Tag: advertising

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Writing and Publishing

Do-It-Yourself Marketing

Do it yourself marketing, by Peter DeHaan

After several years of unsuccessfully hiring book marketing experts, I realized I had two choices. The first was to not do any book promotion. The other was to do it myself.

With great reticence, I decided to do it myself. I did this knowing it would detract from my writing and reduce my output.

I looked at the conventional book promotion strategies of traditional book publishers, all the while suspecting that much of it no longer applies in today’s rapidly changing publishing landscape.

I made a list.

Next, I added what leading indie-published authors were doing. Some of the items seem doable and others turned my stomach; just thinking about them made me nauseous.

Then I divided the list into three categories: the yes list, the maybe list, and the no list.

My yes list included all the marketing I was open to do. The second list of maybe items contained activities I was willing to do if needed. And the final list, which contained my no tasks, were things I was unwilling to do, my non negotiables.

With clarity in place, I set about developing a book marketing strategy that would tap into my yes list and avoid my no list. It’s what works for me, and it may work for you.

Takeaway

Do the marketing activities you’re willing to do and avoid the ones that suck the life out of you. This won’t maximize sales, but it will keep you moving forward in a healthy way for the long term.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

Hiring Marketing Experts

Hiring marketing experts, by Peter DeHaan

Hiring someone to market our books seems like a logical decision. After all, we hire professionals to edit our books and design our covers, so why not book marketing too?

This is exactly what I thought and precisely what I did. Over the years I’ve hired a book launch expert, a publicist, a book marketing consultant, and an SEO (search engine optimization) guru, a social media specialist, and a book marketing professional.

Each one was a complete failure. I was never able to directly attribute a single book sale to the tens of thousands of dollars I spent hiring them. Nor did I ever see an overall bump in book sales during their time with me.

The only hire that came close to working out was the book ads expert. After three months of losses, the fourth month generated more attributable book sales than ad costs. Yet once I paid the fee for their services, I still lost money.

Now I run my own ads. I also do all the other needed book marketing activities—even though I don’t want to.

Takeaway: Though authors can hire professionals to cover many areas, finding an effective book marketer may not be one of them.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

Using a Book Advance for Marketing

Using Your Advance for Marketing - NOT

Some publishers strongly suggested that authors use their advance for marketing their book. Though this sounds reasonable, my advice is not to do it unless you have a long-term reason for it.

First, let’s talk about advances. An advance for a book was originally intended as money for the author to live on as they wrote their book.

Nowadays, fiction books must be completed before a publisher offers a contract. Many nonfiction authors also write their book before signing a publishing agreement. Therefore, needing an advance to cover living expenses while writing the book is no longer an issue.

Over time the advances have reportedly decreased to the mid to low four figures. I even know of one publisher who routinely offers $100 advances, though I do question their ethics.

Though you are understandably disappointed about your low advance, it’s not unusual.

This brings us to your publisher’s request to use your meager advance to market your book. The worry is that if your first book doesn’t sell well, they’ll never offer a contract for your second one. Spending your advance to market your first book to ensure a second book is published may be a move you want to make. Just know that the second book contract is not guaranteed.

Consider, however, the reality of book publishing. Most traditionally published books don’t earn out. This means there’s never enough book sales to offset the advance. Therefore, the writer never earns one penny of royalties.

As a result, for most traditionally published authors, the advance is the only money they’ll ever earn from their book. Though you may be an exception to this, the odds are that you won’t.

Do you really want to spend all your book’s earnings on marketing?

Take away: Though there is no right answer, consider carefully how you use your book advance for marketing.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

Put the Reader First or Risk Losing Them

Write for your audience, and don’t try to impress others with your skill

I recently read a nonfiction book. My assessment was that the author wrote to impress more than to educate. Though I did learn from her words, I’d have gained much more had she gotten out of the way and put me, the reader, first. I didn’t care how educated she was or about her sometimes sassy style. I wanted her to teach me.

Regardless if we’re writing a book, article, or blog post, we need to put the reader first. Our words need to serve them, not call attention to ourselves with our clever use of words or the way we weave a phrase. The same applies to sales copy and marketing efforts for our books.

Whatever our promotional activities, we must carefully consider each campaign from the perspective of the prospect. Before we launch our promotion, even before the test marketing, we should take a step back and look at our creation as if we were the prospect.

Consider an email I received. It was set up like an email newsletter. The first item caught my attention. The email only provided a two-line teaser, so I clicked on “more” to read the rest.

