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Marketing Your Book

Marketing Your Book

Marketing Your Book
Marketing Your Book

Marketing Your Book

According to many sources, the best way to write a book, is to identify a trending topic, jump on the bandwagon, do some research and then write your book.

Then when you come to answering the questions that I will pose later to help you market your book, you will have ready answers. However, many writers do not write in this clinical fashion – they write a story that has been suggested to them by experience, imagination, recommendation or whatever.

Then, when the book has been published, they are faced with marketing it?

The first question that a marketer might ask you is: “What is the point of your book? What does it have to offer people?”

The answer to these questions is crucial to your marketing campaign, so you have to know. If you had planned your book as stated in the opening paragraph of this article, then this would be an easy question to answer, but for most authors it won’t be.

Your answer may be that it is an interesting story, but unfortunately that is not good enough. In this case the answer is: “I don’t know”. It is not much good, but if it is all you have, then think about the genre it falls into.

The more convinced you are about this answer, the easier the next part will be. The next question is: “Who will benefit from having read your book?” Do you see now why answering: “It’s an interesting story”, is not sufficient? Why would anyone (a reader) choose your book, by an unknown author, over that of a famous author?

The benefit to the reader has to be more than another has to offer and the reader should not just have to take your word – the word of a stranger – for it that it is “an interesting book”. There has to be an incentive, a reason for reading it.

Maybe reading your book will help people understand depression or living with a manic-depressive, so you might want to think about that first question again in this new light. Then come back and answer the second part – define the person who will benefit from having read your book.

Now you should be able to picture that person in your mind’s eye. How old is he or she? Which nationality?, What level of education; married or single? Living at home? etc., etc.. Some marketers call this person your avatar.

So, now you have your avatar. This person or type of person will be the easiest person to sell your book to., because you have defined that person as requiring your book. if you can’t sell to your avatar, you’re in real trouble, because you need your avatar to help sell your book by recommending it to his or her friends.

The next step is easy: where do you find people like your avatar? Try groups on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Search for relevant forums, blogs, newsletters and websites where they would go. Join and mix in. Write articles and offer them to the webmaster with a byline promoting your book.

If you’d like help marketing your book, see ‘Megan Publishing Services’ on the header banner

by +Owen Jones

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