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Showing posts with label Book Promotion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Promotion. Show all posts
Monday, June 4, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Book Trailer on Goodreads
Are you on Goodreads yet? I joined a few years ago but never had time to really check it out. I've been doing that recently. I signed up for their Author's program and entered a lot of information today, including
I also uploaded Deliver Me's book trailer to my Goodreads Author Page.
If you're on Goodreads, send me a Friend request (and let me know you saw it on my blog so I know who you are!).
If you'd like to see my Author Page, this link might work if you're a member:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5004440.Dianne_E_Butts
Or go on Goodreads, search for me or my books (Deliver Me or Dear America), and click on my name.
When you visit, I hope you can take two minutes to view Deliver Me's book trailer on Goodreads!
I also uploaded Deliver Me's book trailer to my Goodreads Author Page.
If you're on Goodreads, send me a Friend request (and let me know you saw it on my blog so I know who you are!).
If you'd like to see my Author Page, this link might work if you're a member:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5004440.Dianne_E_Butts
Or go on Goodreads, search for me or my books (Deliver Me or Dear America), and click on my name.
When you visit, I hope you can take two minutes to view Deliver Me's book trailer on Goodreads!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
3 Big Questions about Your Nonfiction Book - #3
The number three question of the 3 Big Questions after “Who is going to buy your book?” was this:
3. How are you going to reach them?
You’ve created a book or book idea that fills a need, solves a problem, or helps someone attain a desire, and you’ve identified who your reader/book-buyer is, but how are you going to get inside their world and let them know about your book?
There could probably be a million answers to this question. In the “old days,” publishers relied on print ads and possibly radio ads. But those are costly. Today, the internet has opened remarkable opportunities to reach people with similar interests, needs, problems, or desires. How can you take advantage of that? Where can you go find your potential buyers?
For my book idea, I’m still thinking pro-life pregnancy centers will be interested. And there are a ton of them I can contact to let them know about my book. But where else can I find potential reader/book-buyers? And how am I going to reach them?
How are you going to reach your potential reader/book-buyers?
Where are they? Where do they hang out?
3. How are you going to reach them?
You’ve created a book or book idea that fills a need, solves a problem, or helps someone attain a desire, and you’ve identified who your reader/book-buyer is, but how are you going to get inside their world and let them know about your book?
There could probably be a million answers to this question. In the “old days,” publishers relied on print ads and possibly radio ads. But those are costly. Today, the internet has opened remarkable opportunities to reach people with similar interests, needs, problems, or desires. How can you take advantage of that? Where can you go find your potential buyers?
For my book idea, I’m still thinking pro-life pregnancy centers will be interested. And there are a ton of them I can contact to let them know about my book. But where else can I find potential reader/book-buyers? And how am I going to reach them?
How are you going to reach your potential reader/book-buyers?
Where are they? Where do they hang out?
- Internet discussions groups and forums?
- E-mail loops?
- Twitter?
- Facebook?
- U-Tube?
- Blogs?
- Have you used keywords in your website and blog to attract them through search engines?
- Can you podcast them or send them a newsletter?
- Where are your potential reader/book-buyers in the flesh? Do they gather for conventions or conferences? Do they have meetings? Do they want you as a speaker?
- What are the other million ideas you can come up with?
Who are your reader/book-buyers? Where are they? How are you going to reach them to tell them about your book?
If you can form a plan around these Big Questions in these three posts, you’ve got a marketing plan that has potential to sell your book.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
3 Big Questions about Your Nonfiction Book - #2
The number two question of the 3 Big Questions I kept coming across as I studied how to sell things was this:
2. Who is going to buy your book?
Duh. Shouldn’t we, as authors, know this? But I know plenty of authors who (at least at the beginning) might say their book is for “everyone.” Nobody’s book is for everyone. Seriously, who is going to buy yours?
For my book, I thought pro-life pregnancy centers would buy my book. I thought they’d want it for clients and donors and others who misunderstood what they do or didn’t know what they do. This idea, again, got a chilly reception from professionals in the publishing industry.
