3 ways to identify your audience before you publish a book
The first thing you must know before you decide how to publish your book is the age of your target audience.
If your audience is below 18 or over 50, paperback or hardback is still a more viable option.
An article from the 2012 Pew Internet & American Life Project stated that “those who read e-books are more likely to be under age 50, have some college education, and live in households earning more than $50,000.”
Does that fit your target market? Although it is certainly cheaper and faster to go digital, if that’s not where your market is you won’t make many sales.
Children’s books, especially picture books or read-a-loud books, are best in a print format.
While more and more readers are turning to digital readers it may not necessarily be where your audience is. So even though print book sales dropped by more than 9 percent in 2011 and ebook sales grew 50 percent you need to be in the marketplace where your reader is today.
Age is always going to be a primary factor in determining your target audience but you will want to know other important factors as well. Is your audience typically male or female? Where do they shop? Online or offline? What kind of jobs are they employed in? Who do they hang out with? What do they do for recreation? Once these questions are answered you will find this publishing decision to be easy.
Most first-time authors think everyone will buy their book. This is not going to happen. Don’t ask who should read your book but who would read your book. Who would most likely enjoy your book? Where would you most likely find books similar to yours? What is that audience like?
Here are 3 things you can do to discover your target audience before you publish:
Read Blog comments: If you blog, read the comments and in many cases you will discover a lot. If you do not have a blog or do not have many followers yet, find several author blogs that match the type of book you are writing and read the comments they are getting. Take notes.
Check out forums and social media sites: What are the questions being asked? Who is asking them? Look for clues as to age, lifestyle and interest. Write down anything that helps build a customer profile.
Magazine Media Page: This is a great tip. What magazines do you think most closely follow your book subject matter? You can find lots of magazine choices at Magazine.com. Once there you can select a couple of categories. Write down the magazines titles and then go to that magazines website.
For instance, I went to the magazines.com website and selected Animals and Pets. The first magazine was National Geographic Kids. I put that into Google and went to the website. Once there I scrolled to the bottom of the page and picked “Advertise with us.” From there I clicked on “Fast Facts and Research.” This pulled up a complete media profile of National Geographic Kids. Three pages of information about the readers of this magazine. Priceless! If you think the audience of the magazine you pick is close to your book subject or that readers would be close to being the same, you can piggyback on their target audience research for free.
Although it takes times to correctly identify your target market doing so will increase your success in publishing a book.
How to market a book with an email signature
Marketing your book can seem like an overwhelming process. So many different things to do, so many decisions to make about what to do.
One way to tackle the overwhelm is to pick a simple and easy task and do that first. Once you begin you’ll have more confidence to continue.
I suggest you start by creating a simple email signature, one you can easily do in less than ten or fifteen minutes. Don’t worry at this point about making it fancy; you can add a picture of your book or some other feature later. Your goal is to keep the project doable and to get it done.
Once you’ve created one email signature, you can create others that include an image of your book or something more visual. Having just a basic message or offer that promotes your book may be all you’ll ever need. The main thing now is to get an email signature up as soon as possible.
To get started, figure out the one thing you want your readers to do when they read your message. Don’t give lots of options, just pick one thing. If you have more than one book, don’t list them all! In this email signature pick just one book to feature.
Some email signatures end up being longer than the actual message, especially if it’s a short response with a corporate legal disclaimer at the bottom. I have also seen examples that include a message, four different ways to be contacted, two or three books and, last but not least, a link to download a free report.
Marketing research shows that the more choices we have, the less likely we will do anything, and if we do, it will be later rather than sooner. So keep it simple! Make it as easy as possible to take decisive but simple action upon reading your email signature.
Here’s an example:
Jerry Somebody, PhD
http:// mybookwebsite.com
Get a chapter of my book for free!
Straight, simple, and to the point. If you want to add more, do that in a second signature that you’ll use later. The more complicated you make a project, the less likely it is to get finished. This is another one of those cases where “good enough” beats “not done at all” every time.
