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Is this all there is? Selling books is a bitch!

Is this all there is? Selling books is a bitch!

I posted this today on the Yahoo Self Publishing group in response to a frustrated author.

Al wrote:

” I wonder if it as simple as perhaps we are not asking people to buy our books? You can get the freebie advertising but it is like throwing chum to fish. You might get their attention but unless you hook them by the lip you are not going to catch any. …[]… Musicians and published authors actually go out and play their music or do book signings. Buddy Holly hated touring (and it killed him) but his record sales needed the public appearances.”

I don’t think asking people to buy your book is simple at all. I don’t think it’s as effective as tantalizing them and persuading them.

Most authors and even most publishers devote very little time and effort into the identification, targeting, messaging, acquisition and activation of buyers for their books. Yet figuring this out is crucial.

Even with the incredible technologies available online, people don’t know how to create the messages and communications that pull people in. Instead, they either do very little (as in, build it and they will come), or they push the product, find out how hard it is, and then give up because so few people buy the book.

You can do a lot with the media and technologies online if you seek to understand how people buy or get engaged with your books, products or services.

1. People discover a need, or want to solve a problem.

2. They begin a search usually online, but it can happen on social media like FB or Twitter or any number of other places (including discussion groups like this one)

3. But they really don’t look very hard. They only pay attention to the first few things they discover or the first few recommendations they get from people they have familiarity with.

4. People also tend to go and hang out where they are invited, accepted, entertained or educated.

Now for every type of book, product or service, there are thus hundreds if not thousands of places to search and become associated with.

But as most people now know, you can’t easily sell product and survive the act of asking. You must provide helpful, non-sales laden information, guidance, education or entertainment with subtle links that lead you back to your site. That’s where the real sales process then begins.

So what do you do?

1. Determine who your audience really is! Identify who your best targeted customers are and then figure out where they hang out. Your goal is to then learn how to be prominent and highly regared wherever they hang out.

2. You need to identify the type of content that will turn them on. Is it action laden excerpts? Is it drama? Is it illustrations, games, videos, or helpful tips?

3. You need to learn how to communicate so that your content works wherever you place it. The post for a blog is not automatically what you place in a tweet. The content and the trail of breadcrumbs has to fit the medium.

4. You need to participate in the communities meaningfully. You answer questions and provide feedback, offer tips, advice, stories, humor, experience and enthusiasm, so that people are inspired and get interested and so that you trigger the action to go to your site to explore your product.

5. You create content that people want to link to, want to share, and want to give to others.

This is what you try to do with media when you do publicity. Only now, EVERYONE is a publisher who is trying to make money off subscriptions and/or advertising.

If you do it reasonably well, you get dozens or articles or posts.

If you do phenomenally well, you go viral.

You don’t just write in a vacuum. You develop, test, deploy, analyze and improve.

My simple acronym for this process is this: CACA

C – Create

A – Ask

C – Create again

A – Ask again

Once you prove the message works in your backyard, only then can and should you use technology to try to repeat the success widely.

Your objective is to keep on placing things before YOUR people so they can decide to participate, play or purchase.

But just realize that this is hard to do. Think about it! When was the last time you read the newspaper, and went and grabbed your credit card.

Yet very often, a single piece of information triggers a desire that brings something to mind that does indeed get you to take action. Then and only then do you search for the contact information, the email, the phone or the order form.

Few authors realize that creating the book is only the beginning. To be successful they have to find satisfaction in connecting with people again and again till they get enough action to pay for their investment in the work they created. It’s not just mechanics and technology.

It’s not just fine art or excellence in creative writing.

There’s persistent, dedicated systematic communication outreach that has to drive people to action.

Success often lives or dies with the close monitoring of the one-to one relationship developed between the author and his or her audience.

That is where the author must determine “what did I do and say that turned you on?”

Learn this and you can use the technologies.

Fail to learn this and nothing happens.

Book reviews VS. Feature Stories – Which Sells More?

Book Reviews VS. Feature Stories - Which Sells More?

