When you are planning your books marketing mix pay attention and be sure to write down your purpose. Each author's reasons for writing are unique. Please take a moment to be introspective and to list your key motivations, and you can then decide which are the top priorities.
Why write down an honest statement of your purpose? Because knowing 'why' will guide your decisions in the rest of the marketing mix.
Here's an example. In 1994, Fred and Peg Francis wrote Democratic Rules of Order: The Complete Official Parliamentary Authority for Meetings of Any Size [ISBN 096992604] not to make money but to have a beneficial impact on society.
Democratic Rules of Order is the one parliamentary standard that fully protects every member's right to equal participation in orderly meetings. It does this with concise, common sense rules without jargon or unnecessary protocol.
Fred wrote this on their website at www.democratic-rules.com: "This book has been a very satisfying project for Fred and Peg who see the urgent need for more justice and stronger democracies in our world. For a democracy to work successfully the populace itself must understand and want to obey the democratic principles. Citizens need practice in making the individual rights of each member and the rights of the majority work together. People using this book are practicing and learning these laws at the grass-roots level."
This very concise book (27 pages of rules, a 14-page sample meeting plus questions-and-answers) explains meeting rules that are fair and easy for everyone to master - a far cry from the 600-plus pages of Robert's Rules of Order! With Roberts, a knowledgeable chair can manipulate meetings to have his or her own opinions prevail. With Democratic, everyone knows the rules and is on equal footing.
For Fred and Peg, a marketing plan had to reflect their mission, so they hired an editor to polish the text, making the book as understandable and credible as possible. They felt that this was really worthwhile, even though editing cost $30 per hour.
Next, they decided to start a word-of-mouth phenomenon by donating about 2,000 individual promotional copies to leaders of church groups, associations of government agencies, schools and public libraries. This helped them secure free book reviews in religious newsletters and in magazines that go out to politicians and bureaucrats. The front pages of the book explain clearly how to order more copies, and the generous discounts for ordering larger quantities.
Fred was a mathematician who could master their marketing mix puzzle about allocating scarce resources: they refined their product by using a professional editor over many editions, sent out samples (a form of sales promotion) to targeted groups (their public), allowed bulk discounts (pricing), and sought publicity through newsletter and magazine reviews.
Fred and Peg's plan has worked very well - the book is now in its 7th edition and has sold over 14,000 copies, sometimes purchased in batches of over a hundred by a single congregation or agency. Copies are being used in some high schools to teach parliamentary procedures in social studies courses. Buyers often reorder and refer others to this handy book, creating a chain reaction that is steadily spreading to people all around the world who are now able to have more effective meetings.
The preceding marketing advice is an excerpt from Book Marketing DeMystified by Bruce Batchelor [ISBN 978-1-897435-00-7]. It will help any author, whether you have a contract with a mainstream publisher, or are an independent ('indie') author publishing all on your own or with the assistance of a publishing service.
Bruce Batchelor is the inventor of print-on-demand publishing (POD publishing) and author of Book Marketing DeMystified: Enjoy Discovering the Optimal Way to Sell Your Self-Published Book [ISBN 978-1-897435-00-7]. He is the CEO at Agio Publishing House (http://www.agiopublishing.com) and a presenter at writers conferences.
Why write down an honest statement of your purpose? Because knowing 'why' will guide your decisions in the rest of the marketing mix.
Here's an example. In 1994, Fred and Peg Francis wrote Democratic Rules of Order: The Complete Official Parliamentary Authority for Meetings of Any Size [ISBN 096992604] not to make money but to have a beneficial impact on society.
Democratic Rules of Order is the one parliamentary standard that fully protects every member's right to equal participation in orderly meetings. It does this with concise, common sense rules without jargon or unnecessary protocol.
Fred wrote this on their website at www.democratic-rules.com: "This book has been a very satisfying project for Fred and Peg who see the urgent need for more justice and stronger democracies in our world. For a democracy to work successfully the populace itself must understand and want to obey the democratic principles. Citizens need practice in making the individual rights of each member and the rights of the majority work together. People using this book are practicing and learning these laws at the grass-roots level."
This very concise book (27 pages of rules, a 14-page sample meeting plus questions-and-answers) explains meeting rules that are fair and easy for everyone to master - a far cry from the 600-plus pages of Robert's Rules of Order! With Roberts, a knowledgeable chair can manipulate meetings to have his or her own opinions prevail. With Democratic, everyone knows the rules and is on equal footing.
For Fred and Peg, a marketing plan had to reflect their mission, so they hired an editor to polish the text, making the book as understandable and credible as possible. They felt that this was really worthwhile, even though editing cost $30 per hour.
Next, they decided to start a word-of-mouth phenomenon by donating about 2,000 individual promotional copies to leaders of church groups, associations of government agencies, schools and public libraries. This helped them secure free book reviews in religious newsletters and in magazines that go out to politicians and bureaucrats. The front pages of the book explain clearly how to order more copies, and the generous discounts for ordering larger quantities.
Fred was a mathematician who could master their marketing mix puzzle about allocating scarce resources: they refined their product by using a professional editor over many editions, sent out samples (a form of sales promotion) to targeted groups (their public), allowed bulk discounts (pricing), and sought publicity through newsletter and magazine reviews.
Fred and Peg's plan has worked very well - the book is now in its 7th edition and has sold over 14,000 copies, sometimes purchased in batches of over a hundred by a single congregation or agency. Copies are being used in some high schools to teach parliamentary procedures in social studies courses. Buyers often reorder and refer others to this handy book, creating a chain reaction that is steadily spreading to people all around the world who are now able to have more effective meetings.
The preceding marketing advice is an excerpt from Book Marketing DeMystified by Bruce Batchelor [ISBN 978-1-897435-00-7]. It will help any author, whether you have a contract with a mainstream publisher, or are an independent ('indie') author publishing all on your own or with the assistance of a publishing service.
Bruce Batchelor is the inventor of print-on-demand publishing (POD publishing) and author of Book Marketing DeMystified: Enjoy Discovering the Optimal Way to Sell Your Self-Published Book [ISBN 978-1-897435-00-7]. He is the CEO at Agio Publishing House (http://www.agiopublishing.com) and a presenter at writers conferences.
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