It can`t be easy...

Saw this did not have any posts and could not imagine there were no problems with marketing.

My only problem so far is that all the major bookstores have failed to set up massive displays for my two books and for some reason have decided to do this for authors of their own choice.

Anyways this was just to get the ball rolling so to speak.

john

Thanks for getting the ball rolling John! It isn't easy. In fact, marketing is very difficult. Firstly, authors need to build a platform and the hours of work necessary to do that are not available to part-time authors with full-time jobs.

Secondly, well the second stage is never reached because the hours of work nec...

Can't be easy? My Gram always claimed that the most important and valuable things in life seldom came easy.

I struggle with this all the time. Do I put the paying things aside for now and spend some time marketing (getting behind on my deadlines), or do I keep working on the paying stuff while my books gather dust in my basement? It's really hard to strike a balance between the two, but I do enjoy the frustration or else I would not be doing it.

Whenever I visit stores where I know my friends do have books, I try to make sure their covers are turned outward (not just showing the title on the spine) to give them the most exposure that I can. A little friendly and subtle merchandising on my part.

Nice, a little behind the scenes merchandising always works. I always have flyers with me, so whenever I see a board I put one up. I know they work because I've gotten a few orders out of them.

For me marketing is an on-going process, but I concentrate on Internet marketing/sales and connections. I consider anything I sell locally via bookstores sales or signings as icing on the cake. Our local B&N keeps it in stock but if I depended only on them and the other independent shops to stock my books, I'd go nuts trying.

I read an interesting--no, sobering statistic this week:

Of the 1.2 million titles tracked by Bookscan in 2006, only 2.1% sold more than 5,000 books, 16.6% sold fewer than 1,000, and a terrifying 79.6% sold fewer than 99 copies.

SILENCED CRY was released in late April 2007. I sold close to 100 books between May - December 2007, at 3 book signings and to local people who contacted me the week before Christmas to purchase copies as presents. Additionally, I've received a royalty check each quarter for online and other bookstore sales.

Within the first 6 months after the book's release, my sales were well within the 16.6%; my publisher agrees I'm having above average sales. It's not a streak of luck, it's work and I focus 90% of my efforts on maintaining an Internet Presence.

I wrote a six-part series of articles on this. If you're interested, you'll find them and other articles on my website under the link titled, "Author to Author" at www.martastephens-author.com.

The question remains, how do you balance the time spent between writing and marketing? Very carefully, but a great deal depends on where you're at on the writing. If the book is done. Then marketing needs to take center stage.

Yes, promotion is a never ending process. Depending on the "time frame" of the book, this can mean promoting a title for two or three years - and seeing a nice small trickle continue to come in several years after the initial publication sales. It all adds up to eventually a very reasonable amount.

There is a whole list of things you can do to begin the process. Start canvassing on a face to face level, send out personal letters, telephone to friends and any referrals, send out circulars and brochures, classified advertising, look in the yellow pages, check out the magazines, look into radio and television, outdoor advertising, pinpoint a mailing , seminars, trade shows, make contests, and so on down the list. OR somebody on Published Authors could step forward and give you valuable advice on circumventing all of the above. Of course they have already started to cover the internet possibilities, but from what I’m seeing is your wanting someone who has worked through the same dilemma. Good luck.

Richard Bowers wrote:

There is a whole list of things you can do to begin the process. Start canvassing on a face to face level, send out personal letters, telephone to friends and any referrals, send out circulars and brochures, classified advertising, look in the yellow pages, check out the magazines, look into radio and television, outdoor advertising, pinpoint a mailing , seminars, trade shows, make contests, and so on down the list. OR somebody on Published Authors could step forward and give you valuable advice on circumventing all of the above.

... or someone on Published Authors might advise you that circumventing the above is more likely to lead to failure than success.