Ambassador of Possibility

One of the biggest challenges a self-published author faces is generating awareness and demand for their books.  This struggle is not unlike the struggle that many businesses are facing today.  Chicken Soup for the Soul was born from humble beginnings.  Jack Canfield and I had big dreams for our collection of inspirational and uplifting stories, but unfortunately, we didn’t have a very big budget.  It took two years for the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book to reach the best-seller list.   Jack and I had to be very creative, innovative, and effective in how we marketed.  Our families were depending on us, and we couldn’t afford to fail.

During those two years we experimented with many different forms of marketing and advertising.  These are the top 3 techniques that we used to attract the demand necessary to transform our humble book into a dominating million-dollar business empire:

1.     We spoke-up:  Jack and I were both (and still are) professional speakers and always used Chicken Soup for the Soul stories during our talks to warm up the crowd and reinforce our lessons.  After our talks were over, we would always hear the crowd buzzing about how great the stories were.  Even if you aren’t a professional speaker, you can utilize this subtle, yet powerful approach!  Today, many people use social networking to spread the word, but I still believe that there is nothing more persuasive than an honest referral from a friend.  Be sure to always keep a copy of your book with you.  If someone finds advice the advice you have given, or a story you have told helpful, you can give them a signed copy of your book.  If they enjoy it, they will be sure to tell a friend.

2.     We made key contacts: During those two years Jack and I travelled A LOT.  At the time, I did a lot of coaching for BIG sales departments at BIG companies.  We inevitably met the who’s who within the company.  These key contacts helped us to get more speaking engagements and to gain traction with a more powerful demographic.  When you begin to acquire high-powered fans (or clients) you will gain more credibility, which makes you instantly more in-demand.  If you’re in business, make friends with your top competitors, you never know when you’ll be able to offer something they can’t or vice-versa.   You can also use these relationships to create symbiotic marketing campaigns. (Think: Restaurants offering discounts with a movie stub.)

3.     We never compromised our quality:  Every page in Chicken Soup for the Soul went through a screening process, even the cartoons.  We knew that if we wanted to be in the big leagues, we had to have a big-league quality product.  We had to do more than talk Chicken Soup, we had to be Chicken Soup.  We were consistent and authentic in how we represented our brand and our message in every aspect of our marketing, our lives and ourselves.  Do you use the advice you give in your book?  Does your book (or business) have the quality of your most successful competitors?

The truth is that only a handful of  books reach the best-sellers list, and only a handful of businesses will reach a Forbes list.  This fact doesn’t reduce the importance of every book that is published or any small business.  Hard work, dedication, and passion can take you very far in this world. Don’t give up because you don’t see success immediately.  Remember, it took us two years to reach our goal of best-sellerdom, but today, because of hard work and persistence, we hold the world record for having the most books on a bestsellers list at one time.  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t reach your goal immediately, if you are seeing growth and progress, you will get what you want, just keep working and innovating!  

-Mark

Last night I had my monthly ask-anything Wealthy Writer’s Wisdom member’s only conference call.  I always enjoy connecting with the members and answering your questions.  Over the course of the call I noticed that many of the participants were asking for ways to inexpensively market their books.  Here are some of the things that I am doing, or have done, in my business to inexpensively market my books that could work for you too.

1. Utilize social networking- Create a Facebook fan page for yourself (different and separate from your personal page) and your product/book.  If you use it to post relevant content on a regular basis you will eventually see your fan base growing.  Those facebook fans are targeted customers who are already interested in what you are saying.  You can utilize a custom fan page, or something similar, to capture leads and build your mailing list. There are many social media sites, so be sure to link them together to gain as many eyes as possible.
2.  Use available resources- Save money on your website by using a service like Wordpress.com or Tumblr.com to build your website.  They provide great free templates and easy to use solutions for payment portals.    You can use that space as a blog, a sales portal, or as a branding site.  Provide snippets of your book as a teaser and consistently relevant content. 
3.  Give free seminars- Offer to give free content centered talks to your target demographic.  You can talk at schools, offices, churches, bookstores, libraries or even your own home live or via webinar.  You can also submit a press release to local papers about your upcoming event to gain exposure.  If you are scared of public speaking, now is the time to face your fear!  Try joining a group like Toast Masters.

The main thing to remember when you are marketing your book is to be real.  Don’t slam the people you have built relationships with by constantly selling to them.  Be sure to provide relevant, benefit-oriented content that will incite curiosity, especially if you are using a service like Facebook.  There is little tolerance for gaudy salesmanship in today’s market.  If you are going to sell (we all need to make money), do so from the standpoint of an infopreneur: sell by information!

