Submitting to Book Awards

The Benefits of Book Awards

An author friend submitted his book to be considered for an award. Although he didn't win, he was nominated for an award, giving him the right to put a sticker on his book saying something like: "Nominated for Georgia Author of the Year." He says that this sticker really helps him with sales.

For low platform authors who aren't household names, we need all the help we can get. So why not pursue honors, awards and blurbs that tell buyers, "This book is special!"? Authors who win awards can say to a bookseller, "This award-winning book..." which sets it apart from most competing books.

Additionally, winning books are often displayed at ceremonies, given special promotion. Distributors and booksellers may take notice, and finalists and winners often receive cash awards.

So I took a couple of hours to hit the library and peruse the 2009 editions of both Literary Market Place (LMP) and Writers Market, both of which have sections listing book awards. (There's also a section of the Christian Writers Market dedicated to contests.) Don't be overwhelmed by the huge number of awards. You can narrow down pretty quickly which ones apply to your book.

Update on "Benefits," 2/10/10: In November, my book won the "Personal Finance" category for the Best Books award! I ordered a set of gold stars, which paste nicely on my cover. I sent out a free press release, one of which was to an organization that targets press releases to libraries. It may have been this release which caused libraries to start placing orders with a quality book distributor, who contacted me requesting a contract. They're starting to market my book to libraries and make regular sales. Another experience: Last month, I took my book to an independent bookstore to see if they would carry it. Her first reaction was to look at the award sticker and say, "This helps."

Do My Odds of Winning Make It a Worthwhile Gamble?

Your odds are better than you might first think. First of all, you're seldom in competition with best-selling authors. They apparently don't feel the need to compete and big-time publishers focus their marketing efforts on their best selling authors when the book first comes out - not a year later when contest winners are announced.

Let's estimate the odds of winning an award from "the largest independent book awards contest in the world" - The Independent Publisher Book Awards. They claimed to have 4,000 entries in 2009. Having so many entries, I assume that it's one of my longest shots for winning. But those entries are divided into 67 categories, narrowing down my competition to an average of 60 books per category. But each category offers three awards, thus narrowing down my competition to an average of 20 books.

Now if you're in a specialized category, like "multicultural nonfiction adult", isn't it entirely possible that I'll find myself competing with five other books, three of which are titled "How to Get Rich on the Internet," written in broken English by telephone company support personnel in third world countries?

My conclusion: If I've written a good book that's well-edited and designed, these are good enough odds to pursue.

Caution: There will be much more competition in the broader categories. But the good news is that a first, second, or third place in one of these categories says a lot about the quality of your book. In a February, 2010 letter from The Independent Publisher Book Awards:

"It looks like this year’s entry numbers are similar to last year’s, when we reached 4,000 total entries for the first time. That means the competition is very tough and the judging will be even tougher. Last year we had nine categories with over 100 entries each, and eleven more with over 70 entries each! I feel these large numbers bring credibility to the Awards, and that the more entries we have per category, the more valuable each award becomes."

Narrowing Down Appropriate Contests

Side note: according to Writers Market, contests come and go pretty quickly. Make sure the award still exists before sending your book. New contests are announced regularly in writers publications. These may not be prestigious, but your book would probably have less competition. And does the average book-buyer know a prestigious contest from a non-prestigious one?

My book is a nonfiction personal finance book written in a story form, published by a small publisher, targeting people 16-32 years old. So I can ignore all awards that:

1) Don't accept submissions. (Some contests do their own searching.)
2) Only accept submissions from Canada or Ohio or people born in Texas.
3) Cater to big-name authors and big publishers. (See the winners of past years.)
4) Take only fiction or poetry or books about orchids (yes, there is one like that).
5) Accept only non-published manuscripts.

Here's my narrowed down list, with stars by the organizations I'm pursuing:

* Foreword Magazine Book of the Year - www.forewordmagazine.com - 61 Categories. "ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses." Foreword is respected by libraries, distributors and booksellers. With 61 categories, first, second and third places in each category, plus an announcement of finalists, there's a decent chance to get some recognition. Even to say your book was "a finalist in the Foreword Book of the Year Awards" could be a huge boost. Jan. 15, 2010 deadline. $75 entry fee per title, per category.

