Marketing – Booknomics

Webinar on Author Branding: Masterclass with Sangram Surve

The German Book Office featured a webinar on author branding with Sangram Surve last week. Surve kickstarted his informative session with a famous quote by Jack Welch:

“Control your destiny or someone else will.”

Some Author Branding Lessons from the session

Understand that whether you have a traditional publisher or you are the publisher, books do not get the kind of production budget that movies and music get, so the onus of investment is on the publisher or you.
You can be writing a genre or for a particular target audience, but the author brand is key.
Make your digital presence felt.
Find unconventional ways to promote the book. Always look for the next big idea and it is always in the book you have written.
See if your marketing idea is shareable and if collaboration can further your brand.
Plan to market the book at least two months in advance.
Create a detailed content plan. If your book is a fiction, you can decide to introduce your main characters, feature illustrations if any and feature your book trailer.
Once the marketing is done and preorders come rolling in, decide on an impressive launch. In times like these, a digital launch is also a good idea.

So if you’ve written a book, the journey has just begun!

Online Marketing with Twitter

If you want to market your book using twitter, start by creating an adequate profile, with preferably using your own name so that people can find you. Also write an intriguing bio so that people who spot you want to follow you.

Interact with other writers of the genre you are about to write in or already have written in. People have to know you exist, so tweet, RT, and message. Also twitter etiquette requires that you follow those who follow you and no trolling please!

Follow the greats and learn from them. Neil Gaiman and J.K.Rowling know how to keep the twitter buzz alive, and have followers in the millions.

Tweet often as internet memory is zilch. You can use tools like Bufferapp or Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance. If you’ve written a book, don’t hesitate to tweet about it. Tweet your blog posts and whatever it is that you are writing. Also you can offer discounts for your book on twitter. Post pictures of what reflects your book or your personality. But remember that all your posts should not be about your book. That becomes boring.

Retweeting is good and Favoriting is better! Use the hashtag approach if you want to get noticed. But your tweet shouldn’t be all hashtags either.

More links about online marketing in 140 characters here:

http://www.cio.com/article/2380667/twitter/14-ways-to-use-twitter-to-market-your-business.html

http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/online-marketing/social-media-and-online-networking/twenty-top-twitter-tips

http://www.makealivingwriting.com/writers-win-social-media/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/may/27/10-authors-who-are-brilliant-at-twitter

Online Marketing with Facebook

You have written your book and you want to tell your friends about it. That’s great! You can talk about it on your facebook personal page but how many times can you talk about it? This makes having an author facebook page a good idea.
This page can be dedicated to you the author so you can continuously post about your book, talk about giveaways, book launch, etc.

However, don’t think that a facebook page is a great substitute for a website. With facebook, remember that you are always dependent on an external platform.

Getting likes is only one possible way of setting objectives. You can set different objectives for an advertising campaign. It is best to setup something that drives traffic to your sites, or direct sale or email newsletter signups. If using paid advertising, make sure to target the audience very narrowly, ideally to the people who have interest in that very specific genre.

Also post across groups. Don’t spam groups with your book as that can become a bit annoying and actually prevent people from buying the book. Create posts that are interesting to read and in accordance to the rules of the group, rather than just cutting and pasting links to your book.

Apart from page, consider creating a group. It doesn’t have the same features as a page and will need to be treated differently. But if suitably managed, it can help build long-term relationships with readers and also keep them engaged.
Promotion is not a one-day wonder. It takes a lot of effort. Be in it for long term and work on strategies to direct people to your own platform outside facebook as well. Facebook’s policies keep changing and you might work hard on building a following and then not able to reach it. Building an email list could be life saver.

To understand more about advertising on facebook, go through this link: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn

Three Essential Ingredients for Online Book Marketing

Once considered the black sheep of publishing, self-publishing is now the mainstream. No longer deemed amateurish or even unglamorous, writers who have even been published by traditional publishers are choosing self-publishing. Why? Control and profitability!

By having control, the author now must take the book’s marketing into his or her own hands. This is not so difficult any more, considering that the author can create an online presence on her own. A web brand is a sure-shot way to market the book. A strong web presence is the first step in an author’s marketing campaign.

Here’s three ingredients that help create a successful online book marketing campaign –

An author centric website which informs as well as acts as an outlet to purchase the book.
A social media profile on all the major social media sites – like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc
The author’s personal blog that will create comments and bring readers to the book. Interaction is essential for a successful online marketing campaign.

