Whatever the reasons (unbridled imposter syndrome, unfathomable irrationality, a case of lost-your-fucking-mind-itis), we can’t help but cringe, whimper and cower away from saying those dirty words.

*cough… buy my book…please…*

Okay, maybe that’s a little unfair. We do say it… Just the once mind, and only quietly using our best polite-British voice.

*forehead slap*

Let’s get a grip, shall we?

If you’re even half serious about selling books or writing full-time, then you’re going to have to get with the self-promotion program, and fast.

Did I mention that I published a book…?

Cause I have…

It’s called 13 Steps To Evil, and you should probably check it out…

See… that wasn’t too bad, was it? No one died because I promoted myself, and I’m only sweating and twitching a little bit! *deep breath* *reaches for paper bag*

Before we move into hardcore tactics – here’s the ‘what I’ve learned about marketing through publishing my first book 13 Steps To Evil stuff.’

If you don’t want to advertise and promote yourself, that’s okay, but just so that you know, you ain’t gonna sell any books. Putting a book out there and hoping for sales, is a dead method. Beyond dead, in fact. Even the grim reaper himself won’t take pity on you if you plump for hope marketing. So let’s agree we’re not going to do that.

THE MARKETING MINDSET

What Is Marketing? And What Should You Expect From it?

Marketing IS selling. 

“the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.” Dictionary.com

What it isn’t is a cause and effect miracle science. Just because you whop out blog tours like candy bars, doesn’t mean you’re going to sell a hundred books. In fact, you might not sell any. But… but… but… a blog tour is so much work. I know, I know. It hurts knowing that work put in might not equal an exact number of sales out. But that’s marketing for you. If there’s one truth I can give you, it’s that…

MARKETING IS THE LONG GAME

The really, really, painful stab-yourself-in-the-eye-till-it-bleeds type long game. There’s an accepted rule in business and marketing that a person needs to hear your message (or see your book cover or author name) seven times before it even registers. Of course, not everyone needs to hear a message seven times before they buy, but it’s a good average.

SEVEN.

Considering how hard it is to get your book in front of people just once, that’s torture to hear too. But it soon adds up, a couple of blogs here, a sprinkle of Twitter, a dash of advertising and then hey presto you’re in someone’s ‘also boughts.’ All of a sudden you’ve hit seven ‘sees’ and you’re in an Amazon basket.

NOT NOW – ALWAYS

The point is. Don’t think about the marketing you do now in terms of instant results. 

Unless you’re doing a BookBub, paid advertising, or have a large subscriber list. You’re unlikely to see huge numbers of sales from the marketing you do now. But that doesn’t matter. You might do a guest post now and not see results, but that shits evergreen folks. I’ve had blog posts go nuts eight months after I posted them because that’s the insanity of social media. So hard work now is never lost. It may generate sales in the future. And like Suzie and Elena said at the blogger’s bash, KEEP promoting that shit.

Once you’ve done the hard work, you can keep reusing it. The internet (until we have a technological blackout style apocalypse, is evergreen. People will find material that’s years old… IF you keep sharing it.

For clarity –

• I do mean reshare helpful blog posts across social media that might also promote your book.
• I do mean iterate the content from your book to help others, or share snippets.
• I DON’T mean repost ‘buy my book’ a million times. That shit is annoying, and doesn’t work.

But don’t be afraid you’ll piss people off by resharing. Social media has the half-life of a gnat’s piss. Most people won’t even realize you’re resharing stuff, and if they have a problem, they don’t have to follow you.Which brings me on to the next point:

DON’T CRY OVER LOST FOLLOWERS 

If the fear of losing followers is preventing you from doing certain things or promoting your work, you need to take yourself off to the corner and have a word.

Let’s apply this to something meaningful (to me) – Subscriber List.

I’ll go into sub lists in more detail in a different lesson. For now, know that I have to pay for my subscriber list, so I only want subscribers who are engaged and enthusiastic about my work. I get a few unsubscribes every.single.time.I.send.an.email. Do you see me weeping tears because I lost two followers? Nope. Good riddens. Okay, not true. I did find it hard at first, I may have even shed a coal shaped tear or two; then I realize the benefits…

A) It saves me money in mailing list fees

B) I’m only sending emails to people who want them and are engaged with them and will potentially buy books

The same principle applies to finishing books – I had to take a blog break to get books completed – did my stats suffer? Yes, a bit, but my mailing list still grew, and that’s the most important bit – a direct link to inboxes to let people know your book just went live. Plus because of the break, I’m building a backlist of books.