* Benjamin Franklin Awards - www.ibpa-online.org - Sponsored by "the largest non-profit trade association representing independent publishers": The Independent Book Publishers Association. 54 categories. "Regarded as one of the highest national honors in small and independent book publishing." Deadlines: Sept. 30 for books published through August; Dec. 31 for rest of books published in 2009. $80 entrance fee for IBPA members. $180 for non-members, which includes a membership. (Good contest, but I'm too cheap to fork out $180.)

* Eric Hoffer Award for Independent Books - www.writersnotes.com - Fifteen categories. "Each category will be awarded a winner, runner-up, and multiple honorable mentions." Deadline: Jan. 21, 2010. $45 entrance fee.

* The Independent Publisher Book Awards (67 categories) - http://www.independentpublisher.com/ipland/LearnMore.php - "Gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded in each category." Over 4,000 entries ... "the largest independent book awards contest in the world." $85 entry fee per category. Discounts for earlier submission. Deadline: March 20, 2010.

* Nautilus Award - www.marilynmcguire.com - "Recognizing Books...that Promote Spiritual Growth, Conscious Living, and Positive Social Change as they stimulate the 'imagination' and inspire the reader to "new possibilities" for a better world." 28 categories. Submit August 2009 to Jan. 15, 2010. $165 entrance fee, but discounts for submitting earlier (e.g., $145 before Oct. 16).

*800CEORead.com Best Business Books - http://800ceoread.com/page/show/book_awards - Each book will be judged on the originality of its ideas and content. Eleven categories, October 15 deadline. Submit two copies. No entrance fee. (Update: I didn't win or place.)

*Mom's Choice Awards - http://www.momschoiceawards.com/enter.php - Deadline of Oct. 1, 2009. $300 per book, per category. Benefits: book reviews, special promotions, etc. Over 100 categories.

*Best Books Awards - http://www.usabooknews.com/2009bestbooksawards.html - $69 per book, per category. Deadline: Sept. 30, 2009. 100+ categories. Benefits: special promotions. Update: I won the personal finance division!

*National Indie Excellence Awards - http://www.indieexcellence.com/ - 100+ categories, $65 per book, per category. March 31, 2010 deadline. Benefits: promotions, etc.

The Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards - http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions

Michael L. Printz Award - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/printzaward/Printz.cfm - "an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature." "sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association. Actually, this is one of many awards for young adult literature. See the rest of the awards here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.cfm . Hurdle: Most of these awards require submission by someone other than the author/publisher/editor, e.g., a librarian. But if libraries are raving about your book, see if a librarian will submit it for you. Note also their category for Outstanding Books for the College Bound.

The Christopher Awards - www.christophers.org - No charge for submission, but few categories (less chances to win) and winners seems to come from big presses.

Patterson Prize for Books for Young People - www.pccc.edu/poetry

What Next?

At this point, I'll go to each site and gather more information to help me prioritize. I'll ask questions like,

• How much do they charge? (I don't have an unlimited budget!)
• What are my odds of winning or getting at least getting a nomination?
  
• Do they subdivide into categories, or is it me against hundreds of others for one or two big prizes?
• How prestigious is the award?
  

I'll also want to see if there are smaller awards, open only to people in my region or to books on personal finance. Not all contests are listed in the publications I consulted.

Important: I had falsely assumed that all awards would be for books published in the previous calendar year, thus having deadlines of a couple of months into the next year following publication. But some work on different schedules. Check each contest to find their schedule.

Any other ideas or personal experiences with seeking book awards? If you won one or were nominated for one, did it help you with sales?

On Marketing and Social Media: "Go Where People Are Already Gathered"

This concept, found in a Ning book marketing discussion, caused me to question the conventional wisdom on both social networking and book signings. An author was relating what was working for her. Rather than trying to gather a bunch of people to talk to them about her books (like traditional book signings), she chose to talk to civic groups and other pre-existing meetings that already had followings and publicized their own events.

When I did a recent book signing, I had to publicize the event, e-mail folks, etc. About 10 people came and I sold several books. Perhaps more will sell since I left some at the place of business to try to sell. But that was a lot of time and effort to try to draw a crowd and sell a few books.

