Bestselling authors have two things in common: A marketing plan and a schedule.
At BookLocker.com, we have several thousand books in print, as well as thousands of ebooks. The majority of authors who release a book don’t know how to promote it without some help. (BookLocker authors get free marketing advice, and, unlike the “other guys”, are not upsold on worthless marketing products and services.)
Authors who do have a marketing plan (and a good book, of course) sell more copies than those that don’t. Trying to figure out which marketing tasks might work, and in which order to perform them, can be daunting, to say the least.
Traditional publishers no longer offer marketing support to new, unknown authors and self-published authors often fall prey to their POD publishers’ sales pitches for marketing products and services that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Still others hire publicists that may very well cost more than any book sales they manage to muster.
What if you had a book that provided step-by-step instructions on not only what to do, but when to do it, from Day 1 through Day 90 and beyond? And, what if that book also included a schedule of day-by-day promotional tasks for ongoing sales?
We recently completed a book that does just that and today we are sharing an excerpt –
EXCERPTED from 90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE: Your Book’s Daily Marketing Plan.
INTRODUCTION
Glory day! Your new book is finally published! You’re excited that your baby has hit the streets (or the Internet) and you can’t wait to start pounding that virtual pavement and collecting the royalties. I know what you’re thinking. You’re an author, not a marketer. Not to worry. We have more than a decade of online book selling experience under our belts and we’re going to teach you how to promote your book effectively online. And almost all of our techniques are FREE!
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST MISTAKE AUTHORS MAKE?
If you really want to sell books, don’t do what most authors do: dump your book at a few websites and walk away, hoping it’ll catch on some day. That just doesn’t happen in the real world. Promoting your book online should be considered at least a part-time job. Highly successful authors spend more time promoting a book than they do writing it – a lot more.
Online book promotion is not only simple but, if you have a step-by-step, day-to-day marketing plan (this book!), it can also be a very artistic endeavor, which makes it fun for creative folks like authors (you!).
Here are some little-known, depressing factoids about the traditional publishing industry:
Traditional publishers use the profits from low- to mid-selling books to promote their best sellers. Many publish books by unknown authors, and then do nothing more than send out a couple dozen review copies in the hopes that one or two books by those unknowns might catch the eye of the public and media.
Even if you are lucky enough or talented enough to land a traditional contract, if your name isn’t as well known as Stephen King or Tom Clancy, you will be responsible for the majority, if not all, of the marketing activities for your book.
If you come up with some marketing ideas that were not offered in your contract, like a unique book tour, magazine ads, etc., you’ll probably have to pay for them out of your own pocket.
If you ask your publisher to help you pay for those items, they’ll probably refuse to do so. If you wanted them to help pay for your book promotion, you should have gotten that in writing in your contract. Problem is, troublesome new and unknown authors who demand those perks up front usually don’t get traditional publishing contracts. Why should the publisher offer to pay money they know you are eventually going to spend for them later out of sheer desperation for sales?
None of the marketing activities you conduct and pay for when promoting your traditionally published book will entitle you to one penny more of the profits that you’re already giving your traditional publisher (around 88% – 94% for them vs. 6% – 12% for you).
Okay, now that we have the depressing part over with, let’s move on.
The book you’re reading right now is Angela’s 12th non-fiction title. She has written books for freelance writers and authors, for mothers wanting to attempt a vaginal birth after having a prior cesarean, for women who are facing an imminent divorce, a how-to craft book on reborning dolls (which has done very well on eBay, by the way – more on that later), and more. In the ’90s, she published one of the very first electronic books (ebooks) – before “ebook” was a household word – and long before Stephen King ever thought of it. She simply started selling the MSWord file of one of her books online, and it was instantly successful. Why? 1. it was available for immediate delivery; 2. it was less expensive than the print version, and; 3. the customer didn’t have to pay shipping. After spending so much time having booklets printed up at Kinko’s, creating mailing labels, stuffing large envelopes, and taking daily trips to the post office, we sure wish we’d thought of selling books as electronic files sooner!
Angela then wrote the ebook How to Write, Publish & Sell Ebooks, which brought in more than $700 in sales on the first day she put it on her website! Nowadays, the more books she writes, the more money she makes. When you write multiple books targeting the same audience, you can expend the same amount of marketing effort as you would for one book, but you naturally sell more books. The more successful authors are those who promote multiple titles to the same audience. Yes, it really is that simple.
I know this is starting to sound like we’re on the pep-squad so we’ll stop. We just want you to know that we know what we’re talking about and what we do isn’t that difficult, or even expensive, despite what some people and companies would like you to believe. Those people and companies are the ones selling high-priced marketing products and services for authors, and often coercing authors into spending more money than they will ever make on any resulting book sales. The tips in this book can lead to far more book sales than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on promotional coffee mugs, book fairs, or expensive magazine or newspaper ads.
Think about it. If you paid someone to publish your book, your publisher is profiting from book sales. So why would they charge an author thousands of dollars for a marketing product or service designed to sell books? If a fee-based publishing company had complete confidence in a product or service designed to sell their own books, wouldn’t they be giving it away free? They don’t and here’s why. They know they’re going to make far more money from authors paying for those services than they will from any resulting book sales.