Priorities. Nuff said.

THE BUSINESS MINDSET

There are 6 million books on Amazon. SIX FUCKING MILLION. Do you even know what 6 million of anything looks like? Cause I sure as shit don’t. But I’m guessing it’s chuffing big!

Why am I saying this? Cause, we need to stand out. We need a way of reaching the hundreds of millions of Amazon customers, waving our hands and saying ‘pick me.’

How do we do that?

Business mindset – Your book isn’t just a book.

Especially so for non-fiction, but the same can be said for fiction.

You need to be asking yourself how you can iterate your book. In fact, how’s about we don’t even call it a book anymore? Let’s call it was it is, a product.

Have you got an ebook? A paperback? An audiobook?

Got discarded excerpts or deleted scenes? Why haven’t you slapped them together to create a freebie?

If you write non-fiction, can you turn your book into cheat sheets to encourage subscribers? Have you got a workbook? A course? Can you bastardize your chapters into guest posts?

Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.

Content made once can be used a hundred times over. Each one is another stream of income.

Boxsets, iteration, selling, you always have something to offer. Think evergreen.

Yes… There’s stuff that works, and some stuff that doesn’t. And likewise, not everything will work for everyone, but if you don’t try how will you know? Oh, and once you’ve tried once, try it again with an iteration, just because it didn’t work once, doesn’t mean it won’t another time.

YOUR NETWORK IS EVERYTHING AND NOTHING

You need a street team comprised of people you know, trust and can rely on to help you (a subject for a different lesson). Usually, your street team comes from your network. Which means you’ll be reaching a wider sector of your audience. Extremely useful, but doesn’t tap into wider networks of people you don’t know.

So two questions:

1. Who DON’T you know? Who’s your idol? Who would you die to guest post on their site? Who gives you imposter syndrome even thinking about asking to post on their site? That’s who you should be targeting. 
2. Who do you know that has a bigger or different audience to you? Who could you either work with or market jointly? What big guns do you know that you could owe a favor to and post on their site?

I lied, that was at least ten questions… *shrugs*

Blog tours are time intensive; there’s a million other ways to market that take less time – podcasts, recommendations in other authors subscribers lists, affiliate programs… the list is endless. There’s two things you need to know:

1. Know why your doing the marketing your doing
2. Know what impact it will have.

However you choose to market, think about the time required to do the thing you want, versus the impact of whatever it is your doing.

 MAKE IT EASY FOR READERS

If you want people to buy your book, make it easy for them.

Sounds like I shouldn’t need to say this, but I do… cause, well, it’s my blog!! How easy is it for readers to find your book?

Have you got book links EVERYWHERE? Slathered over your platforms like cheap perfume in a brothel. You need to.

How many pictures have you got of your book over your website? Brand awareness folks. People need to visually recognize your book.

You think you’re pissing people off with the repetition. You’re not.

A) You just sweated blood and all the other bodily fluids over this book-puppy, it’s your goddamn right to scream naked at midnight from city rooftops about this book badger.

B) People are dumb, lazy, forgetful and often preoccupied with shit… like, you know, their own lives. Whatever, selfish. The point is, they need reminding about your book SEVEN TIMES. So keep fucking reminding.

Did I mention that I published a book..?. It’s called 13 Steps To Evil… AND IF YOU NEED NEON LIGHTS…. 

Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm. Maybe.

Have you heard of a universal book link? No, shame on you. Get one – Read Sarah’s post on them. It’s a single link that takes your reader to whichever bookstore they use.

annnnnd….. I’m done! For now.

WHAT WOULD YOU ADD TO THE MARKETING MINDSET? WHAT PERSPECTIVE HAVE YOU FOUND USEFUL? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

****

If you liked this post, why not get even more awesome tips in the book 13 Steps To Evil – How to Craft Superbad Villains

OUT NOW

Click this link to purchase and then click the logo of your device or regular bookshop, and it will take you to the right page.

You can also get a FREE villains cheatsheet by joining my mailing list just click here.

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads

***

P.S. Yes, I am back… sort of… slowly… gently… my priority will always be book writing now though, so expect delays in comment replying.

P.P.S. See what I did there? One more bit of self-promo… That wasn’t so hard, was it?

***

Blog Cover Photo Originally by Lauren Mancke on Unsplash

The post 7 Book Launch Lessons – #1 Book Marketing Mindset #MondayBlogs appeared first on Sacha Black.

I sat for a while. Motionless. Except for the rapid blink of my eyelids at the completely blank screen. There were no more words needed. What in the fucksticks was I meant to do now? Then the realisation slowly crept in… I HAD NO BOOK. IT WAS GONE. LIKE REALLY GONE. The book that had consumed me for nearly two years, was no more. Holy mother of almighty fuck.

Wana know what happened next…?

I freaked the fudgebuggins out, thats what. It took exactly 4.3 milliseconds before I combusted in a violent meltdown. I really regretted sending it. HOW COULD I SEND IT OUT TO REAL PEOPLE…Obviously its a pile of shite. A fact of which, even the halo holding hand of god couldn’t dissuade me of.

And to my utter fucking horror, I realised there is no ‘unsend’ button. What self serving artificially intelligent email company DOESN’T HAVE A RECALL BUTTON???

FUCK. Like fucking fuck. With six side orders of FUCK MY ACTUAL FUCKING LIFE.

I spent the next 12 hours listing eleventy hundred things that were wrong with my novel. The list included everything. EVERYTHING. Not just main characters, arcs and endings. Oh no. I attacked the detail too, no comma, speech mark or paragraph spacing was left unscathed.

I made the mistake of voicing these concerns to some bastards wonderful friends who told me to pull my shit together before they sent a BitchSlapOGram to my front door. I listened. Just. And only after several more hours of wallowing in a seriously impressive vat of self loathing and book related hatred.

SonOfABitchWhatHaveIDone?

Okay. I’m done. Moving on.

With continued interruption to the schedule, today, I want to debate. I want to know what you think about the future of publishing. Of course, I have brought together some interesting facts and articles and some points of note. So I hope you bought your most opinionated self cause I’m interested in what you got to say. Without further ado…

Let’s talk the future of publishing.

Technological advancements have heralded the era of indies. The ease and speed at which one can click happy their way into the rain forest of books is frankly startling. Gone are the days of tortoise publishing, where it takes a gajillion years from inking THE END to seeing it on the shelf because of overly agented bureaucracy and publishing paperwork.

Gone too are the wondrous years of 2011, when you could click upload and get instant visibility, sales and a shit ton of mulaaaaa in the bank from Amazon.

It’s no longer good enough to just write books. Not if you want to actually sell any. You need to treat writing like a business.

Now you have to be a CEO, a marketer, a social media expert, copywriter, and if there’s any time left in your day, then maybe, just fucking maybe you can be a writer. Much as it pains me to say it, you can’t afford to wallow in your creative writing love nest with your fave characters anymore. You need tactics, strategies and big picture thinking to ensure you keep selling books.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Actually, the prospect of being a CEO of my own mini writing business quite excites me.

But… I’ve been fortunate enough to be exposed to some exceptional leaders during my short career, and because of that, I have an inkling about what it takes to be successful and its horrifying.

After I finished my Masters degree, I was elected as President of the students union, which led to me spending a lot of time with the Vice Chancellor (The uni’s headmaster) and he taught me an extremely important lesson. While people might not change, the world does, and fast. Industries, sectors and technology develop so fast, that if you aren’t on top of your game, you will get left behind.

Good CEOs keep up with the times, exceptional ones are ahead of it. They predict the future. No. They create it. They forge ahead as front runners. They know where the industry will be in five, ten, twenty years time because they are the ones taking us there.

I heard today that Google has a fifty year strategy – mind boggling isn’t it? But that’s what global monopolies can do.