Yet, there are many civic organizations and universities that have budgets to bring in speakers. They'd probably pay me something and allow me to sell books in the back afterwards. They already have loyal attendees and they do all the publicity. They gather the crowd and I just show up to speak. That sounds like a great use of my time.

Applying "Go Where the Crowd is Already Gathered" to Web-Based Social Networking

This makes sense and perhaps has application to our use of social media to get the word out about our books.

It seems to me that since social media (and the experts I read) is a "social" thing, where there should be ongoing discussions between people, that any marketing strategy involving Twitter, Facebook and a personal blog would be a pretty time consuming task. I'd not only put out information regularly (perhaps daily?), but would additionally follow others who follow me (time reading) and occasionally comment on their comments. And over time, that may or may not pay off in sales.

In a timeless world, where I could continually add things to my schedule, trying to gather a following would be a no-brainer. It's another way to start conversations about my book, gain a following, etc. But in a time-limited world, I have to think of this versus other ways to get the word out.

Now this goes against the prevailing wisdom of some of the marketing people I read. Feel free to reply if you think my reasoning is off.

Applying This to Writing a Newsletter

According to most marketing gurus I read, we should prioritize collecting e-mail addresses and sending out a regular newsletter. I understand the benefits of this and believe that for an author who has both the time and the passion for it, this can be a good thing.

On the other hand, sending out a quality e-mail can take lots of time and effort. And the newsletter can't likely promote your book every issue, so will the number of resulting sales be worth the effort, if your primary reason for starting it is to sell books? (I publish two quarterly newsletters, but they're not primarily to market my books. If that were my sole intention, I probably wouldn't publish them.)

Applying the "go where the people are already gathered" principle to newsletters, consider contributing to other people's successful newsletters. I just sent a post on a successful networking experience I had to John Kremer, one of the most respected names in book publishing. No telling how many people receive his regular e-letter or follow his blog. But he's putting my article on his blog, linking to it from his newsletter, and putting a link back to my site. All these people will then know something about my book.

Book marketing gurus like Kremer, Poynter and Jud probably each have many, many more people than I could ever gather for a newsletter. By helping them with their newsletters, I expose all of their lists to my books. And what about all the newsletters out there that target family life, personal finances, etc. I could keep myself busy for a year getting publicity through just newsletters!


Applying This to Writing a Column

Some publicists recommend that I try writing a column for a newspaper on my topic. Hey, it gets me out there, helps build a following, and who knows, I just might get syndicated and appear in newspapers around the country!

But writing a great column takes loads of time. And with all the competition out there, what are the odds that I'd win out over all the MBA's in professional writing who are pushing to write the same column?

And even if I win at this game and write a popular column that's syndicated, I can't talk about my book very much, or I become irritating.

I got to thinking about this problem, so I visited the Amazon pages of books written by some of the most popular syndicated personal finance columnists in major newspapers. Their Amazon rankings were 328,000, 612,000 and 353,000. That compares to my Amazon ranking of 132,000! That means that I'm selling many more books than these popular columnists (at least on Amazon). Perhaps it's because I'm going to places that people are already gathered, and each time I go (unlike a financial columnist), I can talk about my book, or at least put it with my signature.

Applying this to social networking, one person on Ning said that she has Google Alerts set up to alert her when anybody's writing on her topic. She clicks through to the the articles or blogs or online newspapers, reads the articles, comments and adds to the discussion, then signs it with her name and a link to her book on Amazon. She said that whenever she does this, she notes an increase in sales. I tried it yesterday with two comments, one on a newspaper and one on a blog. The person replied to the blog, "Thanks for the comment. I look forward to reading your book." Hmmm...that was a pretty quick return. And I didn't irritate anyone. And I didn't have to wait a year to gather a following. And I didn't have to spend many, many hours writing unique, informative blogs.

This blogger was delighted that I commented on his blog. (Bloggers live for positive comments, assuring them know that people are actually reading their stuff.)

