Given that promoting a book can get costly, even if you don't pay a company to do an Amazon campaign, what are some of the ways in which you budget for book promotion and how do you decide how much to allocate in terms of the Return on Investment you hope for or the ROI you believe is possible?
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I agree with Jeff that it takes time and energy rather than money, although that would help too. I have nothing budgeted for promotion at this point but have already begun promoting my forthcoming book. So here are a few ideas that don't cost anything. 1) Social and other networking efforts should increase as soon as we begin writing the book. This way we'll have a larger platform once our book is actually published. It's important to also build a potential sales team during the writing process. So instead of just promoting our own events, articles published, blogs, etc. we become cheerleaders for others by helping promote their work on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Later, they will return the favor. Plus it's a great way to deepen friendships with other writers. Just this morning, for example, I shared an excellent column written by my friend Caryn, who writes for the local paper. Caryn and I are in a Women of Words networking group that meets monthly for lunch. We each discuss how our writing is going, plus help each other with editing, publishing and promoting our work. So these women will also help promote my book, just as I have done and will do for them.
2. Don't wait until the book is published before giving presentations about it. I've been giving talks about my nearly finished book for the past 4-5 years. Doing so increases my email list when audiences sign up for door prizes and provide their snail/email addresses. Plus these presentations have resulted in some terrific stories from people who line up afterward or email me and share their own experiences. I also keep in touch with the event organizers and will contact them once the book is finished.
3. I'm thinking about asking the 50-60 people whose stories are in my book to also become part of my 'sales team', in part by becoming Amazon affiliates. Then when their contacts order the book from Amazon, each of them will get a percentage of book sales revenue. Maybe there's a way to do this for other online booksellers too. I'd love to hear if anyone else has done this and how successful an affiliate program has been. This effort will also help if I want to create my own Amazon book launch campaign, without paying someone else to run it. However if I miraculously got a huge advance (one can always hope!) from a publisher, then I would consider hiring experts to help with this and other marketing efforts.
Once again, I've written a long response on these pages.. so that's it for now.
Thanks for posing this question, Sharon. I'd love to hear what others have to say about this important topic.
Awesome reply! Very helpful!! Thank you and happy weekend! : )
Initially, you should budget your time but not your money. You should generate a short and effective email and send it to everyone you know and to every organization, company, etc, that is relevant to your book. That should open some doors for further development, such as speaking, blogging, etc. Networking takes energy not money.
Excellent advice, Jeff, about the budgeting of time and your strategy of contacting key networks is great.
Sooner or later, though, there is going to have to be some kind of financial input. Has anyone ever done book promotion that cost them nothing financially? More to the point, has anyone ever done a highly successful book promotion strategy that brought excellent sales and cost the author nothing in terms of $$? If there is, I hope someone will make a posting about it, as it would be great to share this with other authors.
Also, how about a thread that might offer some ballpark numbers...in the modest, moderate, and expensive categories...and a comparison of people's results?
Mary, I like your idea that authors should be out doing presentations on their book topic prior to even writing the book. Not so sure about the affiliate route, though...have you found this to work well for authors?
Sharon, If all goes well, you can reinvest a potion of your revenues in targeted ways, and just keep on reinvesting based upon your ongoing revenues. I believe there must be many cases of people who sold a lot of copies without spending money for the reason that their "platform" was already at a mature point. The book can be a beneficiary of a preexisting marketing apparatus without any additional investment.
Sharon, I haven't asked people be affiliates for my first book because it is a memoir so there isn't really an incentive for people to actively help sell it besides being nice! But because my second one contains stories of so many others, including published authors and speakers, I'd like to motivate/reward them for any effort they make to sell my book. Unlike with the Chicken Soup books, I can't afford to pay for stories, so it's a way for them to benefit financially from book sales, without costing me anything. I don't see any reason not to suggest the program as it doesn't take any of my time/energy. And in particular for the public speakers, the affiliate program would enable them to purchase discounted copies to sell in the back of the room of their own presentations.
I have bought copies of the three Chicken Soup books that contain my stories at half price from the publisher then sell them at my presentations. Similarly, if I end up self-publishing my own book, then I can offer the writers a discount so they can buy directly from me, which is even better than via the Amazon affiliate program--for both them and me. I'll have to start asking some of the authors I speak with to see if they have done this and whether this idea and the affiliate program are worth exploring further.