Steps for Creating a Simple Email Signature:
In this example we’ll use Gmail. Every email provider has different steps to take. If you can’t easily find where to create a signature with your email program, simply search online for how to create email signature in Outlook or whatever program you are using.
1. In Gmail, go to Settings and scroll down to Signature
2. Add your author name
3. Add website. Type out the full URL including the beginning http—it will automatically create a link in the email and it makes it easy for someone to see the name of the website. If you just use a hyperlinked “click here” they have no real idea where that’s going to take them. When you include the name of your site, your readers may feel more confident about clicking on it, and when they go there they’ll feel they’ve arrived at the right place.
4. Add your message: “Download a free copy of The Title of Your Book.” Since you’ve already included the URL, you could make the title of the book a clickable link as well. You can also make this a link to a site where your book is sold, such as Amazon.com.
That’s it. A simple tip to market your book every time you send an email message, which may be several times a day!
Getting your book in the Library of Congress
There’s some confusion as to what role the Library of Congress (LOC) plays for a properly published book. This is because the LOC not only provides cataloging information for most published books, but also houses the US Copyright Office, which has nothing do to with cataloging. Let me briefly elaborate on a couple of different reasons your book and the Library of Congress may cross paths.
Wheatmark sends one copy of your book to the LOC upon publication for cataloging purposes. We do this to fulfill an obligation we incur every time we request a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) prior to the book’s publication.
Why do we put an LCCN in your book?
Local librarians want to be able to shelve a new book correctly as soon as they receive it. They don’t have the time to catalog books upon receipt, so they turn to the Library of Congress for help. They connect to the library’s database and download the cataloging data that’s been prepared by catalogers. To find the cataloging data online, they use the LCCN that’s already printed in your book.
Before your book is published, Wheatmark applies for an LCCN from the Library of Congress. At this point your book isn’t cataloged yet, it’s simply assigned a number, just like the one you get when you stand in line at the DMV. This number is printed in your book so a librarian can find out how to shelve it simply by looking it up in the Library of Congress’s online database.
Once your book is published, Wheatmark sends the finished copy to the Library of Congress to be cataloged. The cataloger will check the finished book against the LCCN and prepare the actual cataloging data for the library’s database. This is when your book really gets cataloged; up till now it’s only had a “control number” (LCCN).
So far, so good.
However, the Library of Congress has a huge backlog, so it is likely that if and when a local librarian receives a copy of your new book, the cataloging data isn’t ready yet. (To top it off, the LOC does not guarantee that it will catalog every book that it receives.)
That’s why publishers sometimes ask for advance cataloging-in-publication (CIP) data for books they plan to publish. Because current cataloging data won’t be available by the time your book is released, the Library of Congress provides a shortened cataloging copy to publishers so they can print that in the book in advance, rather than just a control number. CIP data, an incomplete bibliographic record based on the subject and content of your book, allows libraries to easily catalog your book if the LOC hasn’t had a chance to catalog it yet.
The LOC doesn’t provide CIP data for self-published titles. However, we don’t think you should worry about this. If you really want it, you can ask a librarian to provide you one, or hire a professional cataloger to do it.
The third way the LOC may interact with your book is during the copyright registration process. Wheatmark sends yet another copy of your book to the US Copyright Office in the Library of Congress for official copyright registration.
Registering your work with the US Copyright Office does not establish your copyright for your book; rather, it confirms it. Your work is already under copyright protection whether it’s officially registered or not. Your book doesn’t need to be officially registered for copyright in order for you to be able to print on the copyright page that it’s “Copyright © 2013 John Doe.”
However, official copyright registration is still a good idea, which is why Wheatmark makes sure a copy of your book is sent to yet another department, the copyright office in the Library of Congress.
Have a question on this or any other topic? Leave a comment!
Book marketing just got a little bit easier: Introducing Screenr
Looking for a fast and quick way to get the word out about your book? Here’s a new tool for book marketing you’ll want to take advantage of . . .