This applies the "go where people are already gathered" concept to social media. Rather than spending my days trying to attract a Twitter and Blog and Facebook following that may or may not be interested in my book, a strategy that just might annoy my "friends" if I keep bringing up my book, why not simply go to the blogs and online media outlets that are already discussing my topic and join in the discussion? I get links back from many significant sites. And for the ones that don't allow links back (like many major newspapers), just sign it with your name and the name of the book.

So, regarding social networking, I'm concentrating on "going where the people are already gathered" rather than "trying to gather people". In a timeless world, I could do both. But the tick-tick of my wall clock reminds me that each second has a period after it. I've got to concentrate my limited time on the most likely payoffs.

Your thoughts?

Is Twitter and Blogging Worth an Author's Time?

A recent blog by the CEO of Thomas Nelson (Michael Hyatt) recommended that almost anyone could build a platform with social networking:

"But today, by starting a blog and making use of tools social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, you can build a big platform with little more that the investment of your creativity and time. I’m not saying it is easy, but I am saying it is within reach. (By the way, I consider my blog to be my “homebase” and Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc., to be “outposts.”)"

I think that this can be true in some cases, but I'd like to know some hard data on how many authors actually start off as "nobodies" and successfully build a platform that sells books by these social networking tools, even if they put a lot of time into it and do it right.

Don't get me wrong. I'm blogging and I tweet. And I'm sure that many sales have been made through authors Twittering. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. In my opinion, we need to question the prevailing wisdom that promises all authors that they can build strong platforms through twittering and blogging.

Here are some of my reasons:

1) It appears to me that the ones who build a platform with Twitter, Blogging, etc., are often special cases.

a) Some were already famous (already had a platform) and thus many people wanted to follow them. The president of Thomas Nelson is a prime example. It's a great way to expand his platform, since many people already look to him as a thought leader. I and many others care what the CEO of Thomas Nelson says about publishing. A comparatively minuscule group cares about what I say about publishing. With limited time to read, if we were publishing about the same subject (I'm actually blogging about a different niche than Nelson), would you rather follow Hyatt or Miller?

b) Some do well because they're blogging about themes attractive to bloggers. Someone who becomes a thought leader in blogging or social networking in general will build a following because so many of the people interested in their thoughts search and redistribute blog posts and link back. Also, people need to subscribe to these thought leaders because the industry is developing so quickly. People want to know the latest ideas in fast-moving industries. The same can be true of the publishing industry, which is experiencing such a revolution. But with so many thought leaders out there in these areas, good luck becoming one of the top leaders!

Let's say you're a young writer, hoping to get published. Publishers keep telling you, "I like your writing, but you have no platform! We don't think we can market your book, since you have no platform." So someone advises you, "Go start a blog and start twittering and build yourself a platform!"

So, what will you blog about? Thousands of authors are blogging about their writing experiences. What's unique about your blog that would make people follow you? If you can't answer that question, lower your expectations about getting a following.

2) I don't see any hard data about what percentage of writers achieve significant sales by blogging and tweeting. (If you know any hard data, please let me know!) Sure, I hear many stories of people who made a great contact or made a great sale, but we can't conclude from these success stories that anybody can succeed by replicating what they did. I think it's called "success bias" - we hear the stories of the successes but don't hear from those who worked hard at blogging and reaped nothing. Thus, we assume that it should work for anyone.

Let's imagine that we collect 50 stories of authors who made significant contacts and sales while riding trains. Does that mean all authors should start riding trains? Hardly. Similarly, tell me 50 stories of people who are selling a lot of books through their blogs and I've still got to ask questions such as:

• "Why are they doing well through blogs?
  
• Are these people like me, starting with no significant platform?
  
• Are they targeting a niche subject that they've become a recognized expert in?
  
• Do they put hours a day into blogging, twittering and commenting on other blogs?"
• Can I easily replicate what they're doing with their blogs?

3) My track record of sales through Twitter and my blogs has been, well, underwhelming. I think I've achieved approximately 0 sales so far through those efforts. (I've sold many through review articles in newspapers, etc.) (For an article by a person with much more blogging experience than me, echoing my experience, see the article, "Why Blogging Won't Sell My Books." The author concludes: "In terms of visitors received and books sold for the time I put in writing, blogging is the worst return on investment I get."

