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Best Book Marketing Tip Ever!

You’ll pardon the click-baity feel of the title to this little post, but hear me out.

The best book marketing tip ever is this: Write a damn good book.

Write a book that you want to read. Write a book that is so charged with your passion and expertise that the energy spills out from between the covers.

And write a book people will talk about. Write a book that people will buy five copies of so they can talk about it with their friends.

You can have the biggest audience on social media. You can have an email list of 20,000 people and maybe that buys you 10,000 books sold. Not too shabby, but you won’t get on any best-seller lists. Not that you should want that to be your goal anyway.

Point being, the way to sell a lot of books won’t have anything to do with social media reach. It’ll be because you wrote something so good, so important, that good old fashioned word of mouth moved mountains for you.

Tweet that!

Episode 198: Rani Shah — Blue High Heels, Dude Hats, and Wisdom from a Humble Jellyfish

By Brendan O’Meara

Rani Shah is the mastermind behind the beautiful, fun, and quirky book Wisdom from a Humble Jellyfish: And Other Self-Care Rituals from Nature (Dey St., 2020).

Lots of fun speaking to Rani about how her parents nurtured her creative side, but were worried about she’d make a career out of creative work.

We talk about day jobs, imposter syndrome, growth/fixed mindsets, power heels, and dude hats.

She’s the founder of Fuss Class, a south Asian satire site. Very Onion-esque. Rani hangs out on Instagram @raanstermonster. She came to play ball.

I think you’ll have fun with this one and I’d love to hear from you if you did. Email the show and ping us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

We need more submissions to our first ever audio magazine. The theme is Social Distancing: Essays from Isolation. 2,000 words/15-minute read. Deadline is MAY 1. Email your essay with SUBMISSION in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcast at gmail dot com. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.

Questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out. This a community. We’re in this mess together. Share this episode with your people and encourage them to share it to. If you don’t feel the need to share it, then I’ve failed at making something remarkable. And I’ll keep working harder and harder so that it continues to earn your endorsement and, more importantly, your valuable time.

Tag Lines: How Netflix can improve yours

Written by Brendan O’Meara

Yes, tag lines. What are they and why are they important? First, it’s a one-sentence summary of your book. In about 30 words, can you successfully and succinctly sum up what your story is about? Second, in your marketing questionnaire, you’ll need to build one so it will fit nicely in a catalog. Or, if you’re lucky enough to be in the presence of an inquiring agent or publisher, you need to pop this sentence off and hook them in the ten seconds it takes you to recite it.

Now that I’ve defined it, how can Netflix help you out?

On the live stream, every show has a tag line below it. Here’s the one for my favorite show, Lost:

After their plane crashes on a deserted island, a diverse group of people must adapt to their new home and contend with the island’s enigmatic forces.

26 words. Quick and easy. It doesn’t mention the greater game at play between Jacob and the Man in Black. It doesn’t mention the Dharma Initiative or time travel. You know a plane crashes on a mysterious island. I’m hooked.

Another one of my favorite shows is Breaking Bad. Here’s the Netflix tag line:

A high school chemistry teacher dying of cancer teams up with a former student to manufacture and sell crystal meth to secure his family’s future.

No mention of escalating drug wars and gruesome grips for power. Perfect.

How about something a little lighter, say, from the movie Thor:

Powerful thunder god Thor is stripped of his power and banished by his father Odin, forced to live among humans on Earth to learn humility.

Here’s Walking Dead:

In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, survivors hold on to the hope of humanity by banding together to wage a fight for their own survival.

Bottom line we see what the stakes are and why we should be interested. You must be able to do this. It’s a good exercise in brevity, getting to the point, and using word economy to sell your work.

And another important matter, if you can’t sum it up in a tag line, you don’t know the what you’re book is about. If you don’t know what your book is about, you can’t distill its essence to a greater public. You won’t even reach that far. It won’t get to the public until you can reduce your 100,000-word tome to 25 words. It ain’t easy. So let’s play.