Maybe I was creating a book for them, but would they buy it? Would they have the funds to buy it? What would they do with it after they bought it? Would they want copies for their clients or donors? Would that be compelling enough for them to buy my book?
What about your book? Who is going to buy your book?
Who is going to be your primary reader/book-buyer? Who will be attracted to its title and content? Who needs it? Who wants it? Who will need or want it so much that they're willing to fork out money to get it?
If you can’t answer these questions, you’re going to have a hard time selling your book. If you can answer them, you’re going to have ways to market and promote your book!
But after answering this question, there’s a bigger challenge awaiting…
2. Who is going to buy your book?
Duh. Shouldn’t we, as authors, know this? But I know plenty of authors who (at least at the beginning) might say their book is for “everyone.” Nobody’s book is for everyone. Seriously, who is going to buy yours?
For my book, I thought pro-life pregnancy centers would buy my book. I thought they’d want it for clients and donors and others who misunderstood what they do or didn’t know what they do. This idea, again, got a chilly reception from professionals in the publishing industry.
Maybe I was creating a book for them, but would they buy it? Would they have the funds to buy it? What would they do with it after they bought it? Would they want copies for their clients or donors? Would that be compelling enough for them to buy my book?
What about your book? Who is going to buy your book?
Who is going to be your primary reader/book-buyer? Who will be attracted to its title and content? Who needs it? Who wants it? Who will need or want it so much that they're willing to fork out money to get it?
If you can’t answer these questions, you’re going to have a hard time selling your book. If you can answer them, you’re going to have ways to market and promote your book!
But after answering this question, there’s a bigger challenge awaiting…
Sunday, September 27, 2009
3 Big Questions about Your Nonfiction Book - #1
After my major epiphany about the problem with my book, I started looking to learn more about how to shape a book that will sell.
At the beginning of this year I bought several books on copywriting and started studying. My thinking was this: “copywriting” is writing copy that helps businesses sell their products so if I can learn how to sell things, it will help me sell my books.
There’s so much I could say about what I’ve learned. And I intend let you in on all that, but it’s going to take some time. So to start, I want to give you three questions that kept coming up over and over. These became my “3 Big Questions” to ask. Here’s question number one:
1. What need does your book fill, what problem does it solve, or what desirable thing does it help your readers obtain?
Now, taking my book as an example, Where Grace Abounds: True Stories from Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers, can you see how I utterly failed to create a book idea that anyone would want to buy?
I may have a great idea for a book. And the comments and e-mails I get from people in pro-life work confirm that. But it is not shaped in a way that anyone walking into Barnes and Noble or any other bookseller would want to buy it. They wouldn’t even know to look for it. And if they saw it on the bookstore shelf, they wouldn’t think they needed to read it.
Can you see how I created a book based on something I wanted people to know? I could even think people need to know what’s going on in pro-life pregnancy centers.
If you remember the beginning of this story, I first wanted to write this book because I saw so much misunderstanding about what pro-life pregnancy centers do. People I encountered thought our pregnancy center helped women get abortions, which we didn’t. People thought we enabled promiscuity in young people. People thought we only helped unwed teenagers, not realizing many clients were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and many were married.
I wanted to showcase what we were really doing: helping anyone who needed help in their unplanned pregnancy, no matter the age, no judgments about their marital status. I wanted to set the record straight, but I wanted to do more than that. I wanted to inform people who needed our services that we had what they need. I wanted to let people who might support our efforts know what we really do. I wanted to inform other people about this great work in case they didn’t know what pro-life pregnancy centers do or in case they didn’t even know this work existed!
All noble intentions. But can you see the problem here? The above paragraph is loaded with “I want… I want… I want…” I may have wanted to do a lot of wonderful things, but the reader/book-buyer doesn’t care.
The reader/book-buyer is at the bookstore because they have “I wants.” Or “I needs.” And my book wasn’t playing into any of their wants or needs.
Even if my book, or the book you’re planning, does indeed help the reader/book-buyer with her or his wants and needs, they don’t know they need to read it!
If your nonfiction book, or mine, it isn’t couched in the setting for the reader/book-buyer’s wants and needs, they’re not going to find it, let alone buy it.