Screenr
- It’s fast
- It’s easy
- It’s fun
- It can spread your message like wildfire.
- AND best of all . . . it’s FREE!
Authors can use screenr to make a quick and fast book trailer. It can then be placed on your website, loaded up onto YouTube or sent in an email. You can post it on a blog, share it on Facebook, tweet it and pin it on Pinterest.
Here’s how it works.
Anything that you can put on your computer screen can be recorded with audio and made into a screenr video. You have five minutes from start to finish to share whatever you want.
To make it the most effective you will want to plan out exactly what you want to share. Once you start there’s no stopping. It’s fast and dirty—rough and ragged—but it gets your message out FAST!
To make your first video go to screenr.com and sign up.
You will need the latest Java update … so if the sign pops up to tell you to download and install it … do! It’s safe and worth the few minutes of installation time.
For your first video I would suggest you keep it to a minute in length with maybe just 5-10 slides. The shorter and tighter it is, the better chance that people will take time to view it.
One minute of normal talking is approximately 80 words. Write out your script of what you want to say so that its clear in your mind.
Find 5-10 pictures you want to use to go along with the script. Book front cover, back cover, picture of you, picture of where the book takes place, your website, etc.
You can also add video if you have it on your computer.
Make a slide show of the pictures and video using PowerPoint, Movie Maker, Picasa, etc. Place the slide show on your computer screen but don’t hit start yet.
Go to screenr.com to start your first movie. You will want to size the movie so that it fits exactly the dimensions of your slideshow. Hit record, start the slide show, and talk your way through the pictures.
Hit DONE when you reach the end. You’ve done it! Go back to screenr.com and your video will be there ready to play, upload to your website, YouTube, Facebook, whatever you like!
If you’re an author and feel stuck in your book marketing, get a jump start by learning about the best and latest book marketing strategies in the Authors Academy.
Turn Your Book into a … What?
Close your eyes and visualize your book as a keychain. Can you do it?
In a previous post I discussed the best way to market your book online: by slicing up the content of your book into smaller pieces and republishing them on your blog and other sites accepting similar content.
However, your book can be turned into other media as well—not just online and not just written. Here’s a list of ideas, both offline and online, just to get your imagination going:
Paper book: The foundation of your “content empire,” from which all other media originate. You can also start with just an ebook, but that doesn’t nearly provide the authority a real book does.
Ebook: Tap into a growing market of ebook readers by releasing yours.
Blog posts: Copy and paste information (chapters) from your book and periodically post them on your blog.
CD: Put your ebook or book preview on a CD and give it away to prospective clients and readers. If you also create an audiobook, put that on a CD as well.
Podcasts: Turn your book into a podcast by recording your chapters and make them available on iTunes. Release a new segment weekly.
Online articles: Submit your nonfiction book chapters as online articles to dozens of article sites. Provide a link back to your website or blog.
Teleseminars: Run a series of teleseminars based on your chapters and invite your prospects and people on your contact list to listen to the call.
Audio downloads: Make your recorded podcasts or teleseminars available for download as mp3 files on your website.
Flash drive: Much like a CD; why not put your ebook or mp3 audio files on a promotional flash drive? For fun, tell people it’s the most intelligent keychain ever!
Prerecorded iPods: Consider putting your audio files on iPods or mp3 players that you can give away as prizes.
PDF reports: create a number of special reports that are available as PDF downloads from your website. Print them out and give them to clients as well.
Prerecorded messages: set up a “24-hour hotline,” a phone number where people can listen to a 10-, 30-, or 60-minute presentation that you’ve prepared from your book. Always include a call to action at the end.
Booklets: Distill the key points of your book into a tips booklet and give them away as a promotional tool.
Print articles: Submit article-length content from your book to magazines and newspapers.
Tweet series: Broadcast a series of 140-character tips or messages from your book to your Twitter followers.
Facebook update series: The same concept as the tweet series, but on your Facebook page or profile.
Ezine series: Include excerpts in an email newsletter to your list.