What’s your tag line for you project? Let’s workshop them in the comments. I’ll start with two of mine.

For Six Weeks in Saratoga:

Filly Rachel Alexandra caps off an undefeated season by beating the boys for a third time en route to being named Horse of the Year.

For The Last Championship:

A son watches his father play senior softball and learns to reconcile to the bitter end to his own baseball career by playing again.

Now it’s your turn!

The Purple Cow: On Being Remarkable in an Unremarkable Market

Written by Brendan O’Meara

As many of you know I’m big into marketing for writers. Authors need to be savvy at creating buzz around their work. Nobody else will.

Author Seth Godin is a marketing guru, and in the canon of his books, I’ve read “The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.” [Also reading “Meatball Sundae”, and I’ll have insights from that book as well.]

You’re driving down a nice country road in south Jersey and you look at all the pretty cows. Soon those pretty cows look homogenous, boring. Then you see a purple cow. Holy sh*T! Did you see that purple cow!? It stands out. It’s remarkable.

Sure, much of it revolves around businesses that provide a particular service or product, but many of the principles apply to writers. What’s key is NOT appealing to the masses. There is so much static and distraction: Internet, TV, iPad, iPhone, movies, kids, dogs, elections, the Tunguska Event. You name it. You need to get nichey with it.

Wait for it: here’s the question writers love to hear … Who’s your audience? Who’s going to buy your book? And once you figure that out, how will you stand out? How will you be remarkable?

There are four groups of people Godin describes and they fall into the typical bell-shaped curve. On the far left are the Innovators and Early Adopters (leaders looking to get a jump). The belly of the curve is the Early and Late Majority (followers). Laggards fill out the far right (slackers, people buying their first digital camera today.).

The key is to appeal to the far left: the innovators and early adopters. They are passionate consumers looking for the “in” thing. They like to be ahead of the masses so they can recommend cool products to their friends. These people somehow have the iPhone7, the one with the inter-planetary time warp. Essentially, these people are bloggers eager to review and share their insights. As writers in a tenuous publishing climate, we need to seek out these people. They will review your work and talk about it to their 500, 1,000, 2,000, 10,000 followers.

If you can reach several dozen bloggers and their collective readership is 100,000 people and 10% of those people buy your book, that’s 10,000 books. Not New York Times Best Seller stuff, but that’s a lot of books from a modest reach. What if you reached 1,000,000 people from 100 bloggers?

Of course you still need to write a great book. But let’s assume you already knew that. All of this is moot if your book isn’t fit to line bird cages.

What do a lot of [wannabe] writers do? Trust me, I’ve spoken to a lot. Many love this idea of holing up in a cabin and being the solitary writer. Steaming coffee. A fire. Snow in the mountains. This is unremarkable in terms of building a brand. Stephen King can do this. Suzanne Collins can do this. You can’t.

Sorry.

Things I do?

No. 1, and this might seem stupid, but I feel it’s gotten me this far, however far that is. I suit up. I always wear a suit when reporting and when I appear in public. I feel it’s how I got the access I got to the executive characters in Six Weeks. Especially as a sports writer, dressing nicely makes you remarkable, you stand out from the sheep. Plus it makes me feel good. First impressions, when you see a guy in a nicely tailored suit standing next to a guy in tattered khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a ball cap, who will garner a better first impression? Exactly.

No. 2 What I’m working on are videos and book trailers. Goofy mini-movies that sometimes touch upon writing and books. Sometimes they might just be a funny skit. What’s the point? Well, I don’t want to be “spammy” for one, but I also just want to entertain in a different form. If people are drawn to those videos, they’ll be more likely to sample my work. To quote Godin, “Don’t Be Boring,” and “Safe is Risky.”