So, how will you answer the #1 of the 3 Big Questions for your book?
If you’re having trouble with that, go to your book store or visit one online and look at how the books on their shelves answer it.
At the beginning of this year I bought several books on copywriting and started studying. My thinking was this: “copywriting” is writing copy that helps businesses sell their products so if I can learn how to sell things, it will help me sell my books.
There’s so much I could say about what I’ve learned. And I intend let you in on all that, but it’s going to take some time. So to start, I want to give you three questions that kept coming up over and over. These became my “3 Big Questions” to ask. Here’s question number one:
1. What need does your book fill, what problem does it solve, or what desirable thing does it help your readers obtain?
Now, taking my book as an example, Where Grace Abounds: True Stories from Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers, can you see how I utterly failed to create a book idea that anyone would want to buy?
I may have a great idea for a book. And the comments and e-mails I get from people in pro-life work confirm that. But it is not shaped in a way that anyone walking into Barnes and Noble or any other bookseller would want to buy it. They wouldn’t even know to look for it. And if they saw it on the bookstore shelf, they wouldn’t think they needed to read it.
Can you see how I created a book based on something I wanted people to know? I could even think people need to know what’s going on in pro-life pregnancy centers.
If you remember the beginning of this story, I first wanted to write this book because I saw so much misunderstanding about what pro-life pregnancy centers do. People I encountered thought our pregnancy center helped women get abortions, which we didn’t. People thought we enabled promiscuity in young people. People thought we only helped unwed teenagers, not realizing many clients were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and many were married.
I wanted to showcase what we were really doing: helping anyone who needed help in their unplanned pregnancy, no matter the age, no judgments about their marital status. I wanted to set the record straight, but I wanted to do more than that. I wanted to inform people who needed our services that we had what they need. I wanted to let people who might support our efforts know what we really do. I wanted to inform other people about this great work in case they didn’t know what pro-life pregnancy centers do or in case they didn’t even know this work existed!
All noble intentions. But can you see the problem here? The above paragraph is loaded with “I want… I want… I want…” I may have wanted to do a lot of wonderful things, but the reader/book-buyer doesn’t care.
The reader/book-buyer is at the bookstore because they have “I wants.” Or “I needs.” And my book wasn’t playing into any of their wants or needs.
Even if my book, or the book you’re planning, does indeed help the reader/book-buyer with her or his wants and needs, they don’t know they need to read it!
If your nonfiction book, or mine, it isn’t couched in the setting for the reader/book-buyer’s wants and needs, they’re not going to find it, let alone buy it.
So, how will you answer the #1 of the 3 Big Questions for your book?
If you’re having trouble with that, go to your book store or visit one online and look at how the books on their shelves answer it.
- How-to books fill needs for information.
- Self-help books help people solve problems.
- Diet and money management books help readers obtain desirable things.
If your book doesn’t do one of these, how can you tweak it so that it does?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Major Epiphany: My Marketing Problem and How I Got a Clue
If you read my recent posts about my misadventures of trying to sell my book idea to editors and agents at writer’s conferences, you may have gotten a feel for how the publishing world can be so very discouraging. If you’re a writer, no doubt you've experienced that discouragement. If you haven’t yet, you will.
So, what can we do? Well, we can quit. Or, maybe some of us can’t.
I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to figure out why the book idea that I thought was such a great idea was getting such a chilly reception among publishing professionals. But how could I do that?
I have to admit sometimes I feel like I’m back in Junior High and I’m getting that paranoid feeling like when it seems everyone is whispering…until you walk in the room. Then suddenly everything’s quiet. You wonder what’s going on but no one will tell you. You try to figure it out, but the only conclusion you can come to is that they were whispering something about you. But no one will say what it’s about. Whatever’s going on, you’re the last person to know. All you can do is hope your best friend will let you in on it.
That’s how I felt about this book. I thought it was a great idea. But no one else seemed to. What did they know that I didn't? What did they see in it that I couldn't see? Was it going to be a major failure? Or could it possibly be one of those great stories writers dream about where every publisher in the world turns it down and so the author publishes it herself and it becomes a best-seller and sells ten million copies?