I personally don’t believe that book reviews sell as many books as do feature stories. Yes, they have a role to play, but it’s actually a very limited role. The real gains are to be made with galvanizing feature stories.

The key to understanding this is that book reviews tend to simply show and tell the book and what’s inside the book while good feature stories are designed to galvanize and get people emotionally involved. If what people see gives them an experience, then they are far more inclined to take the action desired, which is to step closer to the book and the author. Articles about the author also tend to produce a professional branding effect. this means that if people read and like what they see, then they will be inclined to buy everything the author has for sale.

This means that if you put down the book, stop selling the product for a second and focus on doing what you do best – entertaining your audience and giving them your best, then this is when you stand your best chance of saying and doing something that will really turn people on.

Give people an experience. Make them laugh, cringe, make them hungry, solve a painful problem, make them feel good, feel bad, feel sexy, or feel awed and inspired.

Do that and they’ll remember you.

That’s what really causes people to pay attention and buy what you are selling.

Incredible book publicity & promotion innovation demonstrated on the NYC Subway

Incredible book publicity & promotion innovation demonstrated on the NYC Subway

Hats off to The Book Bench and the Book Department at the New Yorker for a great snapshot of a truly innovative approach to book promotion.

Timely topic, Great energy and enthusiasm, and almost free! (cost of a subway token!)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/12/1000-words-diy.html

Do note that they are asking for more picture tells a thousand word book related photo submissions at the web site.

We need to ask for a follow up to see if the author gets a NYC publisher!

Realistic chances of success for a memoir

Tips on how to help guide an author of a self published memoir

Here is my November 21, 2008 response to a post to the online discussion group Small-Pub Civil at Yahoo groups:

>>Hello, everyone! One of my authors has written a 250+ page book about his open-heart surgery. The bulk of it is autobiographical, including childhood memories, interviews with
everyone from the surgeon down to the cleaning staff and an entire chapter of get-well emails from his friends (he has their permission, BTW). Since he produces and hosts a long-
running regional TV show with a reasonably-sized fan base and is promoting the hell out of the book, I am confident he will sell a few thousand copies. But he’s expecting big-time
national success, including being stocked in the chains and selling on QVC. He is seriously counting on coverage in the NYT.

>> When I try to point out that this is unlikely he accuses me of negativism. Am I just being negative?

———————————

I encounter this with authors all the time. It goes with the territory. It could be a truly remarkable memoir. It might contain experiences that can make people smile, cry and laugh as they read. But then again, he may not yet have gotten any meaningful feedback from people, or the feedback he has received may be designed to make him feel good and congratulate him on his effort and accomplishment with having written a book.

I wrote an article to try to get people to grasp the significance of their dream and what it means to them if they really want to see other people appreciate their writing, especially if they really intend to now use that writing to achieve fame and financial success.

I work with hundreds of authors and publishing companies each year and really and truly, very few of them have really created a book that it good enough to achieve fame, glory and financial success for the author. Most are labors of love. There’s a sizable financial investment and personal emotional investment that’s required to go from “author” to “best selling author” and few really have what it takes to make it through the gauntlet of the marketplace.

What I recommend people do is go slow. Show and tell one on one. It’s possible to learn how to sell. That’s the miracle of the microcosm. If you learn what you need to say to people in your little neck of the woods, chances are you can then say the same thing anywhere and everywhere you go and you’ll be equally successful selling your products wherever you go.

But you need to learn those magic words first.

You have to write to sell, and the job of writing isn’t done until the book sells. This is where most self-publishers go astray. They publish their book without verifying it was really ready for market.

You have to test your ideas and test your product and test your mar-com (marketing communications) on real live people. You need to identify your end users and the people who will buy the book for your users. Then you need to learn what to say to get these people to take the action you want.

Write to sell and test, test, test. Do this in small doses till you get the right buy signals. Reliably. Not just once or twice, but repeatedly and reliably.

Do 25 to 50 POD versions and test it with these important people.

You’ll know by their behavior and response whether you are really ready to publish the book.

If you can’t get people to even look at it, then you’re not done.

If they look at it and put it down, then you still have work to do.