Another idea that I’m going to employ? Giveaways. This isn’t completely novel, but I have a theory if you give away something, it will snowball into better publicity if the people signing up for the giveaway 1.) Like it. And 2.) Review it on Amazon and Goodreads and spread the news.

Again, Innovators and Early Adapters.

Which is why, if you’ve made it this far in this post, I will give away—for free!—a personalized copy of my book “Six Weeks in Saratoga: How Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Alexandra Beat the Boys and Became Horse of the Year.” All you have to do is subscribe to my blog using the email form at the end of this post. Or you can click on that “Follow” tab in the lower right-hand corner. Once you’re confirmed, I’ll contact you for your address and see how you want your book signed and I’ll mail it away Media Rate (7-10 days delivery time).

Books go to the first 30 subscribers, so I’d love to hear from you in the comments and I’d love for you to subscribe.

Go! Be Remarkable!

Applying Immutable Laws to Writing

Written by Brendan O’Meara

I read “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!” by Al Ries and Jack Trout. It’s a short book with short chapters that deal with marketing if you have a product the likes of Pepsi. Many of the laws help two-horse and three-horse industries. How does this effect what we do as writers? Before that, I’ll lay out what the laws are and bold the ones I feel can be applied to the writing life.

The Law of:

Leadership

Category

Mind

Perception

Focus

Exclusivity

Ladder

Duality

Opposite

Division

Perspective

Line Extension

Sacrifice

Attributes

Candor

Singularity

Unpredictability

Success

Failure

Hype

Acceleration

Resources

It’s important to view your book as a product. Once it’s published, it can be exchanged for money. Brilliant insight! Glad I clicked on the link! Thanks for sharing! Bear with me. Once you’ve honed the manuscript and crafted it into what you deem is a nice piece of art, it becomes a competitor against everything else on those book shelves. It’s a competitor for entertainment, food, gas, etc. When your book is on the shelf that’s one less spot “Fifty Shades of Gray” can occupy. So, yes, it’s in competition.

Okay, let’s look at how the three laws I bolded above can help you promote your work.

1. The Law of Focus

“A company can become incredibly successful if it can find a way to own a word in the mind of the prospect. Not a complicated word. Not an invented one. The simple words are best, words taken right out of the dictionary.”

FedEx swiped “overnight” or Crest got “cavities”. With laser-like focus you associate a word with your brand. In writing, John Grisham is associated with “law drama” and Steven King “horror”. Tim Ferriss is a “life hacker”. But where is Dave Eggers? He writes nonfiction, fiction, etc. Yet he’s wildly popular.

Focus gives us an area of expertise, an umbrella under which we become associated. Sadly, I’m associated with horse racing. The nichiest of niches. I’m broadening to sports (I’ve been a sports writer since 2005) and that’s a much more encompassing area of focus. I also want to do some true crime, but is that smart? Do Erik Larson and Mike Capuzzo own it? Is that their focus?

Focus also applies to platforms for social media. You can’t do them all. Pick the ones that are fun and the ones you’ll come back to.

2. Law of Line Extension

“One day a company is tightly focused on a single product that is highly profitable. The next day the same company is spread thin over many products and is losing money.”

Think Coca-Cola, New Coke, Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Zero.

Dave Eggers, again, is the exception to the rule. He writes what he wants and hits it out of the park. Tracy Kidder writes just nonfiction and a large chunk of that nonfiction is rural “backyard” narratives. John Feinstein writes mainly golf, but he’s a sports writer as he famously wrote “A Season on the Brink” about the Indiana University Hoosiers basketball team.

If you’re going to violate this law, make sure the reporting and the writing is so tight and polished a reader won’t care who you are, just how great the story is. Thank you, Laura Hillenbrand for a book about a horse and a book about a WWII veteran.