That took me to a website (as opposed to the full text, lower in the email). Unfortunately, that page only provided the first four lines of the text, so I couldn’t read further until I clicked on “read the full article.” I was six lines into it when the screen grayed out and an ad popped up, covering the entire piece. Then I had to “skip” the commercial so I could close the ad.

As this happened an intriguing video played to the right. My curiosity was piqued, and I wanted to hear the audio, but there was no volume control or “on” button. Incredible!

By then I had lost interest in the article and was peeved by the entire ordeal. I closed the window and opted-out from receiving further messages from the company.

I doubt that was their intent.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

3 Ways to Create Top of Mind Awareness

Marketing can have one of two goals: make sales or create awareness. Although any marketing effort can do both of these, it will only do one of them well.

This post will discuss ways to create awareness—and when done right, top-of-mind awareness. That is, having our author brand be what a reader first thinks of when he or she considers what book to read next. Awareness, which some would call branding, is built slowly over time. Here are three strategies to consider:

  1. Articles enhance awareness both online and in print but especially in print. Publishers appreciate a well-written article that’s interesting and provides useful information. It will establish the author as a credible source and a knowledgeable resource. It creates awareness.
  2. Blogging is a great way to develop a following and increase awareness in those who read our blog. And as a post is shared more people will be exposed to us and our writing.
  3. Online efforts including guest blogging, commenting on blogs (real comments, not “buy my book”), and interacting on social media. These take time and require effort, but when done wisely they produce great results—and backfire dramatically if done badly. Each is its own art and requires time to develop.

There are other creative tactics that authors can do to increase brand awareness, but these are some of the top ones. Just remember, branding is building for the future. For the most part, it’s not going to immediately sell books, but if it does that’s just a pleasant bonus. Book sales require a different approach.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

5 Benefits of Using Online Advertising to Sell Books

With an online ad, a book sale is one click away

I once shared columnist Andrew Brenneman’s thoughts on the benefits of print advertising. It is, by the way, a compelling list that includes things we take for granted or overlook. Print advertising is the medium of choice to meet certain marketing objectives.

Notwithstanding that list, he also shares the benefits of online advertising. Consider these when contemplating marketing your book online using paid advertising:

1) Dynamic: It is essentially immediate, and can be updated as needed. Test an ad, tweak it, analyze the results, and then make it even better.

2) Two-way: It facilitates easy interaction and dialogue. Answers and access are a click away when an ad is online.

3) Medium Resolution: Although online’s medium image resolution pales in comparison to print’s hi-rez capabilities, it also works nicely on mobile’s tiny displays.

4) Transaction-Enabled: A sale is but a click away. This allows for the easy tracking of ROI (return on investment). As long as an ad costs less than the profit on the sale of our book, we can run as many ads as we can afford.

5) Personalized: Offers can be tailored to the recipient and targeted to specific demographics.

Online advertising and marketing are getting all the attention and hype these days, in part because of these factors. If these are your goals (seriously, they must be your goals—not what you think your goals should be or what someone else told you), then embrace online book promotions and pursue them diligently. However, when doing this, don’t forget to consider the benefits of non-online advertising.

Book marketing success, as with most things in life, requires balance: online and offline promotions and marketing initiatives.

Have you thought about running online ads for your book? Where have you run book ads? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

12 Tips to Create a Better Book Ad

Designing a great ad is an art that takes practice

In my work as a magazine publisher, I see all sorts of print ads, from good to bad, appealing to boring, effective to ineffective. While ad creation is an art, one that requires both practice and talent, it’s also something that can be learned.

The biggest difference between a good ad and a bad ad is the use of white space. Novices fill every square millimeter of space with stuff: information and images they deem relevant and critical to their message. And if the words don’t all fit, they simply reduce the point size of the font until it does. Then to make key words or certain phrases stand out, they use italics, bold, underline, and uppercase. While none of these are necessarily bad, they need to be used with much restraint.

Seasoned ad creators do the opposite. They know:

  1. White space is your friend.
  2. Graphics or photos are the focal points to grab attention and draw them in. Remember: “A picture speaks a thousand words.”
  3. Embellishing text with bold, underline, italic, and UPPERCASE screams is seldom a good move.
  4. Having less text increases the chance people will actually read it.

With these basics out of the way, here are some tips about the words in the ad:

  1. Put the reader first; give them value. It’s not about you.
  2. Communicate one message.
  3. Write a great headline; make it count.
  4. Use a subhead if it advances your message.
  5. Every word you use must have a purpose.
  6. Make the text readable and flow. Complete sentences, correct punctuation, and even grammar technicalities don’t matter.
  7. Include a compelling call to action at the end.
  8. Carefully proof the ad, and have other people review it.

