Marketing for the Independent Author
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 14th, 2007 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Having spent more than twenty-five years working for a couple of the big New York publishers, I understand how the traditional publishing business works. Responsibility for a sales division gave me insight into all aspects, especially what it takes to successfully market and sell books.
Not until the past few years did I realize how difficult it was to be an Independent Author. The barriers and restrictions to entry into what the New York companies like to call the “legitimate” business, is really overwhelming. In addition, there are scores of people who offer a wide variety of products and services with false promises of helping the Independent Author sell more books.
The biggest problem with selling more Independent books is that you cannot imitate what the bigger publishers do successfully and you should not be wasting lots of time or money trying to gain any noticeable entry into the market they control. The best opportunity to sell more Independently Published books is to create your own market. Take from the bigger publishers strengths, exploit their weaknesses, and establish your own destination for selling books.
It is not economically feasible to establish a brick and mortar presence for Independently Published books. The hurdles to even the smallest market share is cost prohibitive. The best strategy is through the use of technology, the Internet, to create a web presence, a community, where writers can market themselves and their book(s).
The strength of the Independent Writer and Author is the size of the group. When you create the community and develop a following, the old adage “build it and they will come,” will ring true. Major New York publishers relish in the fact the market for Independent Authors is fragmented and floundering. The last thing they want to see is a joining together of forces into one platform where book readers can shop for books. That is what we are creating with the community! The envy of the book consumer and the slow deterioration of traditional publishing as we know it.
Imagine a website where readers can shop for books and at the same time get to know the author? Why do publishers send authors on tours? To interact with the public. The personal connection they make sells books. This website will allow every writer and author the opportunity to do this through the use of profiles, audio, and video. Each author can offer their writing, picture their book(s), consumers can read excerpts, listen to the author speak, watch and listen to them read from their book, or be interviewed about their book(s) all in one location, establishing that personal connection that helps sell books.
It’s an exciting time and Independent Writers and Authors should embrace the technology and pass the word that they are beginning to organize and establish an entirely new marketplace for selling Independently Published books. A community introducing voices never heard and stories never told to the world. That community is called Nothing Binding.
Tags: Book Marketing, Book Sales, Booksellers
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