Effortlessly Unleash Powerful Word-of-Mouth Buzz
for Maximum Sales with Minimal Work!
Ask any publisher or self-publishing author what’s the most effective strategy to sell more books, and all the answers you get will likely fall under the overarching umbrella of “Marketing.” Lots of review copies. Tons of live appearances. Scads of news releases to mainstream media. A powerful web site. Radio. Ezines. Blogging. Social media. Writing articles. And ideally, a healthy mix of all the above.
All are “bricks in the wall” of a comprehensive book marketing campaign and should be consistently pursued and implemented.
But, what if you could do one thing before any of these that would turbo-charge the effectiveness and yield of all of them? Something that would dramatically simplify your overall marketing job and help you sell far more books with far less effort—not to mention boost sales of your related products and services.
And the best part? It’s something you have complete, absolute, 100% control over. What is it? In a minute. Patience….
Valuable Validation
Recently, in the space of a week, I had three things happen that demonstrated the power of this potent strategy.
The first was a review on Amazon of my book, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher. The woman taught workshops on publishing, and the last line of her review read: “His book’s solid advice and well-told experiences have pushed his book to the top of my ‘recommended reads’ list for my workshop attendees.”
A few days later, I got an email from someone who bought one of my books. She wrote: “Actually, I should be on your payroll; I’m out there selling you and your books.”
Finally, I got an email from a gentleman who wrote: “I bought about half a dozen books on self-publishing, and I have to say yours (TWFSP) is the best, which is why I’m contacting you for some mentoring/consulting work.”
(P.S. That consulting work – general self-publishing coaching, book title/subtitle creation and back cover copywriting – totaled over $1300…).
The three together had the light bulb go on, and this unprofoundly profound epiphany bubbled up. The most powerful book marketing strategy of all is to…
Write a Really Good Book.
Go on, roll your eyes. But, think about it. What do you do when you discover a great restaurant, movie, vacation spot, or yes, book? You can’t wait to tell your friends.
Write a book that readers consider one of the best—or THE best—in its field, one that provides solid high-value information that enhances the quality of their lives or the size of their bank accounts, and does it in a fun and engaging way, and you’ll automatically recruit an army of unofficial salespeople—most of whom you’ll never meet.
They tell others who’ll tell others, and shazam! – you’ll experience the wonderful phenomenon of word-of-mouth advertising. My books have been rich beneficiaries of
W-O-M. And, despite working nearly full-time as a freelance copywriter (the subject of my three Well-Fed Writer titles), sales of my books and spinoff products and services have nonetheless provided me with a full-time living since 2001. All with a very part-time marketing effort.I say it’s because, well, they’re really good books.
What Makes a Good W-O-M Book?
What has people buy a book and then spread the word? As my experience is in “how-to” books, I can only speak authoritatively on that genre. That said, some of my observations below would no doubt apply to other genres as well (especially straight non-fiction).
1) In-Demand Subject Matter: When I wrote The Well-Fed Writer, I was dead certain there was a market for a book that offered a step-by-step blueprint for making $75-$100-$125+ an hour as a writer. With only one other book on the market on “commercial” freelancing at the time, there was room for another.
As for The Well-Fed Self-Publisher? With all the authors out there running into brick walls trying to land a publisher OR tired of making no money with one, I knew a book with the no-hype subtitle, “How to Turn One Book Into a Full-Time Living” would find a warm reception out there. I was right. What about yours?
2) Offer Practical Information: Because my books are essentially firsthand accounts of how I (and others) specifically went about the process in question (i.e., starting a lucrative commercial freelancing practice or profitably self-publishing a book), there’s nothing theoretical about them. It’s real-world stuff, written by someone who’s actually done everything a reader would be doing. This authenticity makes it credible and compelling. Related to that is…
3) Provide Nitty-Gritty Detail: Get into a level of detail not found in other books. Readers want you to spell things out. Don’t tell me I need to have a press release. Show me how to create a good one. Don’t just mention buying shipping envelopes for my books. Tell me what kind, the company, the model number, and how to reach them. Don’t just talk about what should go into a press kit; tell me how to craft the different pieces, down to “scissors-and-glue-stick” steps (and I do… no kidding).
Offer specific, proven resources. Give them easy-to-follow game plans. For instance, TWFSPfeatures the Time Line appendix—seven pages detailing every step of the self-publishing path from before writing the book to after printing it, complete with page numbers for each step referring back to the part in the book that provides more detail. Don’t talk generalities. Get micro.
4) Make It Fun and Readable: A book that offers all that, and does it in an engaging way is tough to top. Many readers cite my writing style as a main strong suit of my books. If you want someone to hang with a book, make it worth their while to do so. Make learning a good time.
5) Produce It Well:You can do all the above, but if it looks like the work of an amateur, it won’t come close to reaching its potential. Invest in professional resources to handle editing, cover design, interior layout, indexing and printing. Cutting corners just isn’t worth it. Over the years, countless seasoned book industry folk have commented on how UN-self-published my books look.
Bottom line, write a book that’s better than it has to be. Keep asking: “How can I provide even more value to readers?” Don’t be stingy. The more you share, the more you’ll be seen as a generous author, the more fans you’ll make, the more those fans will talk, the more books you’ll sell, and the more they’ll want to buy anything else you create. Success breeds success. Do all this and you will absolutely make your ongoing marketing job infinitely easier and more fun. You’ll absolutely
work less and make more money. I’m living proof it works just like that.
work less and make more money. I’m living proof it works just like that.
© Copyright 2014, Peter Bowerman. All Rights Reserved
Thanks! Though, not sure how “common” this sense is…;) Bottom line, in today’s world, it seems all the discussion is about marketing, marketing and more marketing. I’d never say marketing isn’t important, but FAR too often, people give short shrift to the product itself, thinking if they just market the heck out of it, they’ll do fine. And they might for a while, but it won’t be enduring. IMO, creating a superior product is a much more reliable predictor of success than marketing will ever be.
#3 is so true. I hate it when I buy a book and all it does is give me the same general adive I’ve heard a million times. I already know what to do, I need the “how”. Great Post!
Very common sense! Thanks!