What Kindergartners Can Teach You About Book Marketing
In Book Marketing, Manners and Courtesy Work
As an author, you listen to all the experts, consult with professionals with decades of experience, watch every webinar on successful book marketing campaigns. As a result, you absorb much-needed information from people with the proper knowledge. But it’s easy to overlook some fundamental principles of human interaction as we try to develop the most cutting-edge strategies and new book promotion ideas. Therefore, it’s essential to return to the concepts that come from surprising sources at times, including kindergarten classrooms.
PLAY NICELY
There’s no tolerance for rude behavior or acting up when dealing with the media in book marketing and book publicity. Did you receive a bad book review? Deal with it, learn from it, and respect the reviewer’s opinion.
An editor or producer won’t return your call or reply to your e-mail? Please don’t get mad at them. If they’re not responding, you’re not giving them what they want and need. It is that simple.
SHARING IS ALWAYS GOOD
Parents of young children teach sharing and are thrilled when they see it in action. A child brings Star Wars action figure to school and lets his friend take it home and borrow it for a while. The next day the child comes home with a different toy. The friend he shared with gave something back to him.
It’s crucial in book marketing to understand the “giving principle.” To get something you want, you first have to give something to others. Some times the best way to market a book is by giving it away. Do a radio interview and offer five free copies to callers. Why? Because when you give your books out, what happens? The person who gets the book will first of all be thrilled that he got a book for free, and secondly, because you’ve written a great book, he will tell others about it … and those other people will buy your book!
Share. Give. Do this, and you’ll get much more in return.
SHOW RESPECT
We all know a parent who is never satisfied with their child’s teacher, as good as he or she may be. They e-mail, call, complain and incessantly hound the teacher.
Generally speaking, this isn’t a good thing for parents to do, and in book marketing, it’s a downright bad thing to do.
If you hire a publicist to promote your book, you’re spending your hard-earned money. You are paying someone to do what they are trained and experienced in book promotion and book marketing. You pay a book publicity agency to do what you know you can’t do as well as a professional book publicist.
If you do your due diligence and hire a book publicity agency, you need to trust that the firm you selected will do a good job. Let your publicist do what she does best. Don’t micro-manage. Please don’t insist on her spending an hour on the phone with you every day. Let her do what you paid for, market your book to the media. Respect her talents and experience, those things you hired her for in the first place.
If you hire someone and want their best, give them a chance to do their best. If you hound your publicist with barrages of questions every day, they will spend a lot of their time answering your questions rather than promoting your book. Which do you prefer? Are you paying to have questions answered or to have a professional be an enthusiastic and passionate advocate for your book, working every day to get media coverage?
You should expect regular communication and know what’s happening in your book marketing campaign, but let book publicists do what you pay them to do.
NO CRYING!
Just as we teach young children that crying over disappointments and not getting their way isn’t necessary or appropriate, the same principle applies in book publicity. While authors (and book publicists!) may not actually cry when things don’t go their way, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself and exhibit frustration. Authors should know that book marketing is a challenging endeavor, it’s highly competitive, and there is one guarantee: You will not get every media placement you desire, you just won’t. And, there will be some tough days, perhaps not-so-positive reviews, or lagging book sales. It’s OK to feel disappointed – as book publicists at Smith Publicity do when we don’t get the responses we hoped to from media, but pushing forward and maintaining a positive outlook is crucial.
If you do, good things will happen.