Tag: book marketing

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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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News

New Book: Successful Author FAQs

Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words

Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words

Peter Lyle DeHaan’s latest book is Successful Author FAQs.

Do you have questions about writing? Publishing?

Veteran author, publisher, editor, and freelance writer, Peter Lyle DeHaan answers questions writers often ask.

In 15 topical chapters, tackling over 100 questions, Peter addresses finding time to write, publishing options, and platform considerations. He talks about marketing, blogging, the traditional vs indie publishing debate, and much more.

With over three decades of experience, career author Peter Lyle DeHaan has answers to questions writers commonly ask. He’ll help you move forward on your writing journey.

On this grand adventure:

  • Learn why you shouldn’t call yourself an aspiring writer.
  • Uncover tips to deal with rejection.
  • Expose writing advice that may not be true.
  • Discover how to self-edit, get feedback, and find an editor.
  • Determine if being a writer is worth the effort.

But there’s more. There are also loads of writing tips, submission pointers, and a publishing checklist.

Be inspired. Be informed. Be motivated to become the writer you’ve always dreamed of.

Don’t delay your writing journey any longer. Take the next step.

It’s time to start calling yourself a writer.

Read Successful Author FAQs to explore the art of writing and the business of publishing.

[Successful Author FAQs was first published in 2019 as The Successful Author. This new release contains updated text and additional sections.]

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

Blogging Your Book

I blogged parts of two books, and the posts serve to draw readers into my topic, and then point them to my books.

Some people turn blog posts into a book, while others blog parts of their book once they have written it, and a few people blog the book as they write it.

This works great with nonfiction and memoir, but it’s difficult to pull off for fiction. (See my post, “How to Blog Your Fiction Book.”)

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

Three Reasons to Comment on Blog Posts – and One Reason Not To

3 Reasons to Comment on Blog Posts

There are several blogs I follow; I read them whenever I can. Sometimes I just read, and other times I read and comment. Only a small percent of blog readers take time to comment. The reasons are many: too busy, a lack of confidence, not knowing what to say, fear, and so forth. There are, however, some reasons why we should comment. Here are three:

1) To Interact With Others: The biggest reason to comment is to connect with other likeminded readers. Some do more than just comment on the post, they also comment on other comments. Just remember to keep things positive and civil. Don’t say something online you wouldn’t say in person to your closest friends.

2) To Connect With The Author: As we read blogs, we get to know the author, but the author doesn’t know us at all, though most want to. Adding relevant comments, with appropriate self-disclosure allows the author (and other readers) to get to know us. And don’t we all want to be known?

3) A Link to Our Site: Though it’s secondary, most commenting programs allows us to include a link to our website when we comment. This is good for search engine optimization (SEO), and it provides a means for others to learn more about us if they wish.

4) Not to Promote Our Book: Commenting on blogs is not the place to promote ourselves or our books. Comments are for dialogue not marketing. Avoid temptation.

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

Public Relations and Promoting Your Book

Public Relations

Book publishing is more than just writing and producing books; it is also about selling them. Selling books requires a host of skills, including marketing, promotion, and public relations. Yes, public relations—PR for short.

At its most basic level, public relations is managing the flow of information from an entity (a company, organization, or an individual) to the public. As in the case of authors, the goal of this flow of information is to increase awareness of a book, both published and soon to be published. The intent is to produce interest in the ultimate purpose of generating sales. In between awareness and sales, lies intermediary goals such as sparking dialogue, fueling a buzz, encouraging word-of-mouth promotion, and even the hope of the campaign going viral, all of which is publicity.

When people think of PR, they think of the time-honored press release. But a press release is just that: it’s the start; it’s not the end. There is also advertising, interviews, email marketing, influencing the influencers, networking, book signings, book tours, and so on.

Though selling books and PR is more the concern of the self-published author, it also comes into play with traditionally published books. Publishers expect authors to promote their books, and often the publisher’s PR department’s budget for the book allows little more than sending out a press release.

While most authors will not master the art of public relations, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

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

The Power of Podcasting: Four Reasons to Have an Author Podcast

Author Podcast

It seems people are jumping on the podcasting bandwagon. They want to grow their audience and build their platform in order to sell their books (or whatever other product or service they have to offer).

This makes sense. Look at the recent surge of interest in audiobooks, with people who “read” books by listening to a recording. They do this during their commute to and from work, as they exercise, or when they attend to projects around the house. They have become voracious “readers” without ever opening a book or turning on their e-reader.

Podcasting extends the audiobook mindset. A podcast simply becomes another audio expression for these folks to consume.