4) A marketing professional reported dismal results. In a recent article , a twitter marketer, who tracks what happens to his tweets that he sends to his 55,000 followers, reported that his potential sales were rather dismal:

"Now, 6% of them are all I can get to click on a link, and I must assume that if I have anything I wanted to sell to these folks, I would be lucky to sell 6% of them (using 6% as my new social-networking constant). That gives me almost 0.4% from my total “mailing list” of followers, which is about one-fifth of what you get from any real-world direct-marketing effort. This is hardly a revolution in marketing. But it might be what you can expect from the average social-network marketing schemes. And it isn’t much."

5) Blogging and Twittering experts say you have to blog and twitter very often to attract a following. Do we really have that kind of time? A responder to the above article said,

"Three or Four Tweets a day will do absolutely no good. You have to do 30 tweets a day. The life expectancy of a tweet is less than 15 minutes. You need to have a network of twitter accounts that can get your message to over 500K users - not one single account."

So let's see, that means I Twitter something every 30 minutes of my 16 waking hours.

Similarly, I've heard that if you really want to build a following on your blog, you should blog about seven times per day.

That's a huge time investment! So this morning I took a son to school, planned for supper, got my 103-year-old granny up and took her for a doctor visit. I'm raising 7 boys, the flowers in the front yard need watering, I'm setting up a book signing, sending books to reviewers, planning articles to send to magazines. My main business is running an educational resources organization. I need to read more, exercise more, write more books, write more articles about my books, set up more signings, pray more, and water the dying flowers in my front yard. And someone's saying a good use of my time is to put up 7 meaty, relevant blogs each day and twitter every 30 minutes!

None of us have unlimited time. I own an older copy of Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Now with web-based social networking, let's make that 1002 ways. So if I'm blogging and twittering all day, when will I find time for some of the other 1001 marketing tools?

The Bottom Line

I blog about once a week for several reasons: 1) I blog about matters that I will later write books about. 2) Blogs are great ways to get out important information. 3) Blogs can help establish me as an expert in a field, leading to speaking opportunities, a platform, etc. 4) My blogs store important information that I want to refer back to later. 5) My blogs are part of a small web of links from my sites, blogs and other social networking sites - helping me to raise my search engine rankings for my books on Amazon.

I twitter to let people know I've published a new blog or link them to important articles. I'll twitter something once every few days.

Will I ever sell any books through these efforts? Perhaps. But I see them more as parts of my online presence that will pay off in the long-run, since I'm using them for several purposes, not just sales.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog Campaign

So someone's told you that, in order to sell your books, you should start blogging to build your following. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1) Does the topic of your blog lend itself to bloggers? If your topic isn't a passionate one among a significant niche of people, then don't expect regular readers.

2) What's your competition? So you're an unknown who's writing your first mystery and you start a blog about writing mysteries. How many other mystery writers already have blogs? Why would people follow your blog rather than the writing professors with blogs and the famous mystery writers with blogs? What are you offering that people can't get better somewhere else?

3) Do you enjoy blogging? Would you do it even if it didn't result in many sales? Life's too short to invest a lot of time doing something you hate.

4) Do you have the time to pursue it? I justify posting a blog about every other week. I know that this isn't frequent enough to get a big following, but there are only so many minutes to go around. Additionally, I honestly don't have enough to say of significance on my topic to post more often. To add more posts would be to add fluff.

5) Are you prepared to do the research and writing it takes to become a true expert (thought leader) in your field? If you don't plan to become a thought leader, fine. If you aspire to being a thought leader, you don't get there by posting what you ate for breakfast. You'll need to keep abreast of the top books and periodicals in your field, reading the the most respected bloggers in your field and interacting with them. You don't become a trusted expert by proclaiming yourself a trusted expert. You earn that trust by putting out consistently accurate, helpful, thought-provoking posts. That takes research. That takes a passion for your field. That takes time.

6) Are you already a recognized expert? If not, it may take a lot more than establishing a meaty blog to establish yourself. Most of these folks (recognized experts) seem to speak widely and establish themselves in other ways besides just blogging.

7) How intimately tied to your book is the topic of your blog? My character education site has thousands of subscribers and attracts from 500 to 600 visitors per day. But sending them an e-mail about my book on personal money management provoked very little interest. The fact is, few of my subscribers are teaching personal money management.