I knew publishing professionals were giving my book idea the cold shoulder, but I didn't know why. Obviously the pros saw something wrong, but I couldn't see what it was. Who could I ask, because no one was telling me?!
One day, on a writer’s e-mail loop, there was a question that allowed us to send in our book ideas for feedback, and so I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and sent my book idea out there. I told them about my great idea: a book filled with true stories from pro-life pregnancy centers!
I wish I could tell you who it was who wrote to me privately. I’d love to give her credit, God bless her. I wish I would have kept her note, and if I ever remember who it was I’ll let you know, but she was the friend who came to me privately and told me what was going on.
She said something like, “Dianne, you have a marketing problem. Nobody walks into Barnes and Noble thinking, ‘Gee, I’d like to read a book about pro-life pregnancy centers today.’”
Oh my. Major epiphany. This author, God bless her, finally let me in on the problem and put it in terms I could understand.
I have to tell you I chewed on that little piece of information for months. I knew instantly she was right, and I could finally see the problem with my great book idea. But it took me a while to see the situation clearly enough to begin to figure out how to, hopefully, fix it.
So with your book, or your great book idea, can you test it by removing my topic (pro-life pregnancy centers) and fill your topic into that blank and see if your great book idea is going to fly? Will people walking into Barnes and Noble be looking for your book?
This insight was a major turning point for me. I've learned a ton since then, and in my next posts I’ll give you three big questions to ask which should help you sort out whether you have a winner of a nonfiction book idea or, if not, how to tweak it so you do.
So, what can we do? Well, we can quit. Or, maybe some of us can’t.
I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to figure out why the book idea that I thought was such a great idea was getting such a chilly reception among publishing professionals. But how could I do that?
I have to admit sometimes I feel like I’m back in Junior High and I’m getting that paranoid feeling like when it seems everyone is whispering…until you walk in the room. Then suddenly everything’s quiet. You wonder what’s going on but no one will tell you. You try to figure it out, but the only conclusion you can come to is that they were whispering something about you. But no one will say what it’s about. Whatever’s going on, you’re the last person to know. All you can do is hope your best friend will let you in on it.
That’s how I felt about this book. I thought it was a great idea. But no one else seemed to. What did they know that I didn't? What did they see in it that I couldn't see? Was it going to be a major failure? Or could it possibly be one of those great stories writers dream about where every publisher in the world turns it down and so the author publishes it herself and it becomes a best-seller and sells ten million copies?
I knew publishing professionals were giving my book idea the cold shoulder, but I didn't know why. Obviously the pros saw something wrong, but I couldn't see what it was. Who could I ask, because no one was telling me?!
One day, on a writer’s e-mail loop, there was a question that allowed us to send in our book ideas for feedback, and so I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and sent my book idea out there. I told them about my great idea: a book filled with true stories from pro-life pregnancy centers!
I wish I could tell you who it was who wrote to me privately. I’d love to give her credit, God bless her. I wish I would have kept her note, and if I ever remember who it was I’ll let you know, but she was the friend who came to me privately and told me what was going on.
She said something like, “Dianne, you have a marketing problem. Nobody walks into Barnes and Noble thinking, ‘Gee, I’d like to read a book about pro-life pregnancy centers today.’”
Oh my. Major epiphany. This author, God bless her, finally let me in on the problem and put it in terms I could understand.
I have to tell you I chewed on that little piece of information for months. I knew instantly she was right, and I could finally see the problem with my great book idea. But it took me a while to see the situation clearly enough to begin to figure out how to, hopefully, fix it.
So with your book, or your great book idea, can you test it by removing my topic (pro-life pregnancy centers) and fill your topic into that blank and see if your great book idea is going to fly? Will people walking into Barnes and Noble be looking for your book?
This insight was a major turning point for me. I've learned a ton since then, and in my next posts I’ll give you three big questions to ask which should help you sort out whether you have a winner of a nonfiction book idea or, if not, how to tweak it so you do.
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