For the purposes of this book, we’re assuming you, like us, have a real job and that you don’t have eight hours a day to spend promoting your own book. Some of the daily tasks might take an hour or less but others will take longer. We suggest setting aside a specific period of time each day to do the steps in this book. Angela’s best time for writing and marketing is the first hour or two of each morning, depending on her planned tasks for that day. That enables her to accomplish her priorities before the rest of the day railroads her down different paths (like answering email, formatting books for other authors, homeschooling our two youngest children, etc.).
There are also “ongoing” marketing tasks that are noted in some chapters with this symbol: +
Those ongoing tasks are summarized near the end of this book (see “AFTER 90+ DAYS: YOUR BOOK’S DAILY MARKETING PLAN”), which lists the days of the month, along with which activities to perform each day. Those marketing activities can and should be conducted on a continuing basis. So if you do everything this book recommends, you’ll be promoting your book far longer than just 90 days.
Let’s get started, shall we?
EXCERPTED from 90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE: Your Book’s Daily Marketing Plan.
Promote Your New Book ~ OR ~ Breathe Life Back Into an Older One!
Do you want to generate sales for your book, but just aren’t sure what steps to take? This is for you!
Promoting your book online should be considered at least a part-time job. Highly successful authors spend more time promoting a book than they do writing it – a lot more.
We know what you’re thinking. You’re an author, not a marketer. Not to worry! We have more than a decade of successful online book selling experience under our belts and we’re going to teach you how to promote your book effectively online…and almost all of our techniques are FREE!
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST MISTAKE AUTHORS MAKE? If you really want to sell books, don’t do what most authors do – dump your book at a few websites and walk away, hoping it’ll catch on some day. That just doesn’t happen in the real world. Don’t hide your words from the world! Promote it aggressively using the easy tips and schedule provided in this book!
Online book promotion is not only simple but, if you have a step-by-step, day-to-day marketing plan (this book!), it can also be a very artistic endeavor, which makes it fun for creative folks like you!
Yes, online book promoting can be EASY and FUN! Let us show you how, from Day 1 through Day 90…and beyond!
Click HERE for more about 90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE.
Got questions about Print On Demand and Self-publishing? Ask Angela Hoy.
About The Author
Angela Hoy is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the author of 19 books, and the co-owner of BookLocker.com (one of the original POD publishers that still gets books to market in less than a month), PubPreppers.com (print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish), and Abuzz Press (the publishing co-op that charges no setup fees).
Angela has lived and traveled across the U.S. with her kids in an RV, settled in a river-side home in Bradenton, FL, and lived on a 52 ft Irwin sailboat. Angela now resides on a mountaintop in Northwest Georgia, where she plans to spend the rest of her days bird watching, gardening, hiking, and taking in all of the amazing sunrises.
WritersWeekly.com - the free marketing ezine for writers, which features new paying markets and freelance job listings every Wednesday.
BookLocker.com - According to attorney Mark Levine, author of The Fine Print, BookLocker is: "As close to perfection as you're going to find in the world of ebook and POD publishing. The ebook royalties are the highest I've ever seen, and the print royalties are better than average. BookLocker understands what new authors experience, and have put together a package that is the best in the business. You can't go wrong here. Plus, they're selective and won't publish any manuscript just because it's accompanied by a check. Also, the web site is well trafficked. If you can find a POD or epublisher with as much integrity and dedication to selling authors' books, but with lower POD publishing fees, please let me know."
Abuzz Press offers FAST and FREE book publication, but only accepts a small percentage of submissions, and only works with U.S. authors.
PubPreppers.com - "We Prep, You Publish!" Print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish. Offers formatting and design services only, and then provides simple instructions for authors on where to sign up to have the print and ebook editions printed/listed/sold. Cut out the middle man. Keep 100% of what bookstores pay for your book!
Angela's POD Secrets Revealed Series can be found HERE.
Have a POD Book with another publisher? See if BookLocker can give you a better deal. (BookLocker offers "disgruntled author discounts" to those who want to move from other POD services.)
See BookLocker's publishing packages HERE.
ANGELA ON TWITTER https://twitter.com/AngelaHoy
BOOKLOCKER ON FACEBOOK - Provides links to free excerpts!
https://www.facebook.com/booklockerbooks
ANGELA ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/angela.hoy.750
ANGELA ON LINKEDIN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelahoy/
Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/
Read More Of Angela's Articles HERE
7.625 STRATEGIES IN EVERY BEST-SELLER - Revised and Expanded Edition
At this moment, thousands of would-be authors are slaving away on their keyboards, dreaming of literary success. But their efforts won’t count for much. Of all those manuscripts, trade book editors will sign up only a slim fraction.
And of those titles--ones that that editors paid thousands of dollars to contract, print and publicize--an unhealthy percentage never sell enough copies to earn back their advances. Two years later, most will be out of print!
Acquisition Editor Tam Mossman shares seven essentials every book needs to stay in print, and sell!
Read more here:
https://writersweekly.com/books/5635.html
90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE: Your Book's Daily Marketing Plan by Angela Hoy and Richard Hoy
Promoting your book online should be considered at least a part-time job. Highly successful authors spend more time promoting a book than they do writing it - a lot more.
We know what you're thinking. You're an author, not a marketer. Not to worry! We have more than a decade of successful online book selling experience under our belts and we're going to teach you how to promote your book effectively online...and almost all of our techniques are FREE!
Online book promotion is not only simple but, if you have a step-by-step, day-to-day marketing plan (this book!), it can also be a very artistic endeavor, which makes it fun for creative folks like you!
Yes, online book promoting can be EASY and FUN! Let us show you how, from Day 1 through Day 90...and beyond!