April 28, 2008
We talked the other day about an example of an editor personally connecting with a buyer (in this case, me) after a purchase. It was an excellent example of relationship building with your target market for your book.
So today I want to ask you… how else can authors build a relationship with their audience, whether one-on-one or not? I’ll kick it off with a few basic ideas. I hope you’ll leave a comment to help expand the list, sharing your own experiences (either as an author, publisher, or even customer).
Ways to Connect With Customers or Potential Customers
- Keep an author blog where you update your audience on news, expand upon topics covered in your book, etc.
- Distribute a newsletter that works in a similar fashion - don’t just regurgitate what your book already tells them… go beyond that. Let them get to know you, and the subject matter, a bit more personally.
- Respond to comments on your blog. This is just as important, if not moreso, than the blogging itself. Why? Because this is where the “conversation,” or real interaction, comes in. This is where you move beyond talking at your audience, and instead start talking to them.
- Email your customers personally when possible. This is what we covered the other day. If you’re shipping the book yourself, send a quick email offering to sign it first (or include that option with the order form), or just to thank the reader personally. I’ve always found that I enjoy a book more when I’ve interacted personally with the author - In my work, I often know the author before the book comes out, so it’s a little bit different. But by having a feel for them as a person, I can have more respect for the work, and can understand their positions more, even if I don’t agree with everything they’ve written (very often true with books put out by PR colleagues).
It’s your turn now. How do you interact with your customers or potential readers, or how do you think you can improve on that front?
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April 26, 2008
Is Amazon one of the primary sales outlets for your books? Do you find that it’s kept reasonably well-stocked, or do they constantly under-order and run out, leading to long delays for your customers (and perhaps discouraging overall sales with some)?
After my last post, Aaron Christensen had mentioned to me that it’s not unusual for Amazon to be out of stock of his book (because I mentioned ordering from the official site when I couldn’t order from Amazon). He’s not the first person I’ve heard that from.
I’ve heard that several authors have “gotten around it” by acting as their own seller through Amazon, not only selling new copies, but also as a way to sell used or returned copies that they otherwise might have a harder time selling. Do you? What’s your experience with this method if you do?
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April 25, 2008
First of all, let me apologize for my long absence from All Book Marketing. Today seemed like a good day to get things back on track after a particularly pleasant exchange with an editor who demonstrated an important element of book PR: building a relationship with your audience.
It’s no secret that I’m a big advocate of author blogging to promote books and interact with your potential buyers. However, I strongly believe authors in this day and age need to be willing to go much further to build the all-important “relationship” with their customers or potential customers. Let’s face it, if I like you, I’m probably going to not only spread the word about your current book, but keep buying what you put out. So make me like you. Show me you’re a “real person” behind the book. Remind me that someone’s blood, sweat, and tears may have gone into its creation. I’ll appreciate it that much more. So will your other customers.
Recently I ordered Horror 101: The A-List of Horror Films and Monster Movies Vol 1. It’s a collection of essays on the best horror films, edited by Aaron “Dr. AC” Christensen. As a side note, I haven’t been much of a horror film for years - I wanted to pick up a copy because a good friend contributed one of the essays.
Normally I would just order from Amazon (I’ve turned into quite the book-buying junkie), but they didn’t have it in stock, so I ordered directly from the official site (linked above). I received an email from Christensen earlier today letting me know of a delay in the shipping, and offering to sign the book.
That seems like a very simple thing to do, right? Just shoot off an email. But frankly, most of the times I’ve ordered directly from an author’s site, I didn’t get so much as a template thank you email in response… just the order confirmation (otherwise known as the “Woohoo! I’ve got your money” letter). Why is that?
I know authors are busy. So are your customers. But they took the time to order your book. That’s them telling you that they’re already interested, and right there for you to start communicating with to build a long-term, more “personal” relationship so you can sell them even more in the future (your books, seminars, etc.).
As far as I’m concerned, there’s very little excuse not to interact with your readers with every opportunity you get. As you may know, I work more with musicians than authors. In that group, an artist / fan one-to-one communication is a given these days. I don’t see it to the same degree in publishing yet.
So tell me why….
And more importantly, tell me how you keep in touch with your readers and customers. What could you personally do to build better customer relationships? What advice can you share with other authors struggling to make a connection?
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January 22, 2008
A writer is a writer is a writer, right? Not quite.
You may have published a novel, non-fiction book, or e-book in your industry, but if you want to be proactive in your book marketing and promotional opportunities, you need to diversify those writing skills. Writing a book (or e-book) doesn’t mean you know how to effectively write in other specialties that can be beneficial in marketing your book.