If people look at it and grab it, you might be done. It depends what happens when they then pick it up and peruse it. If they put it down, then you’re not done.

You may have to redesign and re-write it till you know you are done. You have to work with your prospective audience to get real feedback, and you must listen to what people say and address the issues you receive.

This may take a lot of reiterations.

But one thing is for certain, there is a point that you will reach when you know that you are done. It’s a wonderful thing when you get to this point and know it.

Here’s what I’ve observed and experienced.

You know when you are done…

When people look at it, grab it, look at it again, look up to see where the cashier is, and then head to the cashier.

You show your book someone and they hold it close and won’t give it back freely.

You show them the book and they reach for their wallet.

They pick up one book, look at it, and grab four or five of them and head to the cashier.

One person picks up the book, grabs it and heads to find and show his or her friend the book, and they both grab one for themselves and buy it.

You know that you have something when kids pull it off the shelf and haul it over to their mothers and fathers with a look of desire and wanting and excitement in their eyes that says please????!!!!

I call this the hoarding syndrome. What you are witnessing I call a clutching response. It occurs when people touch something and decide that they want it.

This behavior in people clearly indicates to you that the book or object they are holding has such inherent value and importance that they are willing to pay for it. They know it and you know it instantly. They clutch the object of their desire in their hot sweaty hands and pull it in close to their body as if to possess it and protect it.

I know you’ve seen this and even experienced it yourself. You see it in stores and shopping centers all the time. I see it when my wife and teenage daughters shop. I know from their behavior when I’m toast. There is no arguing with them once they’ve experienced certain hormonal reactions to objects that they’ve been in close physical contact with. That’s they way we humans respond to certain material experiences.

Other people here have no doubt experienced this in a variety of ways. It would be very cool to hear from people about when they knew that they were done.

I work with a lot of authors and publishers, and I see success a lot less frequently that I wish I would see. I attribute this to people rushing through to publishing their books without making sure they have created a product that people will actually buy.

So this is my bottom line advice:

Write to sell. Don’t stop writing and re-writing till you know it sells, and sells easily and continuously.

Prove it with small test POD numbers. Use the technology that is available to all of us wisely. Then move it up through the publishing and promotion chain level by level.

In most cases, the author thinks the book should excite and grab people. But it doesn’t always happen that way.

So to me, they still have work to do. But they can’t speculate about what’s wrong, they need real data.

This is what I tell people to do – get the data. Figure out what you need to say and do to produce action that will satisfy your stated goals and objectives:

Go ask your candidate customers. Ask until you are blue in the face and get the hard difficult data and feedback you need to redesign and redo your project.

I had a recent publisher come to me with a book which presented his ideas on how to have a successful marriage by using a marriage contract.

Myself, I’m a former attorney and I would not pick up a book that had a marriage contract in it.

Do people want to run their marriage off of a contract? Like it’s a job or a construction project? Do they want to reduce communications and relationships to policies, procedures and stipulated provisions?

When we looked at our marriage vows, my wife said “strike the obey” and I said “and add in this here dispute resolution clause”.

And that’s what the minister did, and we still live by those words.

And that was the oral vows.

Put it in writing? Something doesn’t fit in the picture. Like ‘what’s love got to do with it?’

This is the type of process most people go through when they contemplate buying a book.

Do I want to get married to this person and his or her ideas? Even if I can get divorced from them later?

You are not done until people fall in love with your creation. You’ll know it only when it happens.

Search Inside the Book ? Good or Bad for Book Sales?

Evaluates the "Search Inside the Book" technology and how it can affect book sales

An author on the Yahoo Self Publishing list asked:

>>I am planning on using this feature for my book, The Guru Next Door, A
>>Teacher’s Legacy but wanted to check with ya’ll first. Is there any
>> reason NOT to do this?

I was actually interviewed at the Book Expo America on this issue back in late May 2005. I was standing in the Google Booth having a fun discussion (argument maybe) with some Google reps not knowing that IDG News Service industry reporter Stacy Cowley was madly taking notes right next to me and then wrote it all up for PC World magazine. Here’s a link to the article which is still available online.