Thank you for reading; I greatly appreciate your continued support!

-Mark

Follow Mark on twitter @MarkVHansen, or on Facebook for more helpful tips on writing, wealth building, and living the life of your dreams. 

There are really only 3 things that you can sell: A product, a service, or information.  Each type has pros and cons, although some lean more towards one side or another.  For example, the development and manufacturing of a new product can be very costly and holds a lot of risk.   Providing a service is extremely labor intensive and is a hard business model to sustain; however, if you can stay with the current trends, there will always be a need for those who provide a service.  It is my belief and my experience that information is king.  Why?  It is relatively low cost to create, there is very little risk, and people are always going to need it.

I am in the information business.  Everyday, the information business becomes more and more digitalized, which makes it more cost effective than ever to share your content with more people, which means more profit.   One of the best things about being in the information business is that once you create something, like a book or article, you can use it in many different ways.  Plus, because the content is coming out of your brain, there is unlimited potential as to what you can create.

Being in the information business is great because it allows the creator to collect royalties in some cases.  It is so nice to receive a paycheck for something I only had to create once!  The tricky part about being in the information business is positioning yourself in a way that allows you to powerfully leverage what you have created. More and more businesses are using mediums like blogs and social networking to create a listening for their information.  Staying in touch with your fans on a regular basis will make it far easier to market and sell your information, and also position yourself as an expert. 

In the information business, content is king, so make sure you are always creating new stuff, and sharing it.  Free content is one of the best ways to build a strong following.  Use all the tools that are now available to you to create a relationship between your fans and your content.  You can also use their reactions as a means of testing the content that you intend on packaging and selling.  If you can successfully leverage yourself, you will be successful in the information business!

-Mark

There is a business side to books, something that many people forget when they start marketing their book, or start looking for agents and publishers.  When you begin your book, it is important to know who your target market is, and to find out as much about their demographics and psychographics as possible.  Knowing the demographic and psychographic profile of you ideal customer could make or break your book, especially as a business.

If it has been a while since your last marketing class, let me give you a quick run down of what those terms mean, how they relate to each other, and how they are different.  There is a great excerpt in my Wealthy Writer’s Wisdom Workbook Lesson 4 on this topic…

 ”A demographic is a set of criteria, usually based on quantifiable variables such as age, race, education, and income.  The psychographic profile of a group is determined by variables relating to personality, values, interests, lifestyles, and opinions.  Demographic data is a concrete numbers game, while psychographics are based more on qualitative consumer behavior.  Both are statistical, although demographics are usually easier to collect, and people are more honest about them.  Sometimes, surveys meant to collect psychographic data do not reflect actual consumer behavior, especially since much of this data is subjective. 

Both demographics and psychographics are used in every type of marketing research, and it is important not to confuse them.  All publishers and agents will ask you something like, “what is your demographic” or “who is your target audience.” When they ask this, they want to what your target demographic and psychographic are. This information will help you to find an agent and publisher interested in your market. Agents and publishers use demographics and psychographics to determine the viability of a book’s success, just like grocery store manufacturers do with goods. 

Have you ever noticed that when you sign up for a club card at a grocery store you begin receiving coupons for the items that are usually in your cart?  That’s because those cards are a way of collecting psychographic data.  When you use your card at the checkout, your purchase decisions provide the supermarket’s marketing department the data it needs to classify the types of things you like to buy.  On a larger scale, this helps them to establish a psychographic profile that will be integrated with demographics, such as age and place of residence.  All of this is in place to provide highly targeted marketing campaigns.  This information trickles down to a manufacturer and eventually determines what goods will and won’t be produced.”

  Each book is targeted toward a different demographic and psychographic because each audience is unique.  If your content does not fit the needs of, or is not suitable for, your target customer, it may not get produced.  This is not because  your content isn’t good, it is just because it isn’t marketable.  To powerfully position your book, familiarize yourself with to whom you are writing.  If you don’t know who you are writing to, or what you are writing about, whether for business or pleasure, your writing can become misdirected or muddled.  Identifying the demographics and psychographics of your ideal customer or reader is part of starting at the end, and plays an integral role in the tone and approach you will take when addressing certain topics.  It also comes into play when it is time for you to select you ever-important title.

Take the time to create your ideal customer.  Keep your description near and dear to you when you write, it will make your writing clearer, more concise, and more directed.  This is some of the best advice I could give to anyone who is looking to get into the book business.