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Part 3: Great Tips to Build A Convincing Local Book Marketing Pitch

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Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
Costco

Book Marketing Pitches

In the previous articles of this series, we discussed what strategy you should use in getting your book on the shelves of Costco and other specialty stores, and tips for pitching your book or whether a certain store and your book are a good match. This process has a sweet spot – the pitch you give to the store manager. Now we share some simple techniques that will greatly increase your chance to succeed at the pitching, and land a deal!

Tip 1: One Page Layout (Your Book Sell Sheet): No matter how rich you plan your pitch to be, and what tools you want to use to present it, if any, in the end, always have a good-looking, clean, book sell sheet you can hand over, with the most necessary info: reviews, endorsements, key selling points – think of it as a CV for your book! Check out my blog post on creating book sell sheets.

Tip 2: Clarify Your Terms: Simply make sure you figure out all the numbers before a sit-down with the manager. Being open minded does help, but you will need to start somewhere. Decisions made in the heat of the moment do not add up later. It is paramount to set your bottom line beforehand – prepare to give them around 50% of your book sales. The exposure is worth it. Read more…

Part 2: Professional Tips for Pitching Your Book to Store Managers

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Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
Costco

Pitching Your Book to Store Managers

In my last installment, I told you how to approach Costco and other local specialty stores to feature your book. A key element of that process is convincing the store manager that your book is exactly what their business needs right now. How to do that? I will show you.

You probably heard the expression, which is popular amongst start-uppers, that your business needs to identify a problem, and offer help, a solution. Thinking along the same lines, you need to think through, how can your book help these dealers. When you pitch your book, you will use these arguments as the cornerstones of your presentation.

First argument: Why is your book a good fit in that given store?

You need to think through the target audience of the store and identify any matches with the target audience of your book. You can start plain and simple, just check out the books on sale there, thoroughly. It is even better if you check what is on offer regularly, so you can see the tendencies. What goes in big quantities or has great turnovers? What titles seem to stick there without anyone touching them? Some innocent questions to the store clerks about ‘popular’ books can’t hurt.

Analyze the situation at hand and come with a good, well-phrased argument: “My book is a great fit into your store because it fits perfectly with the Element X of your target group. I see you sell a lot of Category B themed books, and my book is exactly about that.” Read more…

Part 1: Professional Tips for Getting Your Book On Costco’s Shelves

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
Costco

Tips for Getting Your Book Into Costco

A frequently asked question by clients is “How are some self-published authors able to get their book into Costco? Making sure your book gets on the shelves of Costco and other specialty stores is actually not that difficult – if you know what to look out for, and what you can use to your advantage. Here I give you some pro insight for invading the stores that matter.

There are a particular set of criteria that needs to be met to get national distribution in Costco, and most of these are very clear and easily found online. Stock moves quickly here, so everything needs to be up-to-date, including literature. Movie tie-ins are one obvious example and book versions of current movies are always getting big visibility. Read more…

Do You Have What It Takes to Make It as a Successful Writer/Author?

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors

There are differences between what some people consider to be a successful writer or author, but in most cases everyone wants to be a professional writer.

Question is: do you have what it takes?

If you ever had the courage to call yourself a writer, you probably saw the amazement and slight disbelief in your conversation partners’ eyes. A writer? Is that something that can actually pay the bills? What are you writing?

Many of us have this image of the writer: a person, who is doing something for a living, but she finds herself regularly typing away in her spare time, and after a considerable amount of time, she shows her writing to other people. And guess what, it turns out to be a best seller! And she has become a millionaire, within the blink of an eye. So finally, she can be a writer, because she now has financial security. She can write whatever she wants, actually.

And there the millions of others, who do the same thing, but fail at producing a best seller at the first try. Why? Well, obviously because they are not talented enough.

This is how we generalize. Simplistic, yes, and of course, could not be further away from the truth.

I have some bad news for some of you: talents actually do matter. If you don’t find writing easy, enjoyable, and if you don’t get positive feedback regularly from people outside your family (professors, editors, random people on the Internet, friends with decent tastes and honest words), chances are you are chasing a profession that is substandard (for you).

But with hard work, you can still get there. Problem is: it is real hard work and does require a certain amount of talent as well. Read more…

How to Promote Your Speaking Career and Book Using Internet Radio

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Book Marketing, For Authors, For Speakers, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors, Virtual Assistant Resources

Cyrus Webb of Conversations Live interviews Author, Speaker and Fitness Pro Tamara Jackson.

Of all the PR and promotional strategies we use to promote our Author and Speaker clients, booking internet radio interviews is my top favorite approach. Internet radio makes it easy for us to reach a broader audience, and with many shows that interview guests in all different niches, it is very effective for aligning our clients with the right fan base.

My favorite internet radio platform and the one we use to promote our clients is Blog Talk Radio (BTR). BTR has provided us an excellent opportunity to promote our clients’ books, e-courses, and knowledge in specific areas or expertise. As opposed to paying for scripted radio spots that rarely convey enough substance to connect with your audience on a personal level, interviews on BTR are featured spots, more personal, and completely free to conduct. Interviews can run anywhere from 30 minutes up to an hour. Read more…

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