Email autoresponders: Turn your book into a series of emails that people can sign up for on your website.
Workshops: Develop a curriculum for a series of workshops straight from your book for people who need the help you provide. Make sure you record them.
Online course: Much like the workshops, except delivered online.
Public speaking: Prepare and give speeches about your topic straight from your book.
Talk radio: Start your own radio show on BlogTalkRadio or get an interview on another show, all about your message.
Online video: Create short clips or record yourself talking about key themes and concepts from your book and upload them to your YouTube, Vimeo, or other online video channels.
DVD: Put the above videos, your workshop, and speeches on a DVD to give away or sell.
Phone coaching: Offer your advice from your book via private phone coaching sessions.
Can you come up with other ideas? Have you done some of these already? I would love to hear your story; leave a comment.
A Game Changer
Ninety-nine degrees is the average high temp in June here in beautiful Tucson, Arizona. As you might imagine, we Tucsonans do just about anything we can to stay indoors during this time. So, while most of the country is outdoors hiking, picnicking, camping, and playing softball … we’re indoors reading books, watching movies, playing volleyball and, yes, bowling. How appropriate then that our current bestselling book is The Game Changer: A Simple System for Improving Your Bowling Scores by Mark Baker. Published in early April, The Game Changer sold over two thousand copies by the end of that month, qualifying it for our Great Expectations program, where we financially reward the author by issuing a credit. In Mark’s case that’s $2,000. At the rate the book is selling it will soon cross the five thousand-copies-sold mark and qualify its author for an additional $5,000 Great Expectations credit. (At Wheatmark we reward bookselling success!)
Why is The Game Changer selling so well right out of the gate? Because Mark Baker has a large author platform! Mark is one of the most well-known bowling coaches in the world with tons of fans and followers, both online (especially on Facebook) and offline. When Mark Baker promises “a simple system for improving your bowling scores,” bowlers listen. Mark’s been involved in bowling for over thirty years. In his early career, he was a competitive bowler, earning four PBA titles along with numerous other awards and accolades. Later he was a sales manager for Cal Bowling Supply. And now he’s a renowned bowling coach with top-tier clientele, including several of the best bowlers on the PBA Tour. Along the way he developed Camp Bakes, one of the premier bowling camps in the world. So, when Mark announced the publication of The Game Changer thousands rushed to buy.
Notice that Mark had been building his author platform for thirty years before he actually became an author. It’s never too early to start building your author platform. The converse is also true: It’s never too late to start building it either! There are many authors who use their published books as the tool to open up opportunities and to build their platform. Wherever you are in the writing/publishing process, however small or large your current platform, to succeed as an author and sell more books, you want to grow that platform. Read our blog for more success tips and be sure to join the Authors Academy to learn about how you can grow your author platform. It could be a game changer.
Book Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics
It’s one of the most common misconceptions in marketing: that a marketing tactic is the same as a marketing strategy. Not understanding the difference between the two leads to a whole lot of pain and frustration for many authors as well as entrepreneurs, speakers, and other professionals who use the written word to grow their businesses.
Have you ever heard someone say “I’m going to use Twitter to market my book,” or “I’m going to use the Internet to market my business?”
This sort of statement rarely leads to success.
This is because most of the time, the speaker is already talking about marketing tactics but has skipped not just one but two critical steps: setting a specific, measurable goal and developing a strategy for reaching that goal.
(If you’ve ever said this sort of thing yourself, don’t worry, practically everyone has at one time or another. I’ve made this same mistake myself; multiple times, in fact!)
The first thing you need to do before you can develop a marketing strategy is to identify a specific, measurable goal.
Let’s say that your goal is to sell a hundred copies of your book in the next month.
Your book is a how-to guide for new moms about how to navigate the first six months of motherhood. (It could just as easily be a techno-thriller in the same vein as a Tom Clancy novel.)
The first thing you’d do is identify where your target market—new moms, in this case—hangs out.
You’d brainstorm a list of all the places new moms might be found. Maybe they shop at certain stores. Maybe they subscribe to certain magazines. Maybe they visit certain websites. And so on and so on.
