You wrote your book and now you have to market it. You know you’ve got to do it. But you procrastinate, hoping someone else will do the marketing for you.
Your book, which you spent hours, days, months, and years writing requires marketing.
Marketing Plan (Photo credit: EmaStudios)
What do you do?
You can’t use Harry Potter’s magic wand to establish your platform and marketing plan.
Or can you?
No, magic doesn’t last forever. You must roll up your sleeves and get down and dirty with marketing.
The good news is you can market your book even if you hate marketing. The solution is easy. Stop saying you hate marketing and you won’t attract negative thoughts, feelings, and beliefs around marketing.
What you resist persists
Debbie Ford, a #1 New York Times best-selling author and international expert in the field of personal transformation and human potential, says “What you resist persists.” She’s right.
If you keep resisting the marketing of your book, it won’t get marketed. It will sit in boxes (if you ordered copies) or sit online.
Accept that marketing is a part of being an author and writer. Even if your book is published by a traditional publisher, you’re still responsible for some of the marketing. You can’t get away from it.
Turn That Marketing Frown Upside Down
Whether you like it or not, sales and marketing are a part of an author’s life. You may as well become friends with marketing instead of resisting it. When you do this, the tightness in your chest, face and shoulders will decrease. You’ll feel more relaxed and won’t freak out when you hear someone mention ‘marketing.’
Forget about the pressures of marketing. Think about how much fun it is. Think about it from a networking standpoint. You’re meeting and greeting people and showing them your great product, your book.
Once you’ve embrace marketing, use the following easy steps to promote and market your book.
1. Use social media. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are the ‘Big 3′ social networks. You can tweet excerpts from your book or chapter titles. You can set-up a Tweet Chat and ‘chat’ with readers. Set-up a Facebook fan page and hold a contest for your book. It’s simple! Write an ad for a contest, choose a winner from the millions of entries, and make someone happy by giving them your book for free! Use LinkedIn to promote your book. Find questions that pertain to your topic in the Answer/Question section of LinkedIn. Answer questions and provide a link to your author website or book website. Join groups that pertain to your topic. Or, create your own group.
2. Ask your family and friends to spread the word. Family and friends will be delighted to help you out, right? If they support you and your writing they will. Don’t be shy about asking them to speak about your book at work, the gym, etc. As long as they know ‘who’ your target audience is they won’t have a problem spreading the word about your book.
3. Hold a meeting at your community’s business center. Do you live in an apartment complex that has a meeting room? What about a condo or townhome complex that has a business center? Ask if you can book the room for two hours and invite people from your area to check out your new book. You can speak for 20-30 minutes or longer. Not only is this a good way to promote and market your book, its’ a good way to get to know your neighbors.
4. Become a guest blogger. Find blogs and or websites that are in alignment with your book and pitch website owner’s guest blog topics. It’s a win-win situation because you get to promote you and your book and the blog owner provides fresh and unique content to readers.
5. Asked to be interviewed. Sign up with Reporter Connection or HARO and help people out. You may not be thrilled with phone interviews, but you could always do an interview via Skype or email. I know some people, old school types, ‘poo-poo’ email interviews, but people are busy these days. Sometimes you have no choice but to do an email interview. Plus, they’re easy and convenient. No one says that you can’t do a follow up phone interview.
6. Conduct a teleseminar or webinar. There are plenty of platforms to use from GoTo Meeting to Instant Teleseminar 2.0. Some are free, while others have a monthly fee. Use the service that works for you. You don’t have to hold a two hour teleseminar or webinar. You can hold one that’s 30 minutes. When you become more comfortable, you can hold one that lasts one hour.
7. Become comfortable with saying “I’m an author or I’m a writer.” Keep repeating that you’re an author or writer. Imagine how it feels to be a New York Times best-selling author. Feel and own it. Don’t be shy about it. Imagine how it would feel to have people come up to you and say, “Your writing helped me get through a difficult time.” Your writing inspired me to follow my dreams.” Go to that place within your mind’s eye and ‘feel’ it. Visualize yourself as a successful published author/writer, and you’ll be one.
So there you have it. If you want your book to succeed, if you want to succeed, you have to embrace marketing. It’s a part of an author’s life. It’s a part of a writer’s life. You can’t run away from it. You may as well accept marketing into your life.
Let’s face it. You’re a writer for two reasons: 1) to solve people’s problems; and 2) sales and marketing.
Your book is ready for millions of readers to read it. But who will know about it if you don’t market it. How will you solve a person’s problems if you don’t market your book? People are waiting for you and your book. Don’t let them down.
This means feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
This means persevering when you want to give up.
This means tuning out the naysayers who tell you that marketing is too hard and it takes time and money. Don’t listen to them. No one ever got anywhere without doing some work. Your book is your baby. It’s your responsibility to make sure that it’s nurtured and cared for. You’re the one that can make sure it succeeds. Let go of the idea that it’s up to others. It’s up to you.
Market your book even if you hate marketing. People are waiting to hear from you. They’re waiting to read your book. They’re waiting for your solution(s) to their problems.
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