With all marketing content linked back to your website, those interested in purchasing your book can do so easily. That is the purpose and design of a successful online presence. With all of these efforts, be prepared for the long-term, nothing happens overnight. Take you time and build your audience.

Let’s look at these essential ingredients.

Your website

Websites come in every shape and size. You can have just one sheet – that just introduces the book and gives the reader a place to purchase it. You can build a 10- page site, with photos, your bio and excerpts from the book, as well. To develop a site can be very inexpensive and a very cost-efficient method to reach readers. If you are not tech savvy, there are many different ways to manage your site. It will be the major platform where your readers can reach you.

A Social Media Profile

The next aspect to your web presence is your social media interaction. Everyday it seems like there is a new social media site emerging. Facebook is still the #1 way people connect on the web, with 250 million users a day. Google says that YouTube airs 4 billion videos per day and Twitter is the third most popular. Some more potential sites in the image below:

All of these sites translate to millions of potential fans and buyers for YOUR book. Plus, every social media page/profile you create will be linked to your site so purchasing your book is easy and quick. All that is needed is your willingness to create pages/profits for each social media site (almost all free) and invite everyone you know to join. Yes, it can seem like a full time job. And once again, there many ways to manage your social media posts. (We will go into this further in subsequent posts)

Your Blog

Blogs are controversial because there are so many. But more than 50% people online read more than one blog a day. Blogs are how people are getting their news, their opinions and advice. For a writer, a blog can be a fun experience or seem like a chore. But you will be glad you have one. Your blog will create interaction and feedback. Exactly what Internet marketing is all about. Here are a few tips on what makes a successful blog –

Speak to your target audience. Be direct and interesting.
Don’t make them too long… 400- 600 words
Make them easy and fun to read
In other words, show don’t tell. Stories sell, facts tell. Tell a great story.
Try to engage the reader – include a call to action at the end that gets them excited and involved.

More online marketing tips to come. Stay tuned!

5 Types of Books you can Self-Publish Apart from Fiction and Poetry

Despite the stereotypical image, a writer of books is not always a recluse or an eccentric person. Books give expression to many different kinds of talents and purposes.

Here are five types of books beyond fiction and poetry that people have been writing and self-publishing on Pothi.com.

Exam Preparation Books

‘Competitive exams’ is a phrase Indians of all ages and regions are familiar with. If you are a teacher or a professional in the relevant field, you can write a book to help people with these competitive exams. We have seen books related to engineering, medicine or design entrance exams, CA/CS preparations, civil services exams and everything else you can think of. Solved question papers of previous years and interview preparation books are some attractive sub-genres.

Professional Books

Whether you are a software engineer working on a niche technology, a manufacturing executive with a lifetime of learning in mechanical products, or a teacher who has figured out how to spark student interest in difficult subjects, you may have a book in you. Write that book to help others in your profession succeed!

Also common are short introductory books to fields that are in the news, but an average person has little information about.

Family Cookbooks

People are more mobile these days and families are often spread not only all around the country but also across the globe. Nothing connects Indian families more than food. So how about creating a family cookbook with your own crazy, unique family’s special recipes that will help youngsters moving out recreate the food magic from back home? You can keep this book private to share only with family members, or let the world have a peek too by making it available for sale.

Translations of Public Domain Books

Are you bilingual? Then you can make a great contribution to your mother tongue if you translated out of copyright books into or from that language. With out of copyright or public domain books you do not have to worry about rights and legal issues. Check out the yearly posts on Pothi.com blog about authors who entered public domain in last few years.

Brand-building Books

Are you a consultant, a freelancer or a corporate trainer? Add a book on your subject of expertise to your professional armory. You can give it out to potential clients and it will help your business and brand.

Of course, all these suggestions don’t mean that fiction and poetry should stop rolling in. The human race has always loved stories and our hearts have always leapt with great poetry.

Bring out the book in you!

