Atlanta
Writers Group
Feature Article – March 2007
Learning
to Love S&M…(Sales & Marketing)
(Excerpted
from The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living,
by Peter Bowerman. Fanove, 2006. www.wellfedsp.com),
edited by Karen Pickett-Woodland for AWG.
I saw a
great series of billboards in
But, say
“marketing” or “sales” to a roomful of right-brained author types and watch the
sweat beads pop. But, getting comfortable with the whole sales and marketing
thing really is easier than you think…
It’s
ALL About the Customer
In the course of promoting your
masterpiece, you’ll be crafting a pretty steady stream of promotional
materials: press releases, marketing proposals to wholesalers, distributors,
and booksellers, email pitches to book review targets, queries to publications
to submit articles, notes to groups soliciting invitations to speak (and accompanying
promo materials, and much more. As such, it’s good to understand what’s
important in this process (your audiences and what they want) and what’s not
(you and your book).
Here are
the three fundamental principles of sales and marketing – principles that,
incidentally, are already a part of your frame of reference as a consumer:
1)
“Audience” – Always understand who your audience is and what language will
best get through to them.
2) The
Features/Benefits Equation – Focus on driving home what you know is
important to your audience, not just talking about you and your book.
3) The
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Figure out what sets your book apart in
the marketplace and drive that difference home – early and often.
Developing a marketing mindset
means always looking at things through the eyes of your target audience. For
example:
·
You
want someone to post an Amazon review (after they gushed on about your book in
an email), so you send them the actual Amazon link to your book.
·
When
sending out review copies (and the heads-up emails), you include a prominent
link to your “Media Resources” section, which includes everything a potential
reviewer might need to put a review together.
·
You
want some “key influencer” to promote an upcoming event of yours, so you send
an actual ready-to-go promo blurb, as if written by them, so that it’s just a
simple cut-‘n-paste to get it handled.
·
You
contact a journalist to get some publicity, and you include a link to “News
Pegs” in your Media Resources section.
In all these cases, you’re
thinking about their reality and that you’re not a high priority in
their world. As such, you need to make it as easy as humanly possible for them
to do what you’re asking them to do. Let’s explore each of the three in a bit
more depth…
“Who’s the
Audience?”
This is absolutely THE
first question you need to ask yourself whenever you’re about to put together
any promotional copy. When you buy a product you heard about
through some form of advertising, it’s because something spoke to you.
Someone knew what to say to make you sit up and take notice – which is
exactly what will happen when a message is well crafted. What’s amazing – and
tragic – is how much marketing material, put together by authors and prestigious
publishing houses, is poorly written and doesn’t consider the intended
audience. If you can get it right, you’ll set yourself apart.
The Features/Benefits Equation
Some time back, I was contacted by an author who wanted me
to review a press release for their new book. It was full of superlative
adjectives about the book, hyperbolic gushing-on about the author, and other
unforgivable self-indulgences. In short, tailor-made for a quick trip to the
circular file. So common. So unnecessary.
The
Features/Benefits Equation is an absolute cornerstone of sales and marketing and a concept with which we’re
already intimately acquainted.
In the
publishing context, features are all about a book and its author. Benefits
are about your target audiences – what’s important to them, and how your book
addresses those issues. Always begin with benefits, follow with features. The
more you make it about you and your book, the more likely your intended
audience will ignore you.
Okay, using my first book as an
example, you think people care that Peter Bowerman leveraged a sales and
marketing career into a new career in the lucrative field of commercial writing
and then wrote a book about it? That the book covers X, Y and Z subjects?
Yawwwwwwwwn. That’s all about me and my book.
If you were a prospect for my
book, I’d wager good money that you’d care far more about the fact that there’s
this lucrative field called commercial writing, where you fulfill your dream of
making a good living (i.e., $50-125 an hour) as a writer. A field that
can provide a great income while letting you work from your home, have more
time for life, loved ones, and leisure. Sound better? Course it does. Because
that’s all about you – your favorite thing in the whole world! Then, once I get
your attention with things I know mean something to you, I can tell you
more about me.
Just remember, if you’re an unknown
author, journalists couldn’t care less that you’ve written a book. A release
about a book and its author is…features. That reporter wants benefits: “Tell
me why that book is important to my readers/viewers.” Not the book, but the angle represented
by the book. Those are the benefits.
USP - The Unique Selling
Proposition
Every book is unique in some way.
Once you determine the audience for your book, zero in on its Unique Selling
Proposition (USP) – THE thing that sets that book apart in a marketplace
full of competitors (more important with non-fiction than fiction). What does
it do that others don’t? Once you determine your book’s USPs, make sure they
show up in your back cover copy and in most everything else you send out. Drive
the message home.
Getting
comfortable with sales and marketing doesn’t have to be painful. And when you
make these concepts your friends, and they become second nature, you set the
stage for some serious promotional success.
Got a book in you? Can’t land a publisher? Why not
do it yourself, and make a living from it? Sound good? Then, check out the free
report on self-publishing at www.wellfedsp.com, the home of
the 2006 release The
Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. Author Peter Bowerman is known
for the award-winning (and self-published) Well-Fed Writer titles (on the lucrative field of commercial
freelancing), which have provided him with a full-time living for over five
years. (www.wellfedwriter.com).