Marketing…
…is very difficult for individual authors.
However in today’s world it is essential that we simply do it. We can’t leave it all up to the publisher. Even although some of us know this already, many of us are at a loss where to start.
So when do you start marketing?
Long before your book is accepted. Get out and promote yourself and your book well in advance – perhaps even years in advance of when it will appear on bookshelves. Go to conferences and meet people. Learn from them what they’ve done that works and what happens. Talk about your own work. But don’t be ‘me, me, me’ in that. Develop an attitude of generosity, gratitude and grace as you begin to network.
Recently a prominent US publisher said that 60% of success as a writer is a good book, the other 40% is putting in time at conferences and writing events.
But many people don’t do that. So many people join a writer’s group a month before they finish their book, looking for help just as they’re about finished the first draft. Mainly they’re looking for advice and congratulations – but they should have sought that advice years earlier. It comes as a shock to many just how much effort has to be put in by the author themselves, even should their book be instantly snapped up by a publisher.
Every author should have a marketing budget
This comes as another shock to authors, especially self-published authors. You’ve got to work hard at getting the word out there yourself or else pay someone to do it.
As a general rule in Australia, you should put 25 copies of your book aside as review copies and for promotions.
It’s always disconcerting when it comes around time for the CALEB Prize to get phone calls from authors about the high cost of entry fees and the number of copies we require. Sure, there’s some places which don’t charge – but they have large corporations behind them. We’re a tiny club and we subsidise the process heavily. We also offer you visibility, reviews and do part of your promotion for you. In fact, if your marketing budget doesn’t run to the modest fees and number of books we ask for, then you need to rethink your strategy entirely.
The cost of advertising nationally is generally prohibitive. However Omegas regularly has initiatives which utilise group power. By working together, we pay a few hundred dollars each for what would normally cost thousands to an individual. The vision of CALEB in particular is about working together to achieve what individuals cannot.
What do we do as a group on a regular basis?
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Every time 3 people are interested in getting DL flyers done, we organise to print together. We can each get 4000 glossy flyers for about $200 this way.
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Every time 6 people are interested in getting bookmarks done, we organise to print together. We can each get 3000 bookmarks for about $140 this way.
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We are about to put together a magazine promotion to go to schools, profiling our authors who have books suitable for schools. This promotion will cost each author about $130 for a full page ad featuring their own work. Under normal circumstances, none of our authors could afford to take out a full page ad in a magazine going out to thousands of people. (In conjunction with Light the Dark Pty Ltd).
Marketing isn’t easy. In many respects, it’s guesswork. And it rarely pays dividends all at once. It’s said that even people who are predisposed to want to buy have to see an ad seven times before they act.
Seven times.
What are the tools to do that?
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