Marketing in the Bazillion-Book Marketplace

As I work through a long list of marketing plan headings for my upcoming book release—Product, Place, Price, Promotion, et al—some things strike me again and again as similar to what I have been recommending to clients for 20 years: press kits, events, giveaways…

That said, in some ways, the direction has turned 180 degrees. For instance, given the pool of new books on Kindle, even separated by genre, for a new, unknown author, the traditional start of any marketing plan, “analyzing the competition” and “creating a competitive advantage,” is ludicrous. (“I’d like to take market share from all 1,678,423 authors ahead of me on the Amazon Rankings…”)

Further, Big Publishing no longer provides significant marketing budgets for new authors, in some cases requiring we pay not only for trips to conferences, books for signings, etc., but also for simple editing and proofreading, because they no longer want to pay salaries for in-house editors. Make no mistake, any part of the process they can force from our pockets, they will—with no compunction.

A quick scan of the television lineup any night of the week should tell us that when this model places us in competition with each other, it makes money for the media conglomerates that run American entertainment, including books. (Like in reality TV, one person will win a quarter-million-dollar prize and everyone else goes home with nothing. Amazon, however, like a television network, brings in money no matter how many books we sell.)

To counteract this corporate manipulation:

Eliminate the idea of competition.

One can differentiate a book to some extent with good cover design, solid proofreading, smart keywords, price promotions, and (if a buyer gets so far as the words) good writing, but your good writing means nothing anymore until it generates 4- and 5-star reviews in the hundreds. Even then, regular sales are a long shot even professionals can’t guarantee for well-known authors, much less an indie writer who has nothing but the fortitude to finish writing a book and the temerity to publish it.

In place of the traditional American sales model, let us all agree now that we aren’t in competition with each other, and we are (almost) all in the same leaky boat. Loyal readers in your genre will read lots of authors’ books in a lifetime. Yours might or might not be one. Don’t begrudge success where any of us find it and support each other’s efforts.

Seek out and connect with other authors for critique, sharing of information or research, or just for moral support. Join online and real-time groups, lists, and trade associations created for authors in general, your genre in particular. These groups exist all over the internet and in every city and state (or whatever regional boundaries exist in other parts of the world).
In real-life and online trade groups and on indie author promotional sites, contribute, volunteer, and become part of the community. Make friends online and they will be more likely to help you promote yourself. (Social media best practice, by all accounts, and a well-known marketing strategy since the dawn of the capitalist system. Besides, how rude—and ineffective—is it to continually post promos to groups that have no vested interest in you?)
Give advice when you can, and don’t be stingy with your “Lessons Learned.” We all started somewhere. (To be clear, only give advice about things for which you are qualified.)
Go to other indie authors for services when you can—book publishing and otherwise—and barter if you are so inclined. (Personally, if I could find another experienced professional editor to trade manuscript services, I would be over the moon.)

Collaborate.

Marketing alone is as dangerous as “groupthink,” plus, it is more expensive, more time-consuming, and more depressing when it isn’t going well. Instead of “going it alone,” share marketing concepts and stay engaged with other authors, especially in your genre. Among relatively unknown entities, more new customers will be reached by co-promotion (e.g. multiple authors throwing a communal launch party) and/or cross-promotion (e.g. two authors posting contests on each other’s blogs to win copies of both books).

As matters of regular marketing practice, consider these:

Be each other’s first readers and reviewers. Pay it forward by leaving reviews.
On social media, Like/Follow/Pin/Comment/Share each other’s work. (I am now in the habit of Liking any author page that comes across my Facebook news feed, about 10 a day, and have created a Pinterest board titled, “Other Authors’ Books.”)
Support reviewer blogs and social media, and Like, Comment on, Retweet, and Share reviews, announcements, giveaways, blog posts, etc. (Share this blog post! :-))
Support independent indie author promo sites like Microcerpt, KindleMojo, or AuthorShout, as well as the obvious, well-funded players in the market, like Amazon or Goodreads.
Coordinate release dates, social media “parties,” even promo sale dates, to maximize potential audience. (November 26, come to a Facebook party for my new release, Royal Regard, and at least two others in the romance genre!)

