By BookBaby author Brian Jud

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Many independent authors I speak with admit frustration with their inability to generate significant book sales. Generating sales takes strategic and creative thinking, and I’m highlighting four things you can do to boost your Book Marketing and help open your gateway to success.

Before a race begins, do you hear the starter call out, “On your mark, go, get set”? Of course not. Racers must get set before they can go, and so must book marketers. Four things you can do to boost your book marketing and get a jump on your marathon to publishing success are:

1. Segment your audience. Divide your potential readers into groups based on their reasons to buy your book.
2. Differentiate your title. Make sure your content is different from the competition.
3. Reverse your perspective. Realize that changing your viewpoint creates new opportunities.
4. Eat the elephant. You‘ve heard the old joke, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” In book marketing, use stepping stones — small, incremental steps — to reach your larger objective.

Segment your audience

Suppose your book is about ways women can resolve their fear. Everybody is afraid of something at some level, right? So, you might define your target reader as “every woman.” But how can you tell “every woman” the ways your content will help her, specifically? You can’t, so you must speak to them individually by dividing your target readers into categories, such as women who are afraid of flying, dying, speaking, failing, being in a relationship, etc.

For example, what if “soccer moms” were singled out as a target segment? These mothers might be fearful for the safety, health, and future of their children. In this case, you would define the typical soccer mom who will benefit from reading your book. Begin by getting answers to the following questions and creating a composite of the target mom to whom you will market.

• What is her average level of education?
• What social media platforms does she use?
• Where does she shop?
• What products might she use for food, clothing, or personal hygiene?
• What is her age range?
• How much money does she make?
• What magazines and newspapers does she read?
• What are her problems or pain points?
• To what organizations or associations might she belong?
• What radio and television shows does she listen to/watch?
• Are there geographic concentrations of prospects?
• How can you reach her with publicity? Advertising? Sales promotion?

The way soccer moms respond to these questions would give you information about how to market to them. You would now know the level of vocabulary to use, buzz words that would make sense to her, and the problems she wants to solve.

You might seek to have your books for supermarkets and discount stores. You now have a good idea of the social, print, and broadcast media in which to place your promotional material. What companies sell food, clothes, or personal hygiene items to her? These would be prime candidates for bulk sales, as would the soccer or parenting associations to which she belongs.

Now, think about how a mid-life career woman would answer these questions. Or, what about a recently retired or divorced woman? What about a woman in the military? Women in each segment have different pain points, favorite media, and purchase diverse products in different stores. You can see how a one-size-fits-all marketing effort directed to “everybody” would probably fail.

Differentiate your title

The opposite of “everybody” is “nobody,” which is the answer too many authors give when asked, “Who is your competition?” A quick search about your topic on Amazon.com will reveal a list of competitive titles. If there are none, re-analyze the size of your potential market. Your book about “how to start your own country” may be the only book on that topic, but what is the sales potential?

Of course, every book has competition if you look at it more broadly. You are competing for retailers’ shelf space, airtime on broadcast media, or column inches in print media. You are competing against other sources for your information that could be accessed for free on the Internet or through online courses, blogs, and podcasts. Fiction competes against all other forms of entertainment for a share of your target’s time and money. All books compete with promotional items such as coffee mugs, hats, and t-shirts when it comes to corporate sales.

Once you realize this, your task is to make your target readers/buyers understand how your content will benefit them in ways other sources won’t. Create and communicate a unique value proposition, showing each niche your singular ability to meet their needs and solve their problems.

Reverse your perspective

When publishers attempt to get their books into retail stores, including bookstores, they describe how great their book is with all its awards, testimonials, and beautiful photographs. Unfortunately, retailers do not care about that. They’re focused on offering products that will increase their store traffic, inventory turns, and profit per square foot. If a book does not provide those results, it is removed from the shelves, returned, and replaced.

Reverse your perspective to see your product from their viewpoint. Stop selling what your book is and start selling what your content does. This perspective can inform query letters, book proposals, ad copy, and pitches to get into print or broadcast media.

What’s in it for me?

Every decision-maker is listening to that radio station, WIIFM: What’s In It For Me? They, too, do not care about selling your book. They want an informed guest who can educate and/or entertain their viewers, listeners, or readers. Prove that you can do that for their audience rather than describing the virtues of your book. Similarly, librarians in urban, suburban, law, school, prison, and religious libraries all have different collections that meet the needs of their patrons.

Think about the users of social media. When you visit your favorite sites, you may be deluged by authors saying how proud they are that their book is published and “click this link to buy it on Amazon.” So what? WIIFM?

Eat the elephant

People looked at Goliath and thought he was too big to hit. David looked at him and thought he was too big to miss. You might look at the non-bookstore market for books and think, “Is that market big enough to approach, or is it too big?” The answer is yes. A special-sales market of $16 billion is too big to pass up. However, it can be too big a market in which to compete profitably — if you try to take it all on at one time.

A stepping stone strategy involves approaching the large non-bookstore market with small, intermediate actions rather than gigantic leaps. In fact, you have already taken the first three steps by defining your target buyers, analyzing your competition, and reversing your perspective.

Separate the special sales market into two categories: retail and non-retail. Initially, approach the retail segment, since you know where your target buyers shop and you know the benefits those retailers seek. Then, change your perspective and look for other retailers, such as airport stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, discount stores, and gift shops that are appropriate given your targets’ shopping habits.

Your current trade distributor may already be selling to these retailers. If not, seek a non-competitive distributor that does. For example, contact ReaderLink, the largest full-service distributor of hardcover, trade, and paperback books to non-trade channel booksellers in North America.

As you become more comfortable with non-bookstore marketing, look to selling your books to non-retail buyers in corporations, associations, schools, government agencies, and the military. There are no distributors to most of these, so you have two options: you can contact the buyers yourself or find companies or sales representatives who will do it for you. Here are two of those who can do it for you:

• The Marketing and Sales Group works through a network of over 60,000 commissioned salespeople who can personally present your books to non-retail buyers. (Contact [email protected], a business partner of mine.)
• The Advertising Specialty Institute is an industry leader in advertising opportunities, trade shows, and events. Its members can sell your books for you.

There you have it. Four things you can do immediately to boost your book marketing and sales. The steps are simple, but not necessarily easy. Those who will take them and do what is required will succeed. Will you be one of them?

Related Posts
How To Define Your Book’s Target Audience In 6 Steps
Know Where To Sell Books
How To Negotiate Large-quantity, Non-returnable Sales
How to Write a Book Proposal
Selling to Non-Bookstore Retailers

This BookBaby blog article Four Ways to Boost Your Book Marketing appeared first on and was stolen from BookBaby Blog .