Then you’d develop a strategy for reaching these new moms and getting your message in front of them. You know that building goodwill with your target audience is a tested, proven approach, so your strategy might include offering a sample chapter of your book, “7 Tips to Stress-Free Grocery Shopping with Your Newborn,” as a free download from your website.
Then, you’d deploy one or more tactics, including running print advertisements in new mom magazines, or guest blogging on popular mommy blogs, or planning a workshop at a local baby boutique to let new moms know about the sample chapter of your book available as a free download on your website.
Predictably, this approach works like magic. As a result of your tactics (print advertisements, guest blogging, and boutique workshops), a thousand new moms download your sample chapter. Ten percent click through to visit Amazon to buy your book, because it’s exactly the sort of information they need.
You sell one hundred books, thus achieving your goal!
Again, to summarize: your goal was to sell a hundred copies of your book. Your strategy was to get in front of your target market where they hang out and offer them something of value that they want or need (the free sample chapter.) The tactics were the methods you deployed in the service of your strategy.
It seems so simple when you take the time to reason it out, but it’s also so easy to overlook an important step. The most commonly overlooked step—your strategy—is the “secret sauce” that leads to book sales or whatever other goal you set for yourself.
Come up with a book marketing strategy for your titles, and marvel at the results!
If you feel like your book sales could use a shot in the arm, why not join us for this month’s Authors Academy presentation, which will be about developing your book’s marketing plan?
Your book’s marketing plan should contain all three of these critical pieces: your goal, your strategy for reaching your goal, and the tactics you’ll use to execute your strategy.
Our guest presenter, Echo Surina, has a ton of experience developing effective book marketing plans. She’s also a direct-response copywriter who’s written for one of the top marketers on the planet. That means she knows how to get folks to buy what she’s offering!
If you’re not already an Authors Academy Gold member, what are you waiting for? It’s never too early to start working on a marketing plan for your next book—or too late to start creating a marketing plan for a re-launch of one of your current titles!
You can claim your charter Gold membership in the Authors Academy at www.authorsacademy.com/join
Until then, happy marketing!
How to Create a Strategic Marketing Plan for Your Book
It’s one of the most common misconceptions in marketing: that a marketing tactic is the same as a marketing strategy.
Not understanding the difference between the two leads to a whole lot of pain and frustration for many authors as well as entrepreneurs, speakers, and other professionals who use the written word to grow their businesses.
The blueprint for your book’s marketing strategy is your book’s marketing plan.
This is the single most important piece of marketing collateral for your book you will create – besides the actual book itself!
Join us on Friday, May 11 as marketing plan expert Echo Surina walks us through “How to Create a Strategic Marketing Plan for Your Book.”
During this LIVE online presentation, you’ll learn the secrets to:
- Creating your big picture
- Applying SWOT analysis to your project
- Identifying your target audience
- Crafting your key messages
- Selecting your outreach methods
- Evaluating your efforts
- Drafting a work statement
Echo Surina is an award-winning writer turned marketing specialist with experience doing both strategic and tactical work. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs and organizations identify and communicate what makes them special and different to niche audiences.
As owner of Philanthropology LLC, which has been ranked a top woman-owned business in Arizona in Ranking Arizona since 2008, Echo manages marketing campaigns, provides book manuscript critiques and book consulting services, and writes sales copy.
Here are the important details about this one-time-only event:
Friday, May 11 at 2 PM EST / 11 AM PST
This webinar is available only to Authors Academy Gold members and higher. All Authors Academy members will have access to the recording of the webinar and will be able to participate in the exclusive members-only Q&A discussion the following week.
Not a Gold member already? To claim your spot alongside the world’s most forward-thinking authors and get instant access to the 4-webinar series, “Secrets of Highly Paid, Highly Successful Authors,” as well as full access to this month’s presentation:
Click here now to join the Authors Academy as a Gold member.
Give Away My Book for Free?