Some of these practices may seem counter-intuitive, given how steeped most of us are in the idea of zero-sum marketing, but the sales world has changed (don’t I know it!). We can no longer rely on publishers to promote us, and even if we are unprepared for the new marketing process, it is prepared to make money from—and, if we play our cards right, for—us.

Keep your sales in your own pocket. Keep your marketing under your own control. Keep the indie marketplace one that acts as a cohesive whole, rather than allowing the traditional model to pick off one of us after the other until only one person has the quarter-million-dollar prize.

To be continued…

(Please feel free to place links in the comments to your social media accounts, and I will Like/Follow, etc. Same goes for blurbs and buy links to your books.)

Mari Christie – Writing/Editing/Design
www.MariChristie.info

Books Available at Amazon.com:
Saqil pa Q’equ’mal: Light in Darkness: Poetry of the Mayan Underworld
A Loaf of Bread: A Collection of Illuminated Recipes

A marketing plan for a book release should be second nature. I shouldn’t even have to think overly hard about it. And yet, I draw a blank.

I started my career in Marketing and Communications in 1992 (arguably in 1986, but high school jobs probably don’t count). This experience is, in large part, how I ended up a professional writer, editor, and designer. I’ve written and designed content and promotional material in newspapers and magazines, for billboards, packaging, point-of-purchase, and dozens of other formats; created and disseminated countless press kits and releases; managed events with thousands of attendees; and done an inordinate number of various non-traditional marketing campaigns. I have written at least 50 business/marketing/strategic plans in my time, and no conceit intended, I am very good at this kind of work.

At least I used to be.

This new indie publishing marketplace? Incomprehensible. Every author I know—every author I hear about—is just flailing about in the dark, shouting the title of his or her book into the Twitter-verse void. There are a lot of reasons for that, not least the quality of work that is being self-published (another topic for another day), but there are two primary, to my mind:

Art has always been hard to sell.

— AND —

Artists aren’t salespeople.

One reason the publishing/recording/gallery industries exist is in acknowledgment of the fact that writers, musicians, and artists just don’t have the sorts of brains that are wired for promotion—especially self-promotion. It is a foreign concept at best, terrifying at worst. Even for someone like me, steeped in the juices of (self-)promotion my entire adult life, this new Bazillion-Book Marketplace, with Amazon in the center, is a behemoth of a problem to be overcome on the road to near-impossible literary success.

Not just selling, but selling:

An art form (the seventh circle of sales hell);
A relatively new technology (e-readers);
A relatively new product (e-books);
A relatively new purchasing paradigm (download and cloud storage);
A relatively new market (millions of competitors, almost all in the same half-dozen distribution channels online);
A relatively new marketing toolbox (Not just social media, but hundreds of new “author support sites,” all with their own fledgling ideas of what will sell your book.);
A relatively small marketing budget (at least for every author I know); and
Most likely, with little knowledge of marketing in general.

I’m lucky. I can at least start a marketing plan. I know the right section titles (though for the first time in 20 years, guessing at sub-headings). I can distinguish between cross- and co-promotion, strategy and tactics, consumer and trade audiences. I have a good eye for design and can do my own print and web work. I started building the ubiquitous “author platform” some time ago, so have a minimal following slightly larger (and more responsive about my writing) than my real-life friends and family. And, I’m still young enough to make the transition into a new type of marketplace. (I hope.)

That said, like everyone else, I am at sea. In the next few weeks, I will be writing marketing plans for my own release, Royal Regard, and Maria Elena Alonso-Sierra, author of The Coin, who will be releasing the sequel, The Book of Hours, the same day, November 26. As I work through this process, I will be sharing tips, tricks, and ideas that occur, especially those about which I do have some expertise.

Watch this space. But more important, never, ever miss an opportunity to promote yourself or your product:

November 26, Royal Regard and The Book of Hours!

Mari’s Books Available at Amazon.com:

Saqil pa Q’equ’mal: Light in Darkness: Poetry of the Mayan Underworld

A Loaf of Bread: A Collection of Illuminated Recipes

Connect with me: