The Persistent Challenge of Authorship = Marketing

Monday, September 14th, 2009 | Posted by: Andrew Kent

I’ve just released my second book, “The Green Monster: A Johnny Denovo Mystery,” and once again face the long climb up Mt. Marketing. No matter whether you’re an indie author or published traditionally, if you’re anyone other than Dan Brown, book marketing is a major challenge.

I like the challenge of the climb. It’s a big dose of reality, and forces you to know your audience, its boundaries, and its preferences. It’s healthy exercise.

Marketing means balancing a few different activities simultaneously during the ascension:

• PR – this means press releases, social media (Facebook, Twitter), interviews, and the like. You want to get mentioned, and you want your book to jump in search engine recognition. Blogging is also a significant part of PR for authors these days.
• Advertising – since indie authors can’t afford full-page ads in USA Today, we have to settle for niche solutions like Google AdWords and Facebook ads. These work pretty well, but the numbers they generate are still small.
• Review copies – arranging for reviews, sending review copies, and urging readers to post reviews on Amazon and other sites are all part of the book marketing push
• Marketing – for indie authors, getting books listed in as many online stores as possible and shelved at some niche shops is vital. Postcard mailings, bookmarks, emails, and connections all can help.
• Signings and readings – arranging signings and readings is part of building the platform for your name and identity as an author. These are harder for indie authors to arrange outside of indie bookstores — so I try to focus on indie bookstores, where the owners are often more accommodating and less corporate.

There’s more to it than this, even. Sending sample copies to prominent personalities who might be interested is part of the PR aspect, as are blog tours. Email is a useful tool, and posting your book on e-reader sites like Smashwords and Scribd is important.

The hardest part for me is waiting — after you start some of these efforts, it can take weeks or months for the fruits of your labors to ripen. Reviews take time, PR requires repetition, signings need to be arranged and scheduled, sales data is slow to come back.

So, while I wait, I write — blog posts, other books.

I do this knowing another hike up the same mountain awaits me.