PUBLICITY AND BOOK GENRE

Here is today's question from an affiliate. Is a book with some religious content acceptable to the media?

The answer is: maybe, and only maybe, some media will review the book.

Most media, whether print, radio or television, shy away from books with a religious or a spiritual slant because they do not want to appear to support any particular religious point of view.

You can imagine the backlash that they might experience from people of various religious persuasions and the media would be labeled as a supporter of one particular group.

That is not to say that you cannot find media who will review the book, but choose them carefully. You can target religion sections of newspapers, religion magazines, radio and television shows, religion websites and chat groups, etc.

The point is, you need to target media who are interested in your genre, religious or otherwise.

Enjoy your interviews.

Denise

SELLING BOOKS

When we at Ink Tree talk to people who have either written or want to write a book, most of them want to be published, acknowledged and then make money, so in essence they know in their mind the end result.

However, the end result is actually the hardest part of the process of writing a book. It might seem at the time that all the effort and time spent in writing would be the biggest chunk and the hardest work – NOT!

Don’t get us wrong, we are not trying to undermine the importance of the time, effort and thought process that went into you achieving your dream and writing your book, but the fact of the matter is that in the word of books and publishing, it is very hard to sell your book and make money.

Most people seem to think that once the book is written the book stores will immediately open their doors and display your book front and centre – okay, slight exaggeration here, but this is not necessarily true – and this is why you must put great thought into how you will “Sell Your Book” once it is written and ready to go.

If you are with a Publishing House you are likely to get a short “publicity” tour for your book and it will definitely end up in the bookstores, but after your book is no long “front list” a publishing term that really means “new and current” and this time period ends somewhere between 6 months and 1 year, the Publishing House will move on to their new prospect and unless you have had mega sales or are some kind of “celebrity” you will be pretty much dropped and left to your own devices to help them promote your book and if things don’t go well or continue to go well for your book you will make no money and in some case may have to return any or some of your “advance” they might have given you! It’s a very tough business.

On the other hand, if you have self published you have much more control over your book and marketing your product, but getting it into the bookstores and selling it in other markets and areas is completely and totally up to you! So, in advance of actually writing your book you need to identify where your story fits in, what kind of twist and difference it has or can make and who and what is your target market. Once you have established this then the bookstores will open their doors more readily to selling your book.

But, that is only one area of marketing your book and it can be a slow process. Unfortunately you only get paid by the bookstores for the books they actually sell, if they decide your book isn’t a “big seller” and return your books you have to pay for the shipping back to yourself and like I said they will only pay for what they have sold, and they don’t pay in advance!.

So, with this kind of situation it is a complete MUST to have other areas of marketing your books, other places to sell large quantities. Here are a few ideas below of how to sell your book outside of the tradition book store:

You MUST have a website to direct buyers to whether it be through the publicity that you will do, or if you are with a Publishing House what they will do for you.
Amazon.com is also a MUST. Everyone all over the world knows about this huge internet “bookstore” and if someone cannot find what they want in a bookstore they will always go here
Volume Buyers:

-Book Clubs
-Corporations
-Catalogs
-Display Retail Companies, etc

There are many, many more avenues to research and promote your book to for volume sales and corporations that perhaps you can align yourself with to help promote your book as they in turn promote their product ie: A health company who may purchase a large volume of your book to give-a-way with their product.

We are Ink Tree Marketing Ltd., can also help you out with much more information on the above subject. We have marketed our own books as well as those of our clients to many, many different areas with great success so take a look at our website and or call us – we want you to be as successful as you possibly can.

So, the bottom line is this. If you know you want to achieve your dream and write a book and you know you want to be successful and make money then before you start, make sure you know what appeals to the market, what is current, what hasn’t been done before, what has a twist and is different and what is your competition! Then try to incorporate some aspect of this into the writing of your book.

The next step is then to research and look into other areas (per above) of selling your “upcoming book” so you can open up your possibilities of selling your book and making money. It’s not easy but worth the time and effort and if you plan ahead then your chances increase by huge amounts for monetary success.

Once you have one successful book on your hands, you can then turn for more professional help with a second book but you will never have a profit with your publishing venture if your “profits” go to pay other people to do something that in the beginning you can do yourself – you have to be very careful what and who you pay to help you and be sure you always get the “best bang for your buck”.


Debbie

SELLING BOOKS

I wonder how many people think about where they will sell their books after the books are published. From my experience, most people don't think about selling at all.

Here is a thought. What is a book? A book is a product, pure and simple. A book is an item that you are creating to sell - for profit - just as if it was a widget, a water bottle, a paper clip or anything else.

So, if you were planning to sell a widget, would you not research the market for widgets? Who would buy them, why would they buy them, where would you find the buyers, how much would the buyers pay for the widget, what would make the widget most appealing to the buyer, who are the competitors, where would you sell the widget? - and on and on.

Before you publish a book, write each question down and learn the answers to all of those questions - and then do your research to find the answers. You will have a much more clear idea on how to write your book because you will know the target market and you will write with that market in mind. You will know what appeals to that market which will give you direction in finding markets where the buyers hang out, so to speak. You will know what style of book appeals to your buyer. You will know your competition which will inspire you to produce a better and different product.

We can help guide you through the process.

Denise

Publicity - Just How Important is it?

I was talking to someone the other day who had written a book and was looking to publish it herself. Wonderful! Always fabulous to see someone following through on something they have always wanted to do. So I asked her the big question "What are you doing for Publicity once your book is published"? She looked at me with this blank stare on her face and I thought to myself "Uh oh, here we go again"...

