Marketing Strategies For Authors

I just wrapped up my latest class with UCLA Extension on Marketing and PR for Authors and Agents. I always start out the class by stating two things: First, this class is an introduction and it will take time for each participant to really start to "figure things out"; and secondly, there is no single template to do anything in the publishing world.

And yet...

At the end of the course, I always ask students if there are things they wish we had covered more of in the course, and sure enough, time and time again, they want a template for how to do marketing for their novels. Ugh! Did they miss the memo?

Still, I felt that I wanted to bring this up for all of you because I am sure that there are a lot of you who get out there in the Internet looking for the single strategy that will multiply your sales 800%.

Hate to break it to you, but there won't be one. 

I want all of you to remember that every one of your books are different. Every author out there is different. The voice you have in your story is different than your critique partner, and yes, even different from your last book. Your readers are different. The format for each of your books will be different. Do you see the single word that pops up every time? DIFFERENT! This means that what works for one book will not always work for another book. What works for your critique partner may be an utter failure for you.

Let me take this a different direction. For my first Master's Thesis, I looked at the interaction between TEACHER, STUDENT, CURRICULUM and ENVIORMENT on student learning. I had just created a curriculum for my classroom and it was an utter success. My ultimate goal was to show that this program would work for everyone. I get it. I was young and believed I could solve everything! I had a colleague try it and it failed. What happened? Well, the thesis proved it. These 4 elements had to work in collaboratively to see success. If one of those pieces failed, student learning failed. 

The same goes for publishing and marketing. Your book has to be aligned to a lot of variables out there: The reader, the voice, the time, the publisher, the format of your book, and yes, even your ability to do the marketing.

So, why is there no template? Simply put, one size does not fit all. 

And now you are all screaming, "But Scott, how do I know what will work?" The answer is both simple and difficult. The first is to look at all of those variables and see what pattern is showing up? Think now as the person receiving the marketing? Would that appeal to you? Would you buy your book? The second part is the difficult part - It requires both time and critical thinking skills. 

I wish there was an easier answer, but there isn't.