So you're writing a mystery and your blog is about writing mysteries, which attracts other mystery writers. Even if you get a steady following of 100 people, or even 1000 fellow-authors who are interested in writing mysteries, how many of them will actually want to purchase your mystery? Probably some, but is it worth the vast amount of time it takes to gain that following?

8) Where do you want to be within the next 5 or 10 years? Does your blog fit into that picture? If, beyond selling books, you see yourself pulling together your blog posts to publish books, or using your blog to show a school that you're the right person for teaching that writing class, then blogging may be for you. If you see it as a quick fix to sell some books, you'll likely be disappointed.

9) Have you defined your expectations for your blog? If you expect hordes of people to start buying your book, simply because of your blog, you've probably got the wrong expectation. Choose one of Kremers other 1001 ways to market your book. First, if you constantly blog about your book, people won't follow you. They'll see you as advertising rather than informing. Second, blogging seems to be more about helping people and establishing relationships than directly selling products. Sure, the resulting relationships can result in setting up a speaking engagement that sells books, but define those expectations beforehand.

In Sum...

With my present state on knowledge, I'd advise authors to blog if they enjoy blogging, have enough time to blog, and have other reasons to blog besides just selling books. If you don't already have a platform and don't relish blogging regularly, don't just gut it out to try to get sales. There are probably other things you could do that would have a faster and more likely payoff.

What do you think? (Feel free to post your thoughts.)

Posting Video Interviews for Book Marketing

Interested in posting a video to promote your book? I've heard people say that posting to places like YouTube.com can generate a lot of interest in your books and bring in a lot of Web traffic to view your books. Since it's free, I'm all for it. Here's how I went about it. I'll tell later what impact, if any, I think it had on book sales.

1) Get a decent video together. One person who works with video recommended doing something unprofessional, like with a home video set. He said that young people particularly like the realness of it. In under five minutes, tell something about your book or have someone interview you about the book.

I went the professional route, but paid only $40 per video. I was fortunate that my publicist set me up on CBS News and Fox 5 News. The interviews were under five minutes each and looked very professional. All I had to do was to pay a service (ask at the TV station who records and sells rights) to get the rights so that they could e-mail me a digital copy. I'm told that getting it this way gives a better copy than trying to download it from the TV station and putting it directly on youtube. Here are my three videos:

Fox 5 News on young people and finances

CBS News on financial management for teens and college students

CBS News Followup on personal finances for young people and Generation Y

I'd recommend giving viewers unique, useful information. I doubt they'd come just to see you talk about your book, unless you're Steven King. Each of my videos are on something specific, like how young graduates can land jobs and succeed with their finances. (It's graduation season as I write.) Those are topics that people might search for information on in Google. My book and Web address are mentioned unabnoxiously by the interviewers.

2) Brainstorm search terms and phrases that people might use in searching for your video. Put some of them in Google Adword's Key Words Tool to find more terms and to find out how many times different terms/phrases are searched. (Example: do people search more for "personal finance" or "personal finances." To decide which term to use, find out how many times each is searched.) You'll use these terms in the fourth step.

3) Sign up for a YouTube acount at www.youtube.com. (Click "SignUp" on top right menu. Just follow their instructions. My video typically failed to upload all the way the first time or two, then succeeded on the second or third try.)

4) Use the search terms you came up with in my second step. In your YouTube account, on the page where you're uploading your video, use key words in your title, description, and in the box where you can add descriptive words and phrases.

5) Include a link in your description to your author site, media page of your publisher site, blog, or to your book on Amazon.

6) Ask friends and family to watch it on their computers. If they like it, have them rate it on YouTube and tell why they liked it. (If they don't like it, tell them skip the rating process and instead take a film course so that next time around they can recognize real quality when they see it.) The higher it's rated (and the more people who rate it), the better your chances of being found.

7) Link to the video from all your blogs and sites. The more incoming links, the more important search engines think you are. Thus, more people will likely find you in a search.

8) Don't expect immediate results. Google only "dances" once a month, when it updates its algorythms and data.

9) Let me know any of your good or bad experiences. If this doesn't help authors to sell books, we could all save time by not fooling with it!