As we talked more I realized that she did actually want to make money from her book and wanted to have it in Chapters, Indigo etc. but had never placed any importance on anything else other than writing her book, getting it edited and then finding a way to self publish. She didn't realize that what she had accomplished so far was the "easy" part.Sadly, this is a common thing that we at Ink Tree hear all the time. Depending where an author is when they come to us will depend on whether or not we are able to help them avoid costly mistakes and follow their dream and/or make the best of where they are in their venture.

It's wonderful to finally write your book, tell your story, offer some great advice on something you are passionate about but here's the thing...how can anyone buy your book, know it actually exists (other than family and close friends) if you don't do PUBLICITY!!The fact is in order for people to remember you and have some recollection they need to see or hear about you at least 7 (seven) times. We are not talking about speaking with your friends and family, they will remember you and go buy your book right off the bat, they are not your concern. In order to be successful with your book and make sales, therefore make money one of the most important things you need to do is get exposure to the general public.

The main channels of publicity and exposure are TV, Radio and Newspapers, along with a website to drive people to when you are doing the aforementioned media. Publicity is not cheap and often because it hasn't been considered by a "wannabe" author it hasn't been figured into their costs and they are left with a garage full of books and very few of them going out the door. Publicity and as well other areas of marketing your book need to be front and center when you are actually writing your book. With certain genres of the book world flooded with new authors daily, your book needs to have something different, an edge on what else is out there or something completely new and exciting - this in turn will garner the interest of the media and get you some of that exposure you want.

Yes, there is a certain amount of work "you" the author can do to get yourself some publicity for your book and your "local" media are often the best place to start but eventually you will need expert advice or someone to help you with this. One of the most important things you must do though is to have a website for your book, distribution is very hard to find and at least you can direct interested buyers here to purchase your book.How would anyone know these things? Often they don't and therefore disappointment hits many authors as well as huge expenses with no way of knowing how to make their book profitable.

We at Ink Tree have our "Ultimate Marketing Kit". This is a must for every "wannabe" author out there. Our kit will guide you through every single thing you need to know from the "thought in your head" to the "finished product on the shelf". This kit is a saving grace that will keep you on target, know what it takes and not make those costly mistakes. It also gives great information on publicity and especially how to market your book in other areas than just the "book stores".It would be great to have every potential author know about our "Ultimate Marketing Kit" before they start their book, however even if someone has a finished manuscript or their published book we can still help them and they will get great benefit from our product.We at Ink Tree want to see every single person who dreams of writing a book reach their goal with the greatest opportunity of success, but knowledge and information is the key to this. We've been there and done it all - know our way around and have been able to create our Ultimate Marketing Kit to make this process easy and successful. We believe in dreams. T

ell everyone you know who wants to follow this path to check out our website and let us help them by providing them with the best tool they need - The Ultimate Marketing Kit.!!

Debbie Black
VP Publicity

THE PRINCIPLE OF A BOOK

Don't you sometimes wonder why books are so fascinating? Often you hear someone say, "Have you seen Such and Such movie?" - and the response is often "Yes, but the book was better."

Books live in our minds. Movies are fleeting images that flash through our minds but we can't revisit the scenes as easily as we can revisit thoughts that formed in our heads as we read a book. We are in charge of our own imaginations and the characters and the scenes in the story are as we want them to be not as someone else has imagined and flashed through our heads.

According to Guy Vanderhaeghe, author of The Englishman's Boy, "you can control a book - by rereading a chapter, rereading a paragraph, rereading a sentence. A book invites argument, invites reconsideration, invites thought. Like feeling, it simply is. The principle of a book is persuasion; the principle of a movie is revelation."

A book wants you to ponder and to form new thoughts and to discuss YOUR ideas with others. That is why books are so important, whether they are fiction or nonfiction.

Keep on writing. You, your books and your ideas are important.

Denise

CHOOSING A BOOK TITLE

I have been working with a client on choosing the title for his upcoming book. It's such a struggle, expecially when you are the author. There are so many ideas running through your head and you are so busy with editing and formating that the title just escapes you.

Most authors go for the professorial sounding title, but that type of title belongs on a text book. If you are targeting the average person you want to stand out from the crowd. Unlike a text book, the title that you will be marketing must ring in people's ears. They must be able to say, "Oh, yes, I've heard of that book" and then they must feel compelled to buy the book. People have to buy text books for study purposes but no one HAS to buy your book. You must sell them on it.

The subtitle is the place for clarification - the place where you can say in a phrase what the book is about. The title needs to "say" what the book is about in 3 or 4 words only. Think: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which you probably know is a book about money management.

The funny thing is that the title is usually right there in the book. You just didn't think of it as a title.

Write your book, and then consult with me. We'll figure it out. My current client and I just had an Ah, Ha moment this morning. There it was - he wrote it in the list of symptoms of the medical condition about which he is writing. It just jumped out at me but he was too close to the project to see it.

What fun!!

Denise

Hmmmm...

It seems that some of my blog postings were erased. Don't you just love technology? When it works, you have to love it but when it doesn't work, oh boy....

Well, let's see what happens today. It's a good day to write anyway - another cold, rainy Spring day. Where, oh where is that global warming happening?? I know it's somewhere.

Anyway, I read an interesting quote today:

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.
Bell Hooks, O Magazine, December 2003

That's true for me, certainly. One of the best books that I ever read was All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. My copy is a keeper because it is timeless wisdom. Without having to surf the internet, I can take a few quiet moments to read a chapter, laugh and think about how true the simplest wisdom is.

Anyway, get a copy of the book and see if any of it inspires you to write simple, interesting advice for the rest of us.

Denise