Chicken Scratchings

Posts Tagged ‘Radio’

by Bill Ruesch

If you have the creative ability to write a book you already have the fundamental skills necessary to sell the book.

What you may not have is self-confidence.

Three book marketing truths worthy of careful consideration:

• Books don’t sell themselves. Despite what you may believe, books are sold by people not bookstores. Even the Bible, the best selling book in history, has to be sold. You don’t believe it? What are they doing in churches every week? Promoting the reading of the bible which increases sales. Think of divinity schools as bible sales training for ministers.

• Who has the most to gain and the most to lose if your book fails? Come on, if you don’t have the answer to this one, you probably believe that denial is a river in Africa (sorry, it’s an old joke and I just couldn’t resist tossing it in).

• Your book is your baby–who loves it the most? You gave birth to this book. You know what you had to go through to bring it into this world. Who, but you, will be its most powerful spokesman?

To Start You Don’t Have to Look Any Further than Your Own Backyard.

In addition to confidence, what is the single most important ability you as writer already possess to move your book?

Creativity

I read a story some years ago about a young copywriter applying for a job at an advertising agency. The competition for the position was brisk and he knew it, so instead of mailing in the typical resume he boxed up a can of dog food with a note attached that read, “Please hire me so I don’t have to eat any more of this.”

He got the job.

You can tap the creative marvel inside of you. You proved that by producing a book. Now is the time to dig deep into that same genius that spawned the book and create a way to promote it. The competition is brisk (see blog post, 15 Stacks of Books Taller than the Empire State Building, what can you do to rise above the pack and get noticed?

Remember from the last post that enough books are published in the US every year to build 15 stacks of books taller than the Empire State Building. Where will your book be in a stack if you don’t noticed? If you sit by the phone waiting for Oprah to call–forget about it!

Being creative DOES NOT mean to disregard the usual book marketing methods like arranging book signing events, getting yourself on TV and/or radio, utilizing social networking avenues, selling your book to family and friends. Don’t dismiss selling to family and friends. It may feel awkward or uncomfortable, but I figured out that if I could pre-sell 100 copies of my upcoming book, Whistlin’ Salamander, it would just about cover my upfront expenses. I have enough personal associations to accomplish this first goal. What about you?

We at The Red Hen Association would love to hear from you about your personal experiences. What unusual methods have you employed to bring your book to the forefront? How successful was it? You can add your comments to the comment section at the end of this post, or email me at bill@redhenassociation.com.

You’ve written a book. CONGRATULATIONS. 80% of adults dream of doing what you’ve done. A very small percentage actually do, so you are in an elite group. Hold your head high. You are now an author.

What, you don’t believe it? According to my Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary the act of writing is all it takes to become an author. If you wrote something, you are an author.

To become a published author is another thing altogether. For most of us the ultimate goal is to see our books in print and distributed to readers everywhere.  After all, what is a writer without a reader? It’s Yin and Yang. Two halves of the whole. As far as I’m concerned a manuscript in a desk drawer defines you as an author, but something definitely is missing.

There are only two approaches you can take to get published. You can do it yourself (self-publish) or find someone else to publish it for you (traditional publish). How do the two choices compare?

At first blush it appears that the easiest path is to sell your rights and let someone else publish your book. Let’s face it this is what most of us think of when we talk about being published. The biggest hurdle with the traditional publishing model is that  4% or less of manuscripts will ever become a book. And for that 4% there are probably thousands that never even make it to a publisher’s desk. It’s pretty obvious that if your manuscript doesn’t get read, it will not be published. I’ve said it before, if you are unknown, getting a book published through traditional channels is like winning the lottery. The odds are that bad.

Let’s compare the two methods and help you decide which way is best for you:

weigh your decisions carefully

1.  Who accepts the financial risk? If self-publishing you pay for all the costs involved in producing the book including the editors, artists, and printers. In traditional publishing the publisher takes on that burden.

2.   Who has creative control over the look and presentation of the book? If you do it yourself, you retain the rights. If you sell those rights to the publisher they can do whatever they think is best. That doesn’t seem important to you? It will if the publisher changes the meaning of the text through their editing, or comes up with a cover design that would lead readers to a totally opposite idea from what you meant. It happens.  Your only remedy you have is whining.  Selling your rights will give you money, but it may not give you peace of mind. Which is more important to you?

3.  Who arranges for distribution? If self-published, the burden is all yours. No matter how good the book is, please keep in-mind that some channels, like national bookstore chains, may not be available to you. Many booksellers have a policy against accepting self-published books, but If  your book is traditionally published, and your publisher pays for distribution, many of those guarded gates will be opened. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the game.

4.  What about marketing? Marketing is doing all of the things needed to promote the book, making fliers, public relations, appearing on TV talk shows, and radio programs. Issuing press releases, teaching seminars, speaking at schools, clubs, and wherever you can find an audience. You’d think that if traditionally published your publisher would handle all of this. Wrong. Most book contracts today require the author’s active involvement in promoting the book. That involvement is much more than showing up for the occasional book signing.  So, whether self-published or traditionally published, you dear author, must by contract, be hawking your book, mostly at your own expense.  If you don’t drum up sales your book won’t move, except from the shelves inside the store into the discount bins outside. If that happens, your chances of ever being traditionally published again are astronomical.

5.  Profits, ah profits, who gets the money? The one who takes the risk takes the money. If you are lucky you’ll earn between $.50 -$1.00 per book in royalties. Sell ten thousand books and you get $5 to $10 thousand dollars. That same book, if self-published, could generate $150 thousand dollars.

The self-publishing model is heaven made for those authors who believe in their product and are sure that they can find a market. It is costly and difficult to self-publish, but if you are right and you can successfully reach your readers, the amount of money you could make is much greater. You can have financial freedom and personal freedom as well.

Which way is best? It all depends on you. Either way, it will take energy, money, and lots of effort. After putting everything you have into it, it may not be enough. If the traditional route is the one you choose, the odds are that you will never be published. If you self-publish and can’t find your audience, your garage full of books will hang like albatross around your neck. But remember, that even though the odds are notoriously poor, someone always hits the lottery eventually. Who knows, maybe this time it might be you.