You certainly don’t have to become an expert in every type of promotional writing available (and you won’t be able to tackle every type of writing anyway). That’s what specialists are for. But if you can take on some more of the marketing responsibility through writing, would you? If so, here are a few things you may want to learn how to write to help you promote your books (with links to resources that can help you):
How else can you stretch your writing skills to help promote your books or e-books? Share your own ideas or favorite resources.
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January 9, 2008
I just added a sample media advisory done for an author’s book launch event over at my business site.
If you’ll be inviting the media to a book publicity event of your own, feel free to take a look at this example media advisory, and use it as a guide in writing your own:
Book Launch Event: Psychic Author’s New Book to Benefit Scleroderma Research
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January 2, 2008
Over at All Freelance Writing, I’m issuing a 14-day e-book writing challenge during the second half of January. The idea is to get writers who were previously hesitating on e-book writing to start moving, to get past e-book publishers to think about a new e-book, and to show writers that it doesn’t have to take forever to write your own e-book.
During the first half of this month, I’ll be publishing quite a few articles on e-book writing to help prepare people who want to take part in the challenge. Be sure to stop by during the challenge and let us know how you’re doing with your e-book. I’ll be writing a new e-book during the challenge myself!
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December 18, 2007
Let’s compare a few publishing models authors might consider: traditionally-published books, self-published books, and e-books. Each as their own benefits. For example:
- Traditional Publishing - There’s a certain amount of respect that comes from being a published author, you’re often paid an advance, and there’s a publisher to help with the marketing of your book.
- Self-Publishing - You can become a self-published author without getting tied up in delays and politics of pitching your book and dealing with editors. You also may get a higher profit margin per-book.
E-books seem to be the last option considered by many serious authors (other than offering free e-books for promotional purposes), and that baffles me. Let’s talk a little bit today about the benefits e-books have over other publishing models available to authors, and why snubbing them might not be such a good idea.
Benefits of E-book Publishing
- People will often pay significantly more for an e-book from an industry expert than a print book. Why? Because they want the instant gratification.
- There are far fewer costs generally involved in e-book publishing than traditional publishing (no printing or shipping for example), which further increases the profit potential of e-books. Even if you sell through affiliates, the portion left after their payouts is often more than a total traditional book sale (even before considering those extra print costs).
- E-books have the ability to go viral whereas print books do not.
- You still get the benefits of self-publishing.
- E-books from reputable professionals do carry a good bit of credibility. Many industries ignore this fact and still snub the medium because they’re simply ignorant. If your primary target market consists of heavy Internet users, e-books may even be a better option for you than print books as far as sales potential goes.
- E-book distribution can be automatic. Aside from marketing your e-book, the sales process can be completely automated - no emailing the e-book to buyers, no manually processing any payments, etc.
- E-books can be sold through highly-motivated affiliates. Sure, books have affiliate programs too (think Amazon.com). But they payouts to affiliates are usually dismal. E-book affiliates can earn half or more of the sale price (a reason e-books are often priced higher in addition to the instant gratification convenience). If you sell an e-book for $40, and your affiliates are getting $20 per sale, they tend to be enormously more motivated to promote your product than someone making a few cents to a few dollars at most per hard copy book sale.
That’s not to say that e-books are perfect. You still have to invest time into effectively marketing them. You have to compete with a lot of poor quality e-books, and get past the stigma sometimes attached to them. And you have to set up your distribution channel or process.
Overall though, e-books are a publishing opportunity worth pursuing, especially if you’re concerned about expanding income opportunities for your writing. If nothing else, e-books can be a nice supplement to self-published print books, and even some traditional publishers are now offering e-book versions of their print titles. They’re certainly not being ignored, so don’t overlook the option.
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November 1, 2007
Just a quick note to any authors who had expressed an interest in being interviewed on this blog:
I received more requests than expected early on, so they’ve been taking me a while to work in around my client projects. Rest assured, I haven’t forgotten about you. 
I’ll be sending a few out this afternoon or evening, and the rest will hopefully go out tomorrow (this weekend at the latest).
If you’re not on the interview list yet, but you’d like to be, visit the contact page to get in touch with details about your book for consideration.
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Heather Beck, both a screenwriter and published author of What Legends are Made Of and the Fable Farm series, was kind enough to share her marketing insights with me on marketing anthologies and series, marketing books versus her screenwriting, and the marketing effects of being published at a young age (Heather, now twenty two, was first published at nineteen). 
All Book Marketing is a blog on book marketing and book publicity, run by publicist and online PR specialist Jennifer Mattern.
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