It’s one of the most common misconceptions in marketing: that a marketing tactic is the same as a marketing strategy.
Not understanding the difference between the two leads to a whole lot of pain and frustration for many authors as well as entrepreneurs, speakers, and other professionals who use the written word to grow their businesses.
The blueprint for your book’s marketing strategy is your book’s marketing plan.
This is the single most important piece of marketing collateral for your book you will create – besides the actual book itself!
Join us on Friday, May 11 as marketing plan expert Echo Surina walks us through “How to Create a Strategic Marketing Plan for Your Book.”
During this LIVE online presentation, you’ll learn the secrets to:
- Creating your big picture
- Applying SWOT analysis to your project
- Identifying your target audience
- Crafting your key messages
- Selecting your outreach methods
- Evaluating your efforts
- Drafting a work statement
Echo Surina is an award-winning writer turned marketing specialist with experience doing both strategic and tactical work. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs and organizations identify and communicate what makes them special and different to niche audiences.
As owner of Philanthropology LLC, which has been ranked a top woman-owned business in Arizona in Ranking Arizona since 2008, Echo manages marketing campaigns, provides book manuscript critiques and book consulting services, and writes sales copy.
Here are the important details about this one-time-only event:
Friday, May 11 at 2 PM EST / 11 AM PST
This webinar is available only to Authors Academy Gold members and higher. All Authors Academy members will have access to the recording of the webinar and will be able to participate in the exclusive members-only Q&A discussion the following week.
Not a Gold member already? To claim your spot alongside the world’s most forward-thinking authors and get instant access to the 4-webinar series, “Secrets of Highly Paid, Highly Successful Authors,” as well as full access to this month’s presentation:
Click here now to join the Authors Academy as a Gold member.
Do You Know Why People Buy Your Books?
Do you know why people buy your books? It seems like a question that any author should be able to answer in their sleep. Unfortunately many authors and book marketers (one and the same in my view) don’t know the real answer to this question at all. Most authors can tell you in exacting detail what their books have to offer readers, but often don’t have the first clue what actually motivates purchases of their books.
Take sports books, for example. My friend Rich Wolfe, the number-one selling sports book author over the last decade, once told me that that the majority of his books were purchased by women, even though the majority of rabid sports fans are men.
Counterintutive, huh?
It turns out that most sports books are purchased as gifts (by women) for the rabid sports fans in their lives (usually men). Think about just a few of the implications of this simple fact:
- Sports books should always come in hardcover editions, because hardcovers are generally perceived to be better gifts.
- Marketing copy for sports books should specifically suggest that the books be purchased as gifts, as in “If you have a Michigan fan on your gift list, YOUR SHOPPING IS OVER!”
- Sport books should be advertised and offered where women shop, and, more precisely, where they shop for gifts.
- Marketing dollars and efforts for sports books should be focused on gift-giving seasons and occasions.
Another example is children’s books. Yes, it’s important that children’s books appeal to children, but if you want to sell a lot of copies it’s more important that you appeal to those making the purchasing decisions: parents and educators. Kids want a fun read and a good story, but their parents may have quite different motivations when they buy books for their kids. Such motivations include getting their little tykes over their fear of the dark and to sleep, growing their children’s vocabularies so that they can be successful in school, etc. Because they are the ones making purchasing decisions, it is the parents’ motivations that ought to be the central focus of marketing campaigns for children’s books.
The tendency to pay more attention to the features of a product or service than to the motivations of buyers themselves is a common oversight in business. I can talk to you all day about the superior features of Wheatmark’s publishing services, and explain in detail why Wheatmark’s Authors Academy offers the best path to your career development as an author. But frankly, I don’t understand as well as I should what motivates authors to write and publish books. And I don’t understand as well as I should why authors purchase publishing and marketing consulting services from us. So maybe you can help me out and show me how I can make Wheatmark of more service to you. Please tell me what motivates you to write and publish books, and why you chose to work with us. Send email to shenrie [at] wheatmark.com. I’d love to hear from you.