Sure, no ones expecting us wee writers to be Vincent van Goghing industry changing masterpieces. But sitting up and taking note of what’s happening in our world is kind of important.

In 2011 there were less than a million ebooks. Today there are over 4million and EVERY DAY another 3500 are added. If you want to be seen, you better make damn sure you know all the latest marketing techniques. Putting your book in the rainforest and hoping it gets seen is going to lead you to an Amazon ranking with more digits than Pi.

Here’s where the debate really starts… In Feb 2016, the Author Earnings Report showed that:

“The Big 5 now account for less than a quarter of ebook purchases on Amazon, while indies are closing in on 45%.”

That’s right. You heard correctly. Traditional publishing is dying. Everyone knows about Barnes & Nobles struggles. But it’s not just them. The ebook market is destroying traditional publishing, and not in a friendly, it’s not about the winning kind of way. In a… I’m going to fuck you up, then fuck your family up and then I’ll start on every other bitch you know, kind of way. It’s cattier than the queen bees playground.

Publishers are dying because they aren’t evolving. Instead of creating the future of books, they are stuck with a big fat D + for effort and forging on with what they know best; acquisitions and mergers. Someone seriously needs to have a word, before we end up in some dystopian mind fuck for a society, where no one can write with a pen and there’s no such thing as paperbacks. Except of course, in museums. Oh and Facebook is always listening. Seriously though. You actually need to turn your microphone off in your settings.

Last year, there were rumours, spread by corporate publishing conglomerates that paperbacks were making a resurgence and ebook sales were falling.

Umm. no. Sorry darling big 5, but the only reason paperbacks made a come back was because of the adult colouring book craze last year and that fad is well and truly over. As for ebook sales, they only looked like they dropped, because indies are taking over the market, and indies don’t need ISBNs. If you don’t have an ISBN your book sales don’t count in their calculations. et voila, the appearance of lower ebook sales.

But what next? Where in the shit is the future of book sales going? If five years ago ebooks were barely a thing, imagine where we will be at the next Olympics.

Amazon just pumped 5 BILLION into the Indian market. Five fucking billion! Can you imagine writing that cheque? My point is, it means something. It means the Indian market is thriving. It’s growing and Amazon wants a piece of that juicey pie.

And what of Kindles? Did you know that Kindle device sales are slowing? Why? Because no one reads on a kindle anymore, everyone reads books on their phones. (Yes, I know I am making sweeping statements, but you know I’m right). I forget where I read the article about the percentage of people who read entirely on their phone, but it was frighteningly high.

I do it. I read 100% of fiction on my phone and the only actual books I buy are non-fiction or a fictional story I loved.

And then there’s the phone penetration statistics. We’re set to reach 5 billion mobile phone users by 2019, that’s 70% of the worlds population. Is anyone else terrified by that statistic? Trust me when I tell you, big brother is watching, and if you’re an author, your website had better be mobile friendly.

The third world is coming after us, technology will not leave a single stone unturned, you watch, Jeff Bezos will be chucking his loose change into Africa next. It might take five or ten years, but I’m telling you, it’s the only unchartered market left. And there’s already signs of it on the horizon – blue chip firms with their corporate social responsibility are pumping kindle devices into third world countries pre-loaded with books. And so they bloody should, everyone deserves stories.

Then there’s the quiet friend, the elephant casually chilling in the corner with Dr. Dre Beats on. Audiobooks. They’re coming for us. I’m telling you. We humans are fickle, lazy, impatient beasts. Why read when you can listen and do five hundred other things at the same time? No ones fucking present any more. We’re too busy stalking the miserable lives of people we haven’t seen in two decades on Facebook, or slathering over the next SnapChat we receive.

It ain’t a coincidence that Amazon announced just last week that Prime customers get yet another freebie – audible membership thrown in for frizzle.

Times are changing. I for one, have no intention of writing one book and watching it drown in a sea of invisibility. Fuck that. I want to be writing full time and selling books when I am 90 and need the font size at one billion. But the only way to survive in this business is to adapt, and to adapt you need to see the future.

So tell me, writerly wizards, where do you think the publishing industry is going?

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The post Trad vs Indie – A Debate on The Future of Book Publishing appeared first on Sacha Black.