Post #58 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Business – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
What’s the point of spending a year or more of your life pouring your heart and soul into a memoir only to sell 75 or 80 copies? In my opinion, that’s not success. When you pen that last word, take a moment to congratulate yourself and breathe a long sigh of relief. But your job is only half done. It’s time to put on your marketing hat, pick up your pen again and write your way to book sales. In truth, I believe your marketing efforts should begin long before you finish your memoir. Start building a platform for your work through a blog, Facebook fan page and all matter of social media. Here are 10 resources to help you think strategically and tactically about sales. Go get `em!
If you rely on Amazon for sales of your memoir…
TGIF Book Marketing Tips: Ten Ways to Sell Books on Amazon Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s guest blog on BookBuzzr is a must read if you rely on Amazon for most of your sales. She offers some useful techniques for building your exposure on the most popular online bookstore.
A billionaire entrepreneur shares his mindset…
7 Book Marketing Lessons from Virgin’s Richard Branson Back in the `90s I had the privilege of interviewing Branson for a profile in my IBM business magazine, Profit. We met in New York and talked business over dinner…yes it was a real treat, and I’ve been a fan of this man’s business and entrepreneurial acumen ever since. Joanna Penn clearly had the same reaction as you’ll read in her post for Marketing Tips for Authors. You won’t get specific tactics from Branson, and I think that’s okay. His empire and the techniques he used to build it are unique enough that his exact methods don’t really translate. At a higher level, however, his strategic methodology is insightful and inspiring. He’s right when he admonishes us to be bold, have fun and build word of mouth.
Be relentless with getting out the message of your memoir…
4 Tips to Effective Book Marketing The success of your book is in your hands. That’s the message from this post on Goodreads, and that’s good advice for memoir writers, indeed most writers. Few of us will ever be overnight successes, and for that matter most “overnight successes” may have been 15 or 20 years in the making. You keep plugging your platform, your website, your book every day. Keep looking for the right venue, the right audience. If you’re persistent, you have a good chance of outselling the majority of books. Writing the book is only the first leg of a long journey. You’ll find some good resources in this post, as well.
So you’ve decided to self-publish your memoir; now what?
Podcast: Self Publishing And Book Marketing Tips From Dan Poynter Joanna Penn is collecting some excellent interviews with authors, entrepreneurs and self-publishers. You can catch her conversation with Poynter on her blog The Creative Penn. This time she shares the podcast of her conversation with self-publisher Poynter. His overriding message: promote. If you’re going to self-publish, all the promotion becomes your responsibility, but the “dirty little secret” is that even if you find a publisher–large or small–you’re still going to have to do the lion’s share of the promotional work yourself. Move beyond thinking of yourself as merely a writer. In the 21st century, you need to be an author-entrepreneur.
Marketing for memoir writers…
Our friend Shirley Hershey Showalter has a Marketing Tips category on her 100 Memoirs blogsite. You should check out all her posts on 100 Memoirs. She’s a wealth of information on publishing, blogging, Google Trends, and more.
Putting together a successful virtual book tour for your memoir…
5 Tips for Coordinating a Successful Virtual Book Tour Cheryl C. Malandrinos, a virtual book tour coordinator for Pump Up Your Book, blogging on Book Marketing Buzz, shares five steps for a blog book tour. Like everything we do online, going through the process is the smallest part of a successful formula. You need to get the word out to your prospective readers on Facebook, Twitter, your own blog and any other social media outlets you use. You can’t expect people to find you unless you tell them what you’re up to and where to find your interviews and guest blogs…use word of mouth. I especially like her Tip #4: Be creative with your interviews and guest posts. Plan out your blogs to have a unique and focused message for each site on the blog book tour. For example, you can have a progressive series of guest blogs where one plays off the next and encourages readers to follow your progress. Give one or two unique bits to each site. Conclude each post with an open-ended question that drives readers to the next stop on your virtual book tour. Remember, making a sales is often the culmination of eight or more connections with the prospect.
Tailor the message of your memoir to the audience…
20 Economical Book Marketing Techniques Jake Olvido posted this article on Articlesbase and while I think he makes many good points, I don’t think his advice is particularly unique or earth shattering. Except. Except. His point #3. “Write articles on topics of current interest and correlate it with the beneficial features and advice found in your book, then submit at free PR websites.” And he revisits this concept more than once in his list. I’ll expand on his message to give you the big takeaway: Always put the specific interests and needs of each unique audience first. The more focused you are and directed on the interests and informational needs of an audience, the more likely people are going to connect and remember you and what you have to say. Remember, it’s not about you! To break through, tailor you message to the audience.
Take your memoir outside the box…
Building an Enthusiastic Fan Base as a Self-Published Author This interview with John Sundman appears on Jane Friedman’s must-read blog There Are No Rules, and it will give you a portrait of a writer seeking success not merely by getting outside the box. I think he kicked the box right out the window. Sundman’s books are geeky thrillers so you won’t follow his exact path. But you need to bring equally fresh thinking to coming up with venues (online and off) where you can promote your book. When Matilda and I first started promoting our collective memoir Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story, we took the book to age-appropriate groups ranging from sororities, alumnae associations, Chambers of Commerce and the American Association of University Women. None of these were book groups per se, but the demographics were right. You’ll find readers among all sorts of groups so figure out your demographics and go far and wide afield.
Test the market and message of your memoir throughout the process…
Paul Krupin’s Trash Proof Marketing and Publicity Blog (Realistic Chances of Success for a Memoir) One word describes this list of tips from Paul Krupin: Awesome. He advocates a slow, deliberate process that will have you testing and perfecting your message throughout. And it’s good advice for the memoir writer because our books are pretty much evergreen, meaning they have a long potential shelf life. You can afford to take the time to understand who is buying and why. Once you find your magic bullet (your best strategy) give it your all.
You memoir’s book cover is valuable real estate…
Book Cover Tips series on YouTube. Ideas for writing powerful cover copy. While this video is more directly focused at the nonfiction and self-help author because most memoir writers and fiction authors don’t let their cover sales copy drive the direction of their book, I still think Graham Van Dixhorn’s point is well taken. Your book cover is valuable real estate. Use it effectively to help promote your book. Van Dixhorn has a series of videos you might want to catch on YouTube. You can even go to his website, Write To Your Market, to read some free articles that might give you a few ideas.
I hope you are now fired up. So get to marketing your memoir!
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