Education Resources from WritersServices.com

Self-promotion, the marketplace and how to set about marketing your book

Here are a few hints: 

Marketing is about 

Ideally, you will have thought about your market while you were writing your latest masterpiece. You should have already talked to those who are going to sell copies of your book. They have something to contribute to your creative process - it's called market focus. 

How much, and which, activities you undertake depends on the type of book. A local history, a course textbook and a romantic novel need very different marketing approaches. It is your job as publisher to work out  how to reach your market. Put bluntly, if you cannot think of a way of reaching your target audience, is it still worth publishing your book?

You will need some good copy for the cover and for the information sheet. Ask a friend or a professional copy-writer to write this. It is a skilled task. 

Reviews

It is monstrously difficult to obtain a review of your book in the national media. The current fashion for celebrities favourably reviewing each other's work is flawed, but so was the work of the literary critics with their set of prejudices. You are not going to change the present system, so find alternative routes. Local papers and local radio are open to new writers, especially if some topical or local link can be contrived. 

You could spend a fortune on promotional copies but you will be disappointed by the response. Count up the number of books reviewed in the national press each week and set this beside the number published each week. The theoretical odds, which are already about '100 to 1', are lengthened when you realise that the publishing houses already have good working relationships with literary editors. Self-publishers are not in the running.

Focus your efforts on relevant journals. Always make personal contact and send a review copy only if requested. Be patient. It may be several months before you get any column inches for your book. 

You should be able to get into the local news pages which is fine for stories with a local market. It always helps to add a biography and a bit about writing the book to your information sheet. We can help with mail shots.

Web marketing

We provide all our writers with free space within our website in our WritersBookstall and WritersShowcase.  Because the WritersServices.com site is regularly crawled all over by the web spiders which supply information to the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches.

And, crucially, your title will be available through Amazon (.co.uk and .com). Explore the sites and see just how much they do to promote the books featured there. They profile their customers and suggest books they might like based on titles previously ordered. Amazon also allow readers to rate books so you might get some audience feedback.

The book will also be displayed in our WritersBookstall and linked to the web pages we have created for you.

The Book Trade

Chain bookshops and bookstores are evolving into lively places of entertainment but their business is bestsellers. Once you are able to shift thousands of copies of your book you will be snapped up by an agent or publisher. Self-publishing may help you reach this goal but prepare yourself for disappointment if you write fiction. It is not easy to get self-published fiction into bookshops.

Sadly the big booksellers have central buying systems, so the scope for marketing yourself to them is limited but it's still worth trying. Independent bookshops are often more supportive of local authors, so it is well worth trying to get them to support your book.

Promotion

One day perhaps you will have an eager audience waiting for your work but to reach that stage you have a lot of hard work to do. Writing well is not enough. It never has been. Being famous is not enough either, as several celebrities have discovered. The shelves of the discount bookshops are filled with hardback editions of the books of the famous selling at £1.99. 

Online sales  

If you expect to sell most of your early copies online then you want to spend a bit of energy on what you prepare for your web page. You might put up some of the illustrations and background relating to the writing of the book. Interview yourself and explain why you wrote the book. Talk about the characters. Explain the background to any historic incidents in your narrative.

Signings

There are a few people who can pack a bookshop or store for a book signing. Most authors are very happy to attract 50 people. You might find it a bit humbling that people whom you regard as famous and successful writers will travel hundreds of miles to talk to the public and sign a few copies of their work. Their motives are diverse. Part is promotion but in return they get a look at real readers. Most report that it is good for their egos in spite of the travel.

It might be a bit early for a celebrity signing (unless you are a celebrity, of course), but if you can think of some act or angle that might attract an audience, then go for it. Many works have a historical context and anniversaries provide an excellent opportunity to do some promotion.

International

Although you would publish in the UK this does not prevent you exporting or selling your books overseas. The laws and regulations covering publication vary from one country to another so you need to check that it does not transgress local laws or customs.

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