Book Marketing By the Numbers

By Sophfronia Scott

I met with a client recently to discuss his marketing ideas for his upcoming book. These ideas mainly consisted of sending press releases and focusing on media contacts. That’s great and I told him so. But I felt he was overlooking the potential of other tactics that could be just as effective for him if not more so. He would be able to reach a large number of people, just as he would if he appeared in the media, but it would happen in a different way. People tend to overlook it because it’s not as flashy as showing up on television or radio.

Let’s look at it this way–when you want someone to write a story about you in a magazine or newspaper, or you want someone to have you on their television or radio show, you’re wanting to tap into that medium’s large audience. That’s the point of being in the media–lots of eyeballs looking at you. But there are other ways to attract those eyeballs.

We’re living in a time where, more than ever before, there are self-made celebrities who command audiences of their own. These people are writers, entrepreneurs, comics, athletes–just about anyone with a blog or a Twitter account has an audience.

If you can assemble a group of partners who have substantial lists of their own and get them to promote your book, you could have hundreds of thousands, even millions, of readers learning about you in as much time as it takes to send an email. If you find the right partners, ideally those whose lists are full of your target reader, this type of promotion can be more effective than being on TV because you would be in front of more people who are more likely to buy your book.

Now For the Hard Part
But how do you find and connect with the partners most likely to promote your book? Here’s the thing: the internet is a great place to find people. And I did find several partners this way. You can easily track down the blogs and websites that get the most traffic and you can even get the contact information for the people who run them. However, connecting with such writers often takes more than sending an email or making a phone call.

When I started searching for partners to promote “Doing Business By the Book”, I took a cue from Timothy Ferriss. When he was preparing to promote “The Four Hour Work-Week”, he traveled to a number of the popular tech conferences where he met, questioned and bonded with many of the top bloggers in the country. Tim made it easy for these writers to want to work with him because they were able to get to know him and learn more about what he does.

I took a similar route and spent the year before my book launch traveling, attending mastermind meetings and networking with as many people as I could in order to find the right partners to promote my book. The connections I made continue to be very important in all my endeavors so the effort I made to do this very up close and personal kind of networking still pays off today.

So even if you don’t have an audience of your own just yet, think about who does have a list of readers who might connect with your material. Think about what you have to offer a potential partner. Ideally your networking should produce win-win results for both sides.

One Last Note: Enjoy your meetings. Take the opportunity to learn about what others do and how they do it. You’ll find this type of marketing much more rewarding that sending out press releases to faceless names from a magazine masthead.

© 2009 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, but you must include this complete resource box with it: Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

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