Getting Read
If you’re writing for an audience larger than yourself or your family, you need to know how to build readership. While the specific tactics available are limited only by your own creativity, there are strategies, tools, events, and places that will help you build your following. And the sooner you begin marketing, promoting and building your Web presence, the better. Create a platform for yourself and your writing and agents will be more interested in representing you, publishers will be more receptive to your book and you may just decide to sell your books directly. I show you how.
"Why bother to publish?" asks author, editor and marketing executive
Kendra Bonnett. "The average US author spends months, even years,
writing a book only to sell fewer than 100 copies." Of the 1.2 million
books Nielsen Bookscan follows, 950,000 titles have sold fewer than 99
copies.
Kendra
often asks her audiences: “Which of these statements is true? (1) My
publisher will ensure that I have a well-marketed book. (2) All I need
to do is get my book listed on Amazon and my sales will take off. (3) I
don’t need to worry; I’m just using my book as a glorified business
card to build creds and win new business. The answer? None of the
above.” Most authors believe at least one of these statements, and
that’s their fatal mistake. Using her marketing experience, writing
talent and Internet know-how, Kendra guides authors in search of book
sales or new business.
The bottom line is this: The day an
author decides to write a book, the process begins. She must define her
audience, create innovative sales tactics, and build readership (a
list). "Quite simply," says Kendra, "the day you start writing your
book you also must start selling yourself...and what better first step
than to start blogging?"
Most recently, Kendra is co-author of
Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story.
This collective memoir of women born during WWII is a 2008 IPPY Book
Award winner and compelling for the many ways it engages
readers--through the inclusion of memoir vignettes from more than 100
women, quotes from famous Rosie's Daughters, iconic images of the 20th
century, interpretive narrative and a timeline. After all, why
shouldn't a reader's experience be as entertaining, as effortless, as
worthwhile as possible? Reading a book should be as enjoyable as
picking up a magazine. And it’s an important aspect to marketing and
selling one’s book.
Learn more about Kendra at her web sites:
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