Five Mistakes an Indian Self-Publisher/Author Often Makes

1. The Indian Self-Publisher/Author sometimes picks up images from the internet

Although everyone has access to thousands of images online, most of these images can not be used in your self-published book. There are two major reasons for this:

Legal Issues: There is a general feeling that any image on the internet is free. This perception is incorrect. Most images are protected by copyright and users could face legal consequences if they use images that are copyrighted and thereby do not have permission to use. Unless specifically mentioned in public domain or under suitable creative commons license, you should assume that the image is copyrighted. Also when you search for images at google you can search using the usage rights option.Read this: http://creativecommons.org.au/blog/2015/08/think-before-using-photographs-from-the-internet/
Technical Issues: Most of the images on the net are low-resolution and don’t print well. You need a minimum resolution of 300 DPI for the image to print well, otherwise the resulting image will be pixelated. More about understanding image size and resolution here.
So think twice before you use an image from the internet.

2. The Indian Self-Publisher/Author doesn’t often write in the language s/he is comfortable with

Many writers opt to write in English not because they are well-versed in the language but because it is far more convenient to get copy typed and not worry about font issues. Plus the English language has a wider reach.

Unfortunately, without fluency in the language you publish the book in, having a wider target audience is pointless. Writing in a language you are not comfortable with means you don’t put your best foot forward. Nowadays books published in regional languages are making a mark, so why hesitate to write in the language that you love?

3. The Indian Self-Publisher/Author doesn’t always think about marketing

Whether it is traditional publishing or self-publishing, marketing is key and this is something the author is responsible for. Just because the book is written, readers won’t come. The writer has to think about building a platform even before the book is written.

4. The Indian Self-Publisher/Author is prone to scams

Instead of focusing on platform building authors end up being taken for a ride and fall prey to expensive promises. If something is too good to be true, it probably is. Publishing is the easy part. Getting readers and becoming an author readers are looking to read is difficult. If someone promises to do that for a lot of money, they are probably lying.

5. The Indian Self-Publisher/Author is usually paranoid about manuscript protection

“One setback many writers bring in their own path is their obsession with protecting their manuscript,” says Jaya Jha, co-founder of Pothi.com. “If you are just starting out, your problem is obscurity, not theft or piracy. Focus on writing the best book and bringing it to as many people as you can, instead of being paranoid about someone stealing your work. Selling a book is a difficult task. People, in general, aren’t on the lookout for a manuscript to steal.”

What makes for a bestseller in India?

A bestseller could be defined as a book that sells at least 10,000 copies every year. Any book genre can be a bestseller, but there are some books that sell more than others.

Education Books: Yes, this is number one in the list! According to Nielson’s India Book Report:
The K–12 market (school books) has grown from 63 billion INR ($956 million) in 2007-08 to 186 billion INR ($2.8 billion) in 2013-14. Higher education book sales have grown in this period from 16 billion INR ($242 million) to 56 billion INR($849 million).

So if you want to write a bestseller, why don’t you write a book about how to ace an exam? Take one of the books at Pothi.com. Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell is a fast selling book . “This book is proof of how the Indian book market caters to a textbook bestseller phenomenon,” Jaya Jha, founder of Pothi.com says.

Romance fiction: If fiction has any say at all in the bestselling space it is primarily in the romance genre. Though forums like Quora lead you to believe otherwise, books by Chetan Bhagat are quite popular. Other romance authors who have aced cupid’s formula are Durjoy Datta, Nikita Singh and Ravinder Singh.

Mythological fiction: It’s impossible to ignore myth in India. You may be an urban yuppie, but everywhere there is the memory of myth- stories you have heard, stories you see sprouting up as architecture, television dramas based on epic heroes. Writers like Devdutt Pattanaik and Amish Tripathi have spun stories out of existing stories and now have a huge fan following.

Once you write the book for the appropriate target audience, a lot of marketing goes into making the book a bestseller. You have to remember that if you are writing for a traditional publisher, you earn 5-10% royalty; with self-publishing you bake the cake and eat it too.

When it comes to both kinds of publishing, authors are expected to pitch in when it comes to marketing effort. The author’s platform is often a criterion.

Says Jaya Jha,“The real difference between traditional and self-publishing isn’t so much that author gets to rest after writing in traditional publishing but that the ultimate responsibility as well as control lies with the author in self-publishing.”

It takes a great deal of effort to sell your book. You can earn a lot more money self-publishing but for this you need to do your homework right by spending a lot more of your time in marketing it by participating actively in the launch, perfecting your social media pitch and actively promoting yourself. Once the sales starts picking up by word of mouth, you can sit back, relax and see the book turn into a bestseller.

