You wrote, proofread and edited your manuscript. You even formatted it perfectly and had a snazzy cover designed. So now you can sit back and wait for all the admiration, accolades and royalties that will surely pour in as soon as you hit the submit button, right? Marketing your acim effectively gives you the best chance of moving many copies whether your main goal is profit, exposure or otherwise. With that in mind, here are some of the things you should never do when you’re marketing your books if you want each release to be a success.
There’s an old saying that goes: “If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one.” When it comes to publishing and marketing your book, this saying rings true. A successful marketing strategy always involves targeting a specific audience for your book. When you have a focused niche, you accomplish a couple of things that make selling your books more likely.
Your writing has more appeal. Instead of writing another generic novel or non-fiction guide, you can target a smaller audience and meet their needs more effectively. Marketing is easier. When you have a focused niche, crafting your marketing message is much simpler and more effective because your offer aligns directly with what your target audience wants. Instead of going wide and shallow, having a clearly defined niche lets you market narrow and deep, penetrating right down to the core of your target audience.
And, another plus for appealing to a very specific audience? Groups of people who have closely related interests tend to share their favorite books and authors with their peers, which boosts your chances of going viral. One is a box enrobed in beautifully embossed gold wrapping paper with a big bright red bow perched perfectly on top.
You can offer your audience a crumpled brown paper sack, so to speak, or you can leave them yearning to tear into your book with a beautifully presented front cover image and compelling description of what your book has to offer on the back. It doesn’t really matter how many people you can get to see your book offer if the ones you present with it aren’t interested in what you have to say. That’s like trying to sell your prize winning hamburgers at a vegetarian convention. It’s a total waste of time, energy and resources. Not to mention, very upsetting for you and those poor vegetarians!
