Step Out Of The Crowd

 Susan Reichert       @swmeditor

 

From The Guardian

Not long ago, I had a conversation with two award winning writers, discussing how it has become more difficult to get sales because so many books are coming on the market every day.

While that is true, many books are being released every day, it is simply a detour for authors on the road to marketing. Why? If you go back through history you will find that when an industry has a problem, people become innovative and look for ways to go around it, change it, or develop a new market. In other words, it is an opportunity to find a better way.

Compare it to when they were building a railroad…they had to find ways to go over, through or around mountains. They succeeded because we have railroads all over the world.


That happens in all areas. And our sector, selling books, is no different.

One of the things you will find, with all the books being released some of them are not written well. Even if someone buys a book because they like the cover and/or title, does not mean they will buy another book from that author.

So as fast as they come into the market, they will leave just about that fast. Trust me, I get books sent to me all the time to read, and so many of them are chocked full of errors. So much so, it is difficult to read. The flow is not good, the plot is flawed, and well all in all it is not worth reading. You know what I mean. You have read good books, and you have read bad ones.

So, if you continue to write good books you will not lose your reader base. If they bought one of your books and liked it, they are going to buy another one and continue.

Authors will have to find new ways to market their books for sure. The first step is to take stock of how and what you have been using to market. Then develop a strategy to hone what works, eliminate what has not.

“As we recover, everyone’s expectations are that digital works,” says Mackenzie Johnson, marketing, and partnership manager at BORN Group, a digital marketing agency in New York. “Going into 2021, the customer experience has to be excellent.”

Authors create reader (customer) experiences. That is the number one key.

Another key is while authors sell on Amazon, they also need their own marketplace. Where? On their website and/or blog. Make it easy for your reader to buy your book. If they are on your website, they need the convenience of clicking on your book and buying it from you and/or Amazon and any other store where it sells. If they buy from you, it is autographed.

The point is, we must get out of our box, and look for new ways to market our books to generate the sales. It takes research into many venues and getting pricing before we can put a strategy together, but once we have the information, we will be able to go where “others have not gone.” Sometimes you must get out of the crowd to be seen.

Here are two questions for you to ponder:

What are some ideas you can think of to break out of the crowd?

How much time are you willing to spend on researching new ways?

 

Susan Reichert is the founder of Southern Author Services and Editor of Suite T. Prior to this was the co-publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Southern Writers Magazine, a national magazine for authors and readers.

She is the author of God’s Prayer Power and Storms in Life, numerous magazine articles, and in 9 anthology books. Speaker at writing conferences, seminars, libraries, and President of Collierville Christian Writers Group (CCWriters Group).

She is the author of God’s Prayer Power and Storms in Life, numerous magazine articles, and in 9 anthology books. Speaker at writing conferences, seminars, libraries, and President of Collierville Christian Writers Group (CCWriters Group).

Reichert discovered one of her life’s purposes when she began to write. “First, it was short stories as a child and some Saturday afternoons you could find Susan, her sister and friends acting out the stories. “My first novel I wrote, the manuscript was lost in a move. Now I write using a computer.”

Susan lives in Tennessee with her husband. They have four grown daughters with their