In today’s content-oriented world, book and ebook marketing are essential tools for personal branding success.
Books and ebooks offer a fast-track to your personal branding success. They demonstrate your expertise, showcase your understanding of your prospects’ needs, and prove your ability to help others solve their problems and achieve their goals.
Whether you’re goal is career advancement by working for others, or you want to build awareness and a competitive edge for your own business, the ability to market your books, ebooks, reports, and white papers is crucial for your success.
Books and career success
Today, writing, publishing, and personal branding are inseparable.
Published books have always, of course, been the most effective personal brand builders. But, in the past, there were gatekeepers–i.e., acquisition editors at trade publishers–who played a major role in determining who got published.
Now, of course, with ebooks and Internet-enabled self-publishing and author book marketing, everyone has access to the branding power of a published book.
Today’s new access to self-publishing and online book marketing, however, has raised the stakes:
Now, the big challenge isn’t “getting your book published,” the big challenge is “getting your book noticed.”
Luckily, resources like Stephanie Chandler’s latest book, The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan: Online and Offline Promotion Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books, is available to guide you through the steps necessary to give your book or ebook the marketing plan it needs to get noticed, sell books, and build your personal brand.
Few are as qualified to write about nonfiction book marketing as Stephanie Chandler. She’s been marketing her own nonfiction books for years, as well as helping authors market their books.
But, I thought my publishers would market my book!
Generations of published authors have discovered, to their dismay, that they have to do their own book marketing–no matter how large or deep-pocketed their publishers are.
Unfortunately, traditional trade publishers are experts at designing, editing, producing, printing, and distributing books to retail outlets, but it’s your responsibility to market your book by building a platform, attracting loyal followers, building marketing momentum for your book long before its publication date… and for years to follow.
That’s why The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan is so important… it begins before your book is published and provides step-by-step recommendations that extend way beyond its publication date.
Even if you haven’t started writing a book to build your personal brand, reading The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan will familiarize you with the “big picture” book marketing process, and provide you with an action plan you can start on now.
3 steps to book marketing success
The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan is divided into three logical parts:
- Part 1: Before the book is Published (Ideally)
- Chapter 1: Build the Foundation. Topics include defining your goals, your target audience, and obtaining pre-publication endorsements for your book.
- Chapter 2: Launch a Killer Website. Creating a website after you’ve written a book is like locking the barn door after your prize horse has disappeared. It’s too late. You’ll learn the basics of author blogs, web sales pages, and search engine optimization.
- Chapter 3: Social Media Mastery. While launching your website,you should be establishing your presence on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Google+.
- Part 2: Book Launch
- Chapter 4: Build Your Launch Plans. Topics include identifying your launch partners and setting up an Amazon Bestseller campaign–even if you’re aiming for strong retail sales.
- Chapter 5: Publicity and the Media. In this chapter, you’ll discover what you need to know before you pitch the media, and how to set up a virtual book tour.
- Chapter 6: Boost Sales on Amazon. This valuable chapter walks you through the process of setting up an Author Central Account on Amazon, and helps you understand Sales Rank on Amazon. This chapter also describes how to give away copies of your Kindle ebook as a sales building technique.
- Part 3: After the Book is Released
- Chapter 7: Offline Marketing Techniques. Topics include giving away copies, locating book reviewers, and creating a reader group with Meetup.com.
- Chapter 8: Online Marketing Tactics. You’ll learn how to host your own ebook giveaway, promoting with podcasts, starting an Internet radio show, and hosting webinars and teleseminars.
- Chapter 9: Professional Speaking. You’ll learn how to get started in this potentially lucrative field, as well as learn how to give great presentations, and transition to paid speaking. There’s also a valuable Speaker Intake Form for asking those who invite you to speak, questions I wish I had known about years ago!
- Chapter 10: Revenue Generation. This chapter may be an eye-opener to those who thought that an author’s income from a book was limited to profits from book sales. Stephanie outlines the dozens of ways you can convert your book’s content into profitable information products.
Useful, concise book marketing advice
Like her previous books, Stephanie Chandler loads each chapter with practical, hands-on, no-frills advice, enhanced by success stories and interviews from authors who have built their personal brands by writing and marketing their books.
Stephanie Chandler balances high information density with a conversational reading style. She frequently uses lists to communicate the maximum amount of information as concisely as possible.
Recommendation
I encourage you to read The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan as far ahead of time–i.e., your book’s publication–as possible.
Familiarizing yourself with the fundamentals and options of book marketing for personal branding success as early as possible will deliver big dividends. Instead of approaching book marketing as a stressful, last-minute, “necessary evil,” you’ll gain the information and confidence you need to create your author platform in a timely, low-stress manner.
Are you considering writing a book to build your personal brand?
You may enjoy these recent posts; Creating Thought Leadership for Personal Branding Success, Build Your Brand By Writing a Book that Inspires Readers. and How to Avoid the 11 Biggest Mistakes of First-time Authors. And, whether or not you’ve already written and published a book, or are thinking about writing one, please share your experiences and questions below, as comments.
Author:
Roger C. Parker offers advice, assistance, and success strategies for building your personal brand. Download his free 99 Questions to Ask Before You Start to Write workbook or ask him a question.
