get endorsements—blurbs on the book and on your website (yes, even before the book comes out)

4–6 months before release: line up newspaper reviewers and prominent blog reviewers for a national release and get those ARCs out ASAP

3 months before release: line up reviewers—newspapers and blogs—for regional releases

1-2 months before release: schedule launch events and book signings

Also prepare your marketing materials (bookmarks, fliers, postcards, etc.) well in advance! Check on your printer’s schedule and allow plenty of lead time to have your materials in your hands (or in bookstores) when your book gets there, or a few weeks before.

When your book releases:

  • Get books to remaining reviewers (some don’t want ARCs)
  • Hold a book launch at bookstore, library or other location that is related to your book
  • Issue a press release (you MUST hit on something unique and interesting—AKA a hook—to have any hope of getting this published) or a news item—line up writer friends to feature your announcement in their newsletters
  • Schedule future book signings—talk to store owners

Now, this timeline is built for a traditional publishing schedule. If you’re self-publishing, you don’t necessarily have to wait 6 months to drum up interest first—but starting your marketing 3-4 months before your release (a bare minimum of one month) is definitely a good idea to help get your name and your book out there.

You don’t want to pour too much promotion effort into a book that might not ever see the light of day, and you don’t want to overwhelm the good information and content on your blog with self-promotion—but there’s most lkely something for you to market right now, whether that’s yourself or your upcoming release.

What do you think? When did or will you start your marketing?

Photo credits: handshake—Lea Hernandez; calendar—Tanakawho

Marketing 101: How to market fiction

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Marketing 101

AKA Not Features, Benefits

If marketing is getting your product into the minds of your audience, the people who are looking for your solution (or persuading people to look for your solution), how does that help with marketing fiction books?

When marketing nonfiction, it’s easy to figure out what problem you’re solving: it’s what you’re book is about. But when you’re marketing, you don’t focus JUST on what your book is about (the features). You focus on what your book can do for your readers: THE BENEFITS.

What are the benefits? Rob Eagar explains at Wildfire Marketing’s “Marketing Made Simple“:

Book readers, consumers, and donors don’t care about your topic, genre, mission, or product features. Their primary concern is how you can make their life better. Therefore, they want to know the RESULTS that you can create for them. Even people who donate to non-profits need to feel like they’re getting something in return for their donation.

 

To avoid confusion, I define a result as any positive outcome, life change, or tangible improvement that you create for someone who reads your book, buys your product, or donates to your cause. In addition, the description of a result must be specific enough to generate emotional interest.

That’s great for nonfiction. If your book is about blogging, you focus on how it will make your readers into . . . well, independent thousand-aires. If your book is about parenting, you focus on the result: your child will behave or you will be happy. If your book is about writing, you focus on the benefits: your writing will be better/more vivid/more engaging/actually sell.

So how does that help in selling fiction? What’s the benefit in a book that doesn’t have an easy solution to use? Last week, we established that our audience is our genre and the problem that we solve varies a little bit by genre, but underlying all of them is that we give readers an experience they want: excitement, fun, connection, contemplation, novelty, etc. That “emotional interest” that nonfiction creates is built in for fiction: it’s emotion itself.

Or as author/blogger/marketer Kristin Lamb wrote also last week:

Why do readers buy fiction?

One of the reasons readers are so loyal to authors is because of how that author’s stories made them feel. James Rollins makes me feel like I’ve had an exciting adventure. Sandra Brown makes me feel love is worth fighting for. Amy Tan makes me feel hope and power. J.K. Rowling’s stories make me feel heroic.

Fiction authors are brokers of passionate emotion.

Fiction creates emotions, and those emotions are the reason people buy and read fiction. And not just the emotions characters feel in scenes (though writing characters’ emotion isn’t easy, it’s very much worth it), but the emotions the scenes and the plot and the theme overall create in readers.

I also liked the way Vince Mooney put it, writing a few years ago on Prairie Chicks Write Romance (via):

Fans are Buying a “Basket of Feelings”

I like to think that a romance fan is really buying a ‘basket of feelings’. Fans know that some themes, like the ‘hidden baby’ theme, will provide a predictable set of feelings. When these feelings are in ‘deficit’, fans can actually develop a craving for a given romance theme.

He was addressing romance writers, but this is true in all genres. (He also has a great list of the types of “rewards [AKA benefits] per page” readers look for.)

So how do you market the feelings? You do NOT flat out say, “My book will make you feel strong/heroic/happy/victorious.” As with everything in writing, you show, don’t tell in marketing copy. Yep, despite starting off by saying “Don’t talk about what your book is about,” the fact is, in fiction, the unique value your book adds to the market, the reason why people want to buy it, is found in what your book is about, starting from the genre on down.

This is why it’s so important to make your genre clear through context in something as short as an elevator pitch. Compare these very differently focuses for the same story:

Struggling artist Margaux Williams must overcome her insecurities and face down her fears to prove to herself she deserves a successful career.

Struggling artist Margaux Williams must sacrifice her future to stop the killer who shares her home.

Struggling artist Margaux Williams has one shot at a successful career, until she falls for the one man who could ruin it all.

All those things can happen in the same story (to some degree)—but all those loglines promise very different emotional experiences. We need to be clear on what emotional experiences our audience looks for, and how our book fulfills that search.

The longer our selling opportunity, the more important it is to show readers the kind of experience we offer. Queries and back cover copy, both a couple of paragraphs, give us more time to develop the character and make the reader care about them (a prerequisite for the reader feeling those emotions in most cases), and more time to show the conflict and stakes—all opportunities to show that emotion.

