If you do what everyone else is doing, you'll get what they are getting!
My inbox is overflowing with emails from publishers and marketing organisations of all shapes and sizes, urging me to promote my book with them. For a price or a subscription, they offer to make my book seen on all sorts of platforms and to give me ‘good visibility’ But they are missing one vital point.
If people have never heard about you or your book, why would they take any notice? Many authors worry that they lack a sufficient following to attract readers and customers. All they can think of doing is shouting about the plot of their book, the characters, or the story in the hope that it will attract the interest of a random visitor. You would be as well standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and shouting to the pigeons!
The biggest lesson that authors need to know is that ‘people buy people’ before they buy anything else. Don’t shout about your book, instead shout about you, your passion and your enthusiasm and about the things that fascinate you. There are many more people out there who share your interests and love to read about them. Your blogs will attract them.
Suppose that you are a fiction writer and love historical stories. To write about the period you have set the book in, you will need to become a bit or an expert on the history of the time, the politics, the fashion of the time and the way people lived. The chances are you have a considerable amount of information that never made it into the book. So is it wasted? Not at all. Position yourself on your website as being passionate about history and the life and times of your characters. You will find that there is a significant following of people who share your love for the subject. Use your website to feed their curiosity, not just to sell your book!
Equally, you may be a non-fiction author, writing on your specialist subject. Are you doing public speaking or training sessions? Your magic word is ”Repurposing”. Whenever you are talking, you are creating new content. So, how can you re-use, re-purpose and re-broadcast it? You have many channels available to you, and all of them are hungry for new content. You probably have more content to draw from than you imagine!
Your strategy needs to be to be the star of your own show, rather than you hiding behind your book. Become known for your knowledge, your passion and your enthusiasms. Find new ways of sharing the things you love, and building a following of people who share your same interests. Increasingly, podcast are a popular space for this.
Your book sales will happen as a result of you positioning yourself as an expert, an author, a speaker and somebody worth following. It doesn’t work the other way round.
It costs nothing to raise your profile as an expert. One of the most effective ways to do so is to broadcast regularly using Facebook Live. YouTube shorts are equally good. You can talk directly into the camera on your phone and share what is on your mind. Short, sweet and valuable. Always give a call to action and always mention your book!
Do your emails have a signature which includes an image of your book, and a link to purchase it? If not, you are missing out!
Focus on raising your personal profile at every opportunity. The book sales will follow.
Chris Day – Founder of Filament Publishing Ltd. Author Coach