Here are excuses many authors use not to promote, killers all. Each includes advice that
will help a writer salvage his book and career from wrong thinking. "I hear everyone is cutting back on promotion so why shouldn't I?" Advice:
Didn't your mother ever ask you, "If Johnny jumped off a cliff, would you do it,
too?" Look at those authors. If they're selling lots of books, it's because
somebody (their publisher, bookstores, their publicists) is promoting them. I'll
bet, though, that most of the authors saying this aren't selling very many. Look at
your situation. If you don't do it, who will do it for you?
"I like Carolyn's Frugal Book Promoter idea so I'm going to only do things that
cost no money at all." Advice: Hey! Frugal is one thing. Cheap is another. Some
of the best things you can do cost some money. An example is American
Booksellers Association Advance Access program. Find it at www.bookweb.org.
Careful though. Always weigh the "rightness" of any program for your particular
book. "I'm going to examine everything I'm doing and only continue what I can prove is
working." Advice: You may not be able to prove much, if anything. That's not
the way marketing works. Judge how well your entire campaign is going only
after you have given it plenty of time to work. If one thing is working well,
maybe it is because your title or name is being seen elsewhere. Balance your
campaign, yes. Try new things, yes. Cut back on a few only if you must. Keep in
mind that book sales are not necessarily the most valid way to evaluate your
promotion.
"Nothing I've tried works. I'm giving up." Advice. You may be on the brink. Or
maybe you've been giving up on each aspect of your campaign too early. Any
marketing plan must be many-pronged, frequent and long-term.
"If I cut back on promotion and find my sales slipping, I can always gear up
again." Advice: Yikes! Good publicity and promotion build. It's like skipping
rocks on a pond. With each stone, ripples wave out, out, out. Eventually, after
you've skipped lots and lots of stones, the results start coming back to you in
waves. If you stop whipping those stones into the water, the results dissipate. It
will take a long time to get enough stones dancing across the water again to
match what you've done and, once you lose momentum, you may never get it
back. Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do
What Your Publisher Won't, The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to
Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success and an Amazon Short, "The Great First
Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in
20 Minutes or Less." Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.
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