This also applies to the social media you choose. You need it. And I’d say three or four is good enough. I blog from my website (2 for 1), Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads (where I am a part of the Goodreads Author Program. Goodreads is where readers hang out.). I will do no more. If I do more, one of those above must go. Which leads to …

3. The Law of Sacrifice

“The law of sacrifice is the opposite of the law of line extension. If you want to be successful today, you should give something up.”

As it stands, I use four social media platforms. If I were to give one up? Gun to my head, you’re pulling the hammer back on the pistol, the bean drops into the chamber, you better eliminate one right now!!!!!! I guess it would be Twitter (I put in a lot of time on Twitter and I don’t have the followers to show for it. I retweet people, I reply to people, I share my work and others, and I don’t get the reciprocation “social media experts” say I’d get. If you participate and do those things people are supposed to follow you. At least as a courtesy. Maybe I’m not interesting enough.)

Minimalism is a great way to approach the craft. Getting rid of physical clutter gets rid of mental clutter. I love this quote from Bruce Lee, “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”

I got rid of at least 100 books on my shelves by donating them to my library or to friends. I wasn’t going to read those again and they failed to make me look smart so what’s the point? Hey, look at all my books! The important ones are on my shelves now or in my head.

So the law of sacrifice should make you look at what I want to write. After all, what good is it if you write something nobody is going to read? Who would want to read a murder mystery from famed baseball writer Peter Gammons? Not many, we want to read his take on baseball.

Here’s where the novelist has it made. As long as it’s a novel, they can write whatever the f*ck they want. Nonfictionists don’t have this luxury. Why are you an expert in this field? Do you have platform? F*ckin’ platform!

I don’t mean that. Platform is mightily important. Mightily.

I hope these laws help you out and help you find your focus.

What are your thoughts? What is your marketing strategy? Do you find it all overwhelming?

Marketing, marketing, marketing

By Brendan O’Meara

I’ve been reading a lot about marketing lately, books, blogs, and trust me when I say this, it’s more complicated than it sounds, more complicated than it looks, and I guarantee—strike that, Guarantee with a capital G—you’re not doing enough for your book.

Is your book already out? Go back in time at least six months and reevaluate your plan because you didn’t do enough. How do I know? I did a LOT, and when I look back on it, I didn’t do half what I should have done.

Prior to the release of Six Weeks in Saratoga, I contacted all the bookstores I could and set up events. I booked around 30. I had several galleys sent out to newspapers (but only got one review). I did radio and TV, but I didn’t do enough radio and TV.

Know Thy Target: So what can be done to ensure you’re reaching your target audience? The key is target. In the summer of 2011, when the book launched, I thought bookstores would be the best avenue to sell books. The backdrop of my book is horse racing. That’s my audience. If I were smarter in Summer 1, I would have taken heed of this trend:

Barnes and Noble: 2 books

The Book House (Indy Store): 6 books

Monmouth Park (horse track): 62 books

Saratoga Race Course (horse track): 88 books

Perhaps it was because it was my first book and I wanted to be, you know, in bookstores. Bookstores can’t be ignored. I’m glad I did them, but based on the potential to reach the readers who would be interested in my book, my energies would have been better spent at racetracks. Naturally, this summer I went exclusively to racetracks.

Befriend Bloggers: My other mistake? Not taking advantage of bloggers. Bloggers who have 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 followers are your generals in command of an army of like-minded readers. If a blogger gives you an endorsement, a chunk of their followers will buy up your book. It takes one galley. I only got 10 copies in my contract. I have since purchased 400 books (many I have sold by hand, many I have donated to silent auctions [karma], many I have given to reviewers). If $14 can translate into 100 book sales, I think that’s a worthy investment.

What else? Well, I’m voraciously reading marketing books and marketing blogs (I’m a big fan of Tim Ferriss’s 4hourblog. He’s a marketing guru and a wizard of self-promotion.)

I’ll be sharing more as I learn and test out stuff. And you’ll get on TV just like I did.

What are you doing to market your book prior to publication? After publication? Do you find it overwhelming? Let me know!

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