These are the ads that get people’s attention. They elevate your book and position it as a must-read. And if the ad has a compelling call to action, they may even buy your book.

Today’s prospects look at pictures and scan headlines. They don’t actually read something unless you grab their attention first – and then you need to keep it by presenting a short and interesting message.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

Three Reasons to Advertise in a Social Media World

Social media and its wide reach on the Internet have given rise to word-of-mouth book recommendations. Given this trend, some book marketers wonder if there’s still a role for traditional advertising. Here are three reasons why traditional advertising is critical to promote books in a social media world:

Advertising Influences Recommendations: We don’t form opinions in a vacuum. Outside forces influence us. One credible source is advertising. These visual mediums provide a strong, but the subconscious influence of how we feel and think. This includes influencing the book recommendations we receive and give. Sometimes we even make recommendations about books we haven’t read but only saw in ads.

Advertising Reinforces Recommendations: Once we hear a recommendation we seldom accept it as indisputable. First, we contemplate it. When considering a book recommendation we often reject it if it lacks reinforcement. This is a subconscious act and advertising provides a key reinforcement of the book recommendation as it’s being considered.

Advertising Confirms Recommendations: Once we accept a book recommendation as a viable option, we seek confirmation. Without confirmation, the validity of the recommendation falls into question, and we’ll likely dismiss it. Advertising is a key means of confirming word-of-mouth recommendations.

In each case the role of advertising is subtle, and we can’t measure it. The influence, reinforcement, and confirmation roles book advertising play in word-of-mouth recommendations are seldom realized by those receiving it, but it is a critical factor. Without it, the recommendation will fail to materialize and produce a sale.

Wise book marketers use advertising to influence, reinforce, and confirm word-of-mouth recommendations. The only remaining decision is determining where to advertise.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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Writing and Publishing

4 Tips to Capitalize on Social Media

It seems many authors are putting all of their book marketing efforts into social media. This is often shortsighted and not cost-effective. Discover how to capitalize on social media.

It seems many authors are putting all of their book marketing efforts into social media. This is often shortsighted and not cost-effective.

Though I’m not dismissing social media, it’s critical to proceed only in a practical, informed, and responsible way—and not just because everyone else is doing it or in reaction to the latest trend.

1. Media Not Marketing

First, it’s called social media, not social marketing. The distinction is key. Use social media for social stuff, not for marketing. It seems common sense. While social media can feed into book marketing, it is not a marketing machine.

2. Determine Your Objectives

Next, what are your objectives? Facebook fanatics brag about the number of friends they have. Twitter is about follows and LinkedIn looks at connections. Then there’s Pinterest, Instagram, and Goodreads—which is a great place for writers.

What is your goal for each platform? Is it sheer numbers or significant interaction? Quantity or quality?

3. Return on Investment

Third, we must treat social media like every other consideration, looking at the return on investment (RIO). What is the cost? What is the return?

Unless we have unlimited time, whatever we spend on social media detracts from something else. We must invest our time on what offers the best return.

4. Consider Opportunity Cost

Last, some people claim there is no direct cost for social media, but the time spent on social media is a time not spent somewhere else. Pursuing social media has an opportunity cost.

We shouldn’t ignore this, even though most people do. What we give up for social media could be damaging to our long-term viability as a writer.

Social Media Summary

It’s up to you on rather you want to capitalize on social media or dismiss it. Although it may be uncool to not make social media a priority, it may also be the best decision you can make.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Seven Marketing Touches Are Required for Success

Marketing experts say it takes an average of seven marketing touches before a consumer buys a product. Advertisers who run a couple of ads and give up are giving up too quickly. As writers with a book (or service) to sell, we need to keep this in mind if we want to maximize our success.

While we can accomplish each of these seven touches via the same promotional channel, we should tap multiple ones for greater effectiveness. What options might we consider?

Start with a press release; it’s not much, but everything helps. Email blasts, assuming we have an email list, are a great way to connect with our readers and potential book buyers. Website ads on destinations our audience frequents offer a third option.

Guest blogging is a fourth consideration, followed by social media mentions and ads, especially Facebook and Twitter. There is also direct mail. Another consideration is print ads, providing we find the right publication.

This is seven options for seven touches, but don’t use every option. Pick the ones that feel right. Regardless of which ones we select, we must have our book highlighted on our own website. This is essential; it is key to success.

When it comes to booking promotion, keep in mind that just because something is available, doesn’t mean we should use it. Carefully test each option before investing time and money into it. While some options have relatively minor cost, there is still the cost of time—time that we can’t spend doing something else.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

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