Tag: book marketing strategy

marketing-tips

Why the Holidays Should Be on Your Marketing Radar Now

For many of us, the red-and-green bling and piped-in Christmas music at the local big box store — usually before the kids’ Halloween candy is even inspected — is the first tip-off that the giving season is around the bend. It always seems ridiculously early to think about the holidays … but is it really?

If you’re a self-publishing author with plans to market a book, it’s certainly not. In fact, it should be on your mind now, even as summer is at full sizzle. Let’s work backward on the calendar to illustrate why.

By Black Friday, the official kick-off for holiday shopping, most print news and magazine organizations have already planned and sold out advertising space in their regular editions, gift guides and other special holiday publications. If you want to reserve ad space on time, you’ll need to think one to three months ahead; this means you should have your holiday marketing ducks in a row even before those trick-or-treaters come knocking.

That brings us back to October. By some estimates, one-third of shoppers are already buying gifts in the fall, taking advantage of Labor Day sales when the fervor is less aggressive. This can be a golden time to grab the spotlight with a print ad or polished social media banners with less competition than you’re likely to encounter in December.

To prepare, you should create marketing pieces or work with a copywriter and/or graphic designer in September to have your materials ready in plenty of time for a Labor Day push. Consider it a dry run — a chance to gather valuable data you can use to refine your approach to Christmas. (Then get started on Christmas, asap!)

In the two months leading up to Labor Day, focus on a marketing calendar and budget. Spend August saving your coins, determining your marketing budget, researching where best to allocate your money and drafting a marketing calendar specifically for the holidays.

So, now that you know how short time really is, start planning! You’ll be way ahead of the competition — and, dare we say, far less stressed — by the time your happy holidays roll around.

Want to expedite your marketing plan and marketing calendar? Consider purchasing time with an Outskirts Press
Personal Marketing Assistant for help preparing your holiday promotions.

self publishing news

An Amazon-branded Featured Book-of-the-Week Option Offers 3 Key Benefits to Self-Publishing Authors

One of the biggest marketing challenges for authors is generating awareness about their book. Readers have to know a book exists in order to buy it. Outskirts Press has introduced a new book marketing option that puts a self-publishing author’s book in front of over 6,000 potential buyers: the Amazon-branded Featured Book-of-the-Week.

The new Amazon-branded Featured Book-of-the-Week options is a direct marketing campaign to over 6,000 opt-in recipients, all readers, writers, and professionals.  The email features the featured book’s cover image and title as well as an easy to access link for readers to purchase the book directly from Amazon. In addition to the email, each featured book-of-the-week is featured on the Outskirts Press blog and broadcast to Outskirts Press’ social media community via Facebook and Twitter.

“Getting your book in front of readers is an essential part of any book marketing strategy,” said Elise Connors, Manager of Author Support at Outskirts Press. “This new option provides authors with an easy and affordable way to do just that.”

What benefits can a self-publishing author gain from signing up for the Amazon-branded Featured Book-of-the-Week?

  1. Increased Exposure – The Featured Book-of-the-Week is sent to over 6,000 email subscribers, nearly 3,000 Facebook users, and more than 1,000 Twitter followers.
  2. No Effort Marketing – All authors have to do is reserve their Friday. Outskirts Press handles the promotion from there.
  3. Effective Marketing Techniques – Social media and email marketing are two of the most effective marketing strategies in today’s technology-obsessed society. Not only does this option increase a book’s exposure, but it also provides readers with the convenience of online shopping and internet book reviews.
Are you ready to reserve your feature?
Author Inspiration

An Author’s Amazon Success Story

A little bit ago we posted about Outskirts Press authors with higher sales ranks than other self publishing companies. Today, we’d like to add a bit more proof to this statement.

Anthony Fasano P.E., the author of Engineer Your Own Success, recently made it to #4 in Engineering and #1 in Hot New Releases Engineering on Amazon.com. He is truly a testament to the potential result of starting with a solid book marketing strategy.

Here’s a little bit about Anthony and his book:

Anthony Fasano P.E.
Anthony Fasano P.E.

Self-publishing Outskirts Press author, Anthony Fasano, PE, has an appreciative awareness of the stress and challenges engineers face in today’s corporate world. After a successful engineering career, he transitioned his career from designing to inspiring engineers. The techie turned talker has been referred to by many of his seminar attendees as “the Tony Robbins of the engineering industry” and has been profiled in newspapers and magazines from the Wall Street Journal to the Bergen Record to the New York Professional Engineer, as well as being featured on Boston’s Civil Engineering Today television show.

He is dedicated to helping other engineers in unleashing unlimited possibilities to create a career that is exciting, enjoyable, and rewarding while being well-balanced.

Anthony also works with engineering organizations to help them boost productivity, energy, and awareness which maximizes their potential to achieve success. To subscribe to his complimentary daily email service, The Daily Boost, which inspires a wide audience of engineers, please visit www.PowerfulPurpose.com.


Engineer Your Own Success by Anthony Fasano P.E.
Engineer Your Own Success

7 Key Elements to Creating An Extraordinary Engineering Career

It’s a well-known fact that engineers are recognized for their uncanny ability to create magnificent blueprints in an effort to bring brilliant designs to the world. Unfortunately, often times they suffer from a lack of the non-technical soft skills needed to advance up the corporate ladder and achieve the success they desire.

Engineer Your Own Success is an engineer’s guide to realizing their ultimate potential in order to lead a highly enjoyable and successful engineering career. Each chapter reveals steps towards advancing your career and shows you how to stand out from the crowds in your own unique distinctive way. The time to make changes in your engineering career is NOW and this book can help.

When publishing your own book, it is important to find the right self publishing company. With so many to choose from, it can often be difficult for authors to make a decision. However, when you find a company that provides you with the assistance you are looking for in publishing/promoting your book, it’s best to stick with them.

Are you looking for a publisher that will support you in terms of both marketing and publication?

Start Publishing

Advice

How Self-Publishing Authors Can Use HARO to Promote Their Book

Building a recognizable brand is an important part of any author’s overall book marketing strategy. One of the ways you can do this is to offer your knowledge through a well-known resource. What if you could connect with a reporter and be sourced in an article publishing in a nationwide magazine or newspaper? Wouldn’t you agree that’s a great form of publicity?

That’s what you find on HARO (Help A Reporter Out) – opportunities to make media industry contacts. When you subscribe to HARO, you are sent several email digests throughout the day. In each digest, you can find several media leads in a wide variety of categories. An email address is also listed so that you can follow up with any lead in your field of expertise. Once you email the reporter, it’s up to them to follow up with you if interested.

Reporters are waiting to connect with you!

Self-publishing authors stand a lot to gain from subscribing to HARO’s email digests. A few ways this can help you build your brand (and ultimately sell more books) are:

  • You can establish yourself as an industry expert. People like experts. People learn from experts. People believe what experts say. Imagine the credibility that stems from being sourced in an article read by others who closely follow your field and would be interested in your book.
  • You can widen your “reach”. Your reach is the number of people that actually know about or have seen you or your book. The more people that are familiar with you and your work, the greater the likelihood of higher sales performance.
  • You can mention your book in the article (if allowed). Some writers allow you to mention your book in their article. This sweetens the deal and can really help drive more readers to your books because they know exactly what they’re looking for.

The above list is not exhaustive. Self-publishing authors have seen a great deal of success from such efforts – especially if they enlist the help of a book marketing coach.

What do you think? Have you ever landed an interview or any other publicity using HARO? Has it been an effective tool to aid in selling more books?

Are you ready to take advantage of other opportunities available for self-publishing authors?

Start Publishing