Check out these links for more ideas about writing a bestseller in India:

Can Indian Authors afford to pursue writing as a full time career?
Hot Genres in India
How to sell 150000 copies of your books in India
The secret to writing a bestseller in India
How to write a bestseller in India

Preview is for showing the book, not hiding it

Authors work hard on their books. It is, therefore, natural for them to be very protective of their manuscripts. However, all the authors, especially the new, unknown ones, have to carefully balance the threats of piracy and the threats of obscurity. If the book is not known then you can be sure that the book will not be pirated. But in that case it won’t be bought by anyone either. How much to open up your book and how much to protect it is probably a matter of endless debate. So, right now we will not get into that, but we will focus on a small feature at Pothi.com called “Preview”.

When submitting their books the authors can specify certain portion of the book to be exposed for people to read online as “Preview”. We mandate a minimum of 10 pages to be included there. The idea is that most people publishing with us are first time authors. Plus the manuscript has not been vetted by a third-party. So, it is important that the potential readers get to see enough of the book to make a decision about whether or not to buy the book. We have put a minimum number there, because we feel that the exposed content should be enough to let users make up their mind about the book.

Some authors make good use of this feature. Let’s say you have written a novel. And you expose 60-70% of the novel, or even 90% of it on the site as “Preview”. What is it that you should be scared of? That people will read it for free and not pay for it? Consider this – if somebody actually reads 90% of your book, then he is probably sufficiently interested in it and would want to read the ending. He might end up paying for it. But if you circumvented the minimum 10-pages mandate by only exposing your table of contents and preface, the reader never had a reason to get interested in the book and hence would never consider buying it.

The logic will have to adjust for different genres and forms, of course. Exposing 90% of a short story collection will not have the same effect (it may still be useful for other reasons – e. g. the person may be induced to buy your next book). But exposing around 40% of the book would be worthwhile. Somebody who read 2 of your stories online, might be interested enough to pay for the remaining three too. Somebody reading only the preface and table of contents may never bother.

Similarly, one should expose at least one chapter (more the merrier) with substantial content for non-fiction. Don’t put “Introduction” and “Foreword” in the preview. If there is something about the book you want the readers to know “Description” is the section to do that. Make good use of “Preview” feature and put in an actual chapter in there. Let the reader find solution to an actual problem and decide that she wants to read the rest of the book too.

So, if you want to update the “Preview” of your book to make it more meaningful, here is the FAQ detailing how to update your book.

[Self Publishing Guide] Self Publishing Your Book – Step 5: Marketing

This post is an excerpt from our Self Publishing Guide for Indian Market. If you have not, you may want to read the following post in this series before starting on this one

—

Although marketing comes as the fifth step in publishing, fact is, the buzz should start even before writing. Marketing a book is all about building the author’s brand. It takes time and you have to work towards it. If you recall the hype surrounding release of a Dan Brown or a JK Rowling book, you will understand the concept. The books sell on the author’s reputation, which is created by a team of professionals representing a publishing house.

This obviously is a limitation for an independent author who has chosen to self publish. But the good news is, with the Internet, everyone has a free and effective marketing tool to reach their audience. This works especially well when going for POD. You can get your readers, book orders and then have the book printed. It is important for the author to build a brand before trying to sell the book. Just coming online with a book to sell won’t be effective.

There are many social and professional networking Internet sites where you can promote your work. Among them Orkut, Facebook and Twitter have the largest following. Build your profile on these sites to market your book economically and effectively. But build up your credentials before making your sales pitch.
If you have written a book about your professional expertise, market it on professional sites like Linkedin where you can join groups with shared interests. Also explore book centred websites like Shelfari and Librarything which provide excellent opportunities for marketing.
Adding your book to Google book search displays it in relevant search results.
You can also create a website about your book. Request a friend or some prominent personality to write a review of your book and post it on your site as well as their networking sites. You could even write about your own experiences while writing the book.
Put up extracts from your book on your website for others to read. This will catch the reader’s interest and help sell your book. Don’t worry too much about piracy. Nobody is interested in a great but unknown manuscript. Book pirates only target bestsellers.

Apart from the Internet, you could also arrange for a press release in the local newspapers. If you know someone in the print media, you could have reviews of your book published in newspapers/magazines. Remember:

It is easier to market a non-fiction book in your area of expertise rather than fiction or poetry.
Think about your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The market is flooded with books and other content mediums. Why should someone buy your book?