Google Woos Book Publishers
http://www.pcworld.com/article/121247/google_woos_book_publishers.html

What you have to realize is that the search inside the book feature gives people the ability to make a better buying decision based on a snippet of a search on a key word that you don’t know.

The effect on your book sales will be determined by what happens when people see inside your book. Will that help you sell books?

Maybe.

It’s a lot like what happens if someone goes to the bookstore and finds your book on the shelf. If someone picks it up and turns the pages, what happens?

That’s about the size of it only now they are browsing online.

The question as far as book sales go is this:

Will a buying decision be favored if the reader sees what’s inside?

If the answer is yes, then theoretically, sales are improved compared to buying decisions based on cover, reviews, and testimonials only.

If the answer is no, then it likely doesn’t help you sell books.

The answer is in some ways dependent on the content and style of writing, organization, presentation, font size, and other characteristics of the content inside of the book.

The answer is also dependent on what the Amazon searcher enters, and how they feel about your book after reading the snippet they receive.

You have control over of the features of the content and presentation of your book. You don’t have control over what the searcher sees.

You also don’t have control over what Amazon or Google let’s the reader see.

You can experience this effect on your own buying purchases if you actively use this feature and make these types of observations when shopping.

What happens when people pick up your book? You need to find out in person first. Then you can estimate what happens online.

You might want to test the book without the search inside the book for a month or two before you add in the feature and then compare what if anything happens.

To me this is a fairly crucial bit of decisionmaking. You may be a person who has placed a lot of effort and money into creating a book that people will find attractive enough to buy. You may have spent a lot on cover design and marketing. You may have used a professional copy editor and book designer when you created your book. If the quality and writing is high in person then the chances are a similar response will occur when someone uses the search inside the book feature.

But if you haven’t done these things, then a person who sees inside the book will be able to see the quality shortcomings up close and personal and these factors will have a serious impact on the buying decision.

So if the reaction of a person who actually gets their hands on your book is not a buy decision, then maybe the search inside the book will not be helpful to you.

Since search Inside the Book and Google Print were introduced, my early observations about the technology have been pretty well born out.

Quality sells. First impressions make a whole lot of difference. The snippet can make you or break you.

You’ll need to evaluate whether the feature helps you based on how people in your target audience make decisions when looking at books like yours.

Harvey Eker and Brian Tracy in a marketing strategy session

Harvey Eker and Brian Tracy in a remarkable marketing strategy session.

Harvey Eker and Brian Tracy in a marketing strategy session.

You may have to turn up your volume to catch all the little golden nuggets in this one but it’s worth it to pay close attention to how these guys do their marketing.

This is an amazing little video.

Seth Godin explains his theory on flipping the sales funnel

Seth Godin explains his theory on flipping the sales funnel

Seth Godin explains his theory on flipping the funnel. This is a very important strategic choice you make. Seth says you need to make sure your product customers act as a megaphone and tell the people they meet all about you and the story experience they had with you. He encourages you to do all sorts of things to make it really easy for your clients to do this.

This is very helpful and useful guidance.

Jeff Slutsky demonstrates the value of asking questions

Jeff Slutsky, author of Street Smart Marketing, describes how to improve sales success by asking questions

Jeff Slutsky, author of Street Smart Marketing, is not only educational, but he is hilarious. His stand up and go for it tactics are based on years of experience in retail.

What a hoot! He’s a great salesman and a great teacher.

In this wonderful short video, he explains and drives home one of the most valuable things a sales person can do. Look at how you can improve sales success and the dollar value of a sale by focusing intensely on serving the clients needs, wants and desires.

Now in the world of targeted PR that I operate in, there are several really basic questions that I ask my clients which I use to help identify the right market, the right media and then the right message. For example, think about who your customers are. Then ask yourself “what do they read, watch or listen to, especially when they are in the mood to buy what you are selling?” This is how we target the right markets and the right media. The next key questions is “how can you help the people you can help the most?”

Then you can develop the best topic and the key talking points for an interview or a problem solving tips article.

If you want more helpful guidance, go to the free articles section of the Direct Contact PR web site.