Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

My company is an iPhone developer and we would be happy to create an iPhone app for the book. As we are building our portfolio we are happy to negotiate finances.
Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Also: Videos of author presentations/readings (on YouTube).

Dear Susan,

Along with the great advice above you might want to consider
the power of social proof.

To obtain it, consider contacting major publications, celebrities, and people with expert status connected with whatever the subject of the book is and ask those people if you can send them review copies.

Ask for their comments and ask for permission to USE those comments in your marketing.

Reviews of books on book jackets are attractive in terms of eye candy and important in terms of social and psychological anchors: we want to be like the people we admire and when those people like something WE are all the more inclined to like those things too—because it brings us closer to the attributes exhibited by that person.

Oprah's Book Club's a great example.

Any book blessed by Oprah is pretty much guaranteed to become a best seller because her taste is trusted by such a wide ranging audience.

But when that trust was betrayed, as was the case with James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces" the credibility invested in the project by Oprah turns back on her. And with her being the savvy business woman she is, it's possible that that was her reason for confronting Frey in the way she did.

Not to shame and blame, but to protect her reputation, and because it made for interesting viewing.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Why wouldn't you also want distribution in major bookstores ... like Barnes & Noble, Border's, Chapters, BDalton, etc.? And, if the title is appropriate, airport bookstores? And what about libraries, college bookstores, etc.?

All of these outlets are served (in the United States) by two large book wholesalers -- Ingram and Baker & Taylor. You probably want to see if you can get them to accept your book titles.

And then you probably ought to get an experienced book publicist who knows how to get the speaking gigs and media appearances that can sell books. Don't count on the publisher to do any of this; they are not particularly good at marketing/publicity.

There are more than 100,000 new titles (in the US) every year, and the vast majority of them sell fewer than 1,000 copies total ever. And just about every book title sells 90% of the copies it will ever sell in the first 9-12 months after it's launched. That means you have to get it right the first time. There's no relaunching an old title.

You might want to get a copy of John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. It's the best book on book marketing -- and I've probably read them all. Want more? Visit the Dialogue Press website.

John Grisham got his start selling books out of the trunk of his car....

Book Crossing has been helping new Authors for a while.
https://www.bookcrossing.com/authorcrossing

They have a global reach with lots of readers and will even help with getting Samples out there.