Here are some of the benefits of author podcasts:

Another Channel to Reach Readers

A natural communication channel for writers is the written word. Blogging connects nicely with that. Readers read books; readers read blogs. It makes sense, a lot of sense. However readers who listen to books won’t likely read a blog, but they will likely listen to a podcast. With podcasting, writers have two ways to reach their audience.

Another Means to Connect with Readers

When we read a book or blog post we use the sense of sight to see the words. When we listen to a book or a podcast we use the sense of sound. With audio, we use voice inflections, interject emphasis, and add timing to each sentence as we speak. These benefits of audio all allow us a better means to connect with our audience.

Another Creative Outlet For Authors

Writing is a creative art; so is speaking. Both communicate but in different ways. Both provide creative outlets, but which tap different aspects of our creativity.

A Fun Break From Writing

No matter how much we like to write, we all need to take a break. After all, once we spend a full day working on our book, do we really want to spend another hour writing a blog post? Not likely, but spending that hour on podcasting provides a nice alternative to writing. Then we can return to writing with a refreshed perspective.

Given these great benefits, you might be ready to jump on the podcasting bandwagon. Not so fast. First, you need to consider whether podcasting is right for you. Next week I’ll look at my experience with podcasting, which should provide some more insight into this intriguing communication option.

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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Categories
Writing and Publishing

Discover How to Know If You Have a Marketable Book

what is marketble

Have you ever wondered if you have a marketable book? Most people have, especially anyone who wants to make a living from writing.

You can pay someone to give you their opinion on what’s marketable before spending hours writing. Although you can do internet searches to find them, I recommend going to the websites of agents you respect. Some provide writer services on the side and would gladly charge you a fee to offer their opinion on if you have a marketable book. Other sites provide lists of respected service providers.

However, the operative word here is an opinion. Aside from some basic book tips, the best anyone can do is offer their opinion. Ask two people, and you will likely get two opinions. Often they may conflict with each other.

Consider all the stories we hear about agents and editors rejecting submissions, based on their opinions that the novel won’t sell. But then after twenty, forty, or even more rejections, it crosses one person’s desk who doesn’t reject it. In her opinion it’s marketable. Sometimes that proves correct and becomes a best seller.

All of this to say, you can ask around and even pay for advice from someone to tell you if you have a marketable book idea. But in the end, just go with your gut and write what you’re passionate about.

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

Tips on Finding an Agent to Represent You

finding an agent

Finding an agent is easy. Just do an online search for “literary agents.” However, getting an agent to agree to represent you is hard, very hard.

Unlike hiring an accountant or attorney to represent us where we can vet them and pick the best one to meet our needs, agents vet their clients so they can pick the best ones.

Remember that agents only earn money if they sell one of their clients’ books. So unless a client is a polished writer, there’s a good chance the agent will spend a lot of time working for the client and have nothing to show for it. Therefore, they have a strong incentive to only take on clients whose work they think they can sell.

How to Impress Agents

This means we need to sell ourselves to agents. Here’s what’s required:

  • Hone your skill as a writer.
  • Set up a professional online presence. They will check for one and will expect to find it.
  • If you’re on social media, make sure it’s professional and conveys you in a positive manner. Do everything you can to remove negative comments and unflattering photos. But remember that once something’s online, it never really goes away.
  • Learn how to pitch your book, write a one-page summary, submit a query, and produce a proposal.
  • Learn about agents you’d like to have represent you. Follow their blogs and make respectful, thoughtful comments.
  • Ask other writers, who you trust, to give you an honest answer if your work is ready for agents.

Know that writing ability is only part of the equation.

What Agents Look For

Agents will also want you to have a platform so that you can help sell books. When I was looking for an agent, one agent declined to represent me, not because of my writing, but because they thought my platform was too small.

Be Patient When Finding an Agent

A final item is to be patient. Finding an agent to represent you takes time, usually several months and often years. As you wait, keep working to improve as a writer and building your platform.

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

More on Blogging Your Book

blogging your book

Is blogging your book a good idea? If you blog your book, why will people buy it? Logic suggests they wouldn’t, but the reality is that most people will.

Let me share what I’ve learned from other writers. I’ve yet to talk to anyone who felt their blog posts hurt their book sales. Even when their entire book is available on their blog, they still think their posts help sales, not hurt it.

My conclusion is that it comes down to convenience. It’s easier to read a book than to page through a series of posts on a website. Also, the purpose of blogs is for short, intermittent reading, while books have the opposite goal. Therefore, blogging your book is okay.

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.