And of course, the pièce de résistance of showing that emotion should be our books themselves. They don’t have to be trite retelling of the same old cliché storyline that sells in your genre, but you should know where your book fits within its genre, who your audience is, and most of all, what experiences they expect—and whether you deliver.

What do you think? What benefits (emotions) do readers look for in your genre? Do you deliver?

Photos by Maëka Alexis (the many faces), Sara (basketcase), and Malik M. L. Williams (book)

Marketing 101: What is marketing?

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Marketing 101

An Overview, or, It might not be quite as obvious as you think

Now, most people understand what marketing is—or at least we think we do. But sometimes even marketing professionals can’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to the practice of marketing.

We all know that TV commercials and banner ads are a form of marketing, but they’re both different types of advertising, which is just one marketing tactic. The first things we think of when we think of marketing—search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, email, blog tours, giveaways—are also tactics.

Then what’s marketing? In my mind, marketing is getting your product into the minds of your audience, the people who are looking for your solution. Marketing can also help to persuade people to look for your solution, but a large part of marketing is connecting to a pre-existing audience, people who are either already interested in the type of product you’re selling or who have the problem your product solves.

Sometimes it seems like fiction authors are at a disadvantage here. Nonfiction authors frequently do have products designed to solve problems and benefit readers. Where do fiction authors fit in?

Just like with my characters’ goals in fiction, I was overthinking this one a lot. (It’s like a hobby.) I was so focused on trying to figure out what problem we solve for our customers. But really, we have it pretty easy! Your audience is built in: it’s your genre.

After all, you’re probably not going to want to put your product in front of people who won’t like it. (Sorry, there’s no such thing as “universal appeal.”)

And the problem that we solve? It varies a little bit by genre, but underlying all of them is that we give them an experience they want: excitement, fun, connection, contemplation, novelty.

Once you figure out those things, all you have to do is get your product (book) in front of that audience through tactics like those we mentioned before—but for the best effectiveness (not to mention your personal sanity), it’s best to pursue a unified strategy in your marketing tactics.

What’s your audience/genre? What experiences are your readers looking for?

Coming up: Features vs. benefits — and — Tactics vs. strategy — and — When should I start marketing?

Image, battle of Waterloo, by Ipankonin

So Your Book’s Out—Now what? Candace E. Salima on marketing your books

This begins a series of notes from the 2009 LDStorymakers Conference

Presented by Candace E. Salima (blog)

The publisher is responsible for getting book printed & to stores—the rest is up to you

Branding your name and the most effective use of your time and books

Author website

  • homepage
  • announcements on main page: upcoming books, book trailer, etc. (sticky posts! Or alt new front page, blog relegated)—always include purchase link!—the goal is to get them to buy the book
  • about you section:bio, recommended reading and viewing, (hired publicist—Doug Johnston), contact
  • media—events: book groups, speaking engagements, chats, online classes, podcast, screenplays, blog
  • books (my projects)—Have a purchase link either selling directly or to publisher (affiliate link) or to Amazon—upcoming and books in print
  • has bookstore on her website to draw more traffic in
  • contests—bring in more and more people who want to win things
  • links, feedback, recipe, chat place—friendliness, welcoming

Website goal: pull people in & try to keep them there, chatting with other fans, etc.—make sure the site isn’t just static—draw them back!

One key: (not fact, but a strong opinion): make website as professional as possible [From an Internet marketing professional, let me just add: it’s pretty much a fact 😉 ]

check out other authors’ websites, make a list of things you like and don’t

Blog

  • Get your name out there even more because you have a constantly changing thing—dedicate it to writing or whatever—post at least every 3-4 days to keep people coming back
  • Maintaining email list of interested reviewers!—authors incognito
  • good for virtual book tours—start drawing readers to your site—reviewing others’ books! (affiliate links):
    • Post titles—use author name and title in review post title
    • draw in fans of other authors—they’ll see you like this book, maybe they’ll like your books
    • comment on others’ blog tour posts reviewing your books; offer to answer questions in the comments—combine to interview
  • find a passion to use on you blog (hers is politics)

Social Networking

  • Twitter box on blog
  • FACEBOOK—pages
    • fans
    • promote everyone she knows, enjoys
    • NOTES
    • photos of covers—include summary and purchase link

Articles

Write articles for magazines you purchase and website magazines.

Book trailers

  • Once again, make it look professional! You don’t want anything associated with your book to give someone an impression of amateurism.
  • Post it on your blog and website

Public speaking

  • get the word out on the topics you’d like to speak on
  • Candace did a national 21-day, 11-city book tour for $800: planned around where family members live
  • Volunteer: book readings at libraries—reading to kids, ESL classes—improve your sphere of influence (but don’t just do it out of selfishness 😉 )

Promoting New Releases

  • post Facebook note
  • Post on your blog and post to your social networking stuff
  • virtual book tours
  • firesides
  • news item (not press release)—radio, TV, print—something a publicist can do for you
  • ARCs to media outlets—again with publicist
  • dress for success for public speaking: clean, professional, comfortable (standing up, walking around), on time, interactive

Marketing your book will guarantee your success. The harder you work, the more it gets out there, the happier your publisher will be.

Questions:
Do you have any advice for handling negative reviews and bad press?
“Sure, it brings more sales. Be happy.”
“If you get a bad review, so what?” — Counteract by recruiting friends, family (blog readers) to give positive reviews)

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.