About |
Write | Market | Design offers editorial, marketing, and design consulting and services for socially conscious speakers, coaches, and authors. Although we work primarily with self-publishing authors, we also have traditionally published clients who desire to enhance their marketing strategies and campaigns because they know they can no longer rely on the publishing company to do the lion's share of their marketing.
Our goal is to teach every client to think like a marketer. We are trademarking the term Savvy Book Marketer (SBM), because we want every one of our author clients to become precisely that.
Many, many an expert has the knowledge and material to write a book. They often speak, consult, teach, counsel ... and hear from clients, peers, colleagues, and others that they should write these books. Some actually do just that. The challenge, however, is that most first-time (and many repeat) authors have no skill or plan at marketing their books. They mistakenly wait until the book is in hand to try to find readers (aka buyers) for it. When authors come to us early enough in the process, we encourage them to begin their marketing strategy as soon as they start writing the book.
The good news is that the current technology has made it easier than every to create successful book marketing campaigns that are affordable to almost any author. The largest investment these days is in the author's time and energy. Sometimes, it's necessary to coax the author away from their keyboard so that they can learn how to craft and implement a marketing strategy. All too frequently, authors do not see themselves as salespeople - they perceive selling as a dirty word, and the idea of marketing makes them cringe. Others are unaware of the importance of building a platform of followers clamoring for their material. Still others come from the old school of push marketing, and must learn the new techniques of relationship marketing.
Social media is the new buzzword - and it's a crucial piece of any successful author's platform. But it's just one piece. Public speaking. Article marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing and networking. Video. Powerful sales copy and leave-behind materials. All of these are components of a strong marketing strategy. Sure, there are the exceptional authors who "hit it big" by focusing on just one method. But usually, it takes a coordinated campaign across all of these methods to become successful.
We touch on all of these in our blog. Please make time to meet our alter-ego, Marcie Brock at http://marciebrockbookmarketingmaven.wordpress.com.