When "What Makes Sense" Keeps us from "What Works"

Need to sell more of your books? If marketing methods that make sense aren't working, try methods that don't make sense. This kind of thinking isn't unusual in the business world.

• Who'd have thought that people would pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee? Starbucks did the nonsensical and built a great company.
• Who'd have thought you could make money by selling products so cheap that real businessmen "just knew" you couldn't make a profit? Wal-Mart did the nonsensical and built the largest retailing outfit in the world.
• Times were when people "just knew" that the universe revolved around the earth, that the earth was flat, and that time wasn't relative. But thinkers who entertained nonsensical thoughts discovered otherwise.
  

Assumptions I'm Questioning

So what are some of the things that "everybody who's anybody knows for certain" about selling books, that we might want to question?

Assumption #1: The best places to sell books are in bookstores.
Assumption #2: Businesses that don't currently sell books are the worst prospects for selling my book.
Assumption #3: The larger the bookstore, the better.
Assumption #4: Go for the large cities since more people are there.
Assumption #5: Go for reviews only in the largest newspapers.
Assumption #6: The ultimate is to get on TV.

Why I Question These Assumptions

I now question all these assumptions:

1. If you're a best-selling author with a traditional publisher, bookstores are great places to sell books. Although, after distributors, wholesalers, and bookstores take their cut, you won't get much money for each sale, people know they can find your books there. But if you're not that well-known, or not with a traditional publisher, you'll probably have trouble getting into the bookstore. And if it doesn't sell within a few months, it may be returned to the distributor and never re-ordered.

That's why Dan Poynter is fond of saying something like, "Bookstores are lousy places to sell books." Great places to buy books, just lousy places to sell them. And it makes sense, once you think about it. If my book is one of 100 personal finance books in a large bookstore, why would someone choose mine over the high profile Dave Ramsey's and Suze Ormans? But if they find it in a smaller, non-bookstore setting, there's no competition.

Since my current book is self-published, I'm encountering hurdle after hurdle to getting into bookstores. I've got it into some locally owned bookstores, but chains are much tougher.

2. Businesses that don't currently sell books at all might take some initial convincing to sell my book, but if they take it on consignment, with no risk, they might like the idea of finding a new source of income. That's how my friend David sold 200 books in a local restaurant in about 6 months. I've currently got my book in a consignment clothing and furniture store, and a video rental store. I'll keep you posted as to how these go.

3. Larger bookstores mean more competition for similar books. Amazon means the most competition. If you have a niche book, like my Contemporary Christian Music Debate, Amazon's a great place to sell a book. People searching for "Christian Rock" or "Contemporary Christian Music" find it at the top of their search. But my book on personal finances, Enjoy Your Money!, competes against thousands of books on the same subject. It's unlikely that anyone would find it searching the term "personal finances". (However, once readers hear about the book from other sources, Amazon's a wonderful place to sell my financial book.)

4. While big-time authors should do well signing books in large cities, where they already have followings, I doubt they'd come out for small-time authors. But since most big-time authors go for the large cities, why not go for the smaller cities? People in smaller, established cities actually read their newspapers to get local news. Hearing that an author's in town, they might be delighted to come to the library and hear you talk about your topic and your book.

5. It's great to get coverage in big-time papers that have a large circulation. Three days ago a financial columnist reviewed my book in the Oakland (California) Tribune. I sold 11 books that first day, five the second day, and four the third day. (One personal actually called to order from me, so that I'm reasonably sure where the other orders came from. For the few days prior to the article, none sold at all.) But if you can't get the big papers, realize that several small ones may net you just as many sales.

6. TV is cool, but can be frightening as well. I was on Fox 5's Good Day Atlanta last Thursday. Great potential, but what if I froze up like the Psychiatrist's interview in "What About Bob?". Everything went great, however. Everyone raved about how relaxed I seemed, how I gave great information, how the station highlighted my book and gave great contact information, how they linked to my book information from their Website, etc. Yet, on the day of the broadcast, I sold exactly 0 books. That's not a typo. The next day I sold a few, but I suspect the sales came from my wife telling her facebook friends about the interview.

Am I glad I did the interview? Sure!

