Book Marketing Can be Fun (Honest)
Marketing was the last thing on my mind when I sat down to write my first book. Meticulous research, getting the right tone, maintaining the correct voice, and gauging the length were all greater priorities. Besides, there was always the chance I might find a mainstream publisher and they would do the promotion for me.
After two years my biography of my grandfather was complete. But I failed to grab the attention of a traditional publisher, so I was catapulted into the self-publishing arena. Which meant doing my own marketing. I approached the task with trepidation.
I searched websites to see if there was a realistic sales target for a first-time author. I compared my figures to those of J.K. Rowling. Every hour I checked the KDP/Amazon site to see if I’d sold another book. I fantasised about how my scintillating presentation would captivate booklovers in the elegant Edwardian surrounds of Daunts’ Marylebone premises and how I would sign numerous copies of my book with a kindly, maybe slightly patronising, smile as I asked the buyer to whom I should address the dedication. The books would fly off the shelves and the proceeds would cascade in like a tsunami.
Er. No. Marketing 2021 would prove to be an irksome business, focusing on the ins and outs of metadata, bibliographic detail, long synopses, short synopses, buzzwords, data optimisation, Facebook business pages, Twitter hashtags and Amazon reviews. I blundered in, not having a clue what I was doing, often breaking internet etiquette several times a day.
After six months in this darkened, digital labyrinth and adding IngramSpark to my Amazon presence — what the trade calls ‘going wide’ — I found I had sold 160 books by some means or other. Which quite a few people said was not bad. Heaven knows how I did it. And, even more surprising: I was beginning to enjoy it.
I had a sell sheet made — designed by Tony down the road — and everyone said it looked fantastic. It was something I could wave in the faces of indie bookshops and libraries, or else send as an attachment to book retailers all over the world. Its raison d’etre was to act as an inducement for them to order copies from the big distributors.
Because this period coincided with the easing of the Covid lockdown, I could joyfully walk away from my laptop and meet people face-to-face. Believe me, there are some snooty booksellers out there. One or two looked down their noses at my sell sheet and said imperiously: ‘Just leave it there.’ Others were as sweet as sweet could be. Like Denise Jones at the wonderful Brick Lane Bookshop in London. She stopped what she was doing and in 15 minutes I learned more about marketing for self-publishers than any number of online tutorials had taught me.
It was the unexpected avenues that opened up that began to make book marketing pleasant. Like Monty Dart, an authoress in Newport, south Wales, who having listened in on my talk to the local U3A group, helped me to do some promotion in her area and meet other local writers.
Next there were the animal photos. First author Ian Cutler gave me a great review and then took a shot of his cat Bronwyn taking a nap on my book. That just had to go on to Facebook. After that, my cousin Margie found her dog Honey ‘reading’ my biography and sent me a photo. That, too, was a marketing gift. My days as a subeditor on TV Times left me in no doubt that cute animal photos are loved by all.
Bookshops in Newton Abbot and worshippers at the Teignmouth church where Stanley, my grandfather, was a minister 120 years ago ordered copies on the strength of my eye-catching sell sheet.
And only yesterday Forest Gate author John Walker said I should persuade friends to go into libraries and ask for my book. That was a sure-fire way of shifting a few more copies because one thing libraries want to do is please their customers.
I’m still embroiled in metadata, social media and Zoom. But now I’ve added person-to-person marketing to the mix. My only hope is that for us downtrodden stay-at-homes it catches on.