• It exposed a lot of people to the book who may buy it later.
  
• People often need to be exposed to a product several times before they purchase.
  
• I can purchase the video and use it on www.youtube.com and link to it from our publisher's Web page to show other potential media that I can handle interviews.
  

But still, no immediate sales as a result? I've heard similar stories of people who got big-time media coverage, but no or few sales. (I passed on this phenomenon to publishing consultant John Schuster, suggesting that perhaps "viewers view and readers read." He responded that "several marketing studies have shown exactly that.")

So don't put all your eggs into a few massive events, seeing them as your silver bullets. In the long run, the little, local stuff might be your biggest hit.

What are your experiences with what works and what doesn't concerning selling books? Are you questioning some common assumptions? Post a response and let's learn from each other!

Help Readers Find You With Search Terms

The Web has revolutionized marketing. Before the Web, "interruption marketing" prevailed - marketers interrupted readers/listeners from their articles/TV programs with an advertisement about a product they weren't searching for.

Today, millions of people are searching for information on the Web. As writers, we don't have to interrupt them to get their attention. We simply need to put useful information out there and make it easy for those searching for our information to find us.

Employing key search terms can help. Since I'm currently writing on personal finance, I want to know what terms people use to search for the information I'm providing. By using those terms in my titles, first paragraphs, links and in other prominent places, people will more likely find me when they do a Google or Yahoo search for those terms. So whether I'm writing a blog, a press release, a book title or subtitle (they will be searched on Amazon, for example), a book description, or a web page, I need to know how people are searching for this information.

First, I went to Google's tool for finding key words and phrases in Google Ad Words. (If the url has changed do a Google search for a phrase such as "find key words". Several sites have tended to offer these tools.) I did two searches, one on "money" and another on "finances."

Second, I deleted all the terms that didn't relate to the specific money topics I write on.

Finally, I ordered them according to search frequency.

Below, I've listed some of my results, telling me how many times each of these terms were searched, on average, in any given month.

Here are some of the ways that this information is useful to me:

1) People searching with the term “money” seem to be primarily searching for how to “make money” and “earn money.” 15 out of 19 (I found more terms than those I listed below) search terms were specifically about making and getting money. Make sure these terms are all over my articles and web pages concerning working, developing your skills, etc. at www.enjoyyourmoney.org .

2) Knowing what information people are hungry for helps me narrow down topics for future articles.

3) In searching “finances,” people are looking for financial advice or help, particularly with managing expenses and budgeting. I can use those terms when writing on those topics.

4) Obviously, work these key terms into my titles, headings, first paragraphs, links, etc. Titles are no longer determined solely by what's memorable and what's clever.

5) Since budgeting is often misspelled “budgetting,” and searched 2,400 times as such, I might include it on an appropriate page in places seen only by search engines, such as my meta tags or as a name for a graphic.

6) Use these terms as tags when I blog on those subjects.

7) Remember such significant, but not intuitively obvious, facts as “personal finances” being searched 33,100 times, but the singular form, “personal finance,” being searched 550,000 times!

8) Don't forget to use less searched terms at times (not included below), since so many large sites with massive traffic and incoming links will get priority placement by search engines for their use of those terms.

Other reflections or comments? Click below and join the discussion!

Search Terms for "Money" (includes synonyms) Over 1,000,000 Searches Money 24,900,000 Make money 2,240,000 Dollars 2,240,000 Earn 1,830,000 Over 100,000 Earn money 368,000 Ways to make money 135,000 Over 20,000 Getting money 49,500 How to earn money 27,100 Money making ideas 27,100 Lots of money 27,100 Easy ways to make money 22,200 Money manager 22,200

Search Terms for "Finances" (includes synonyms) Over 1,000,000 Searches Finance 16,600,000 Over 100,000 Personal finance 550,000 Expenses 450,000 Expense 450,000 Budgeting 246,000 Financial management 246,000 Finances 201,000 Money management 135,000 Budgets 110,000 Over 20,000 Financial help 90,500 Financial service 90,500 Financial information 60,500 Finance calculator 60,500 Financial plan 49,500 Financial advice 40,500 Personal finances 33,100 Financial 33,100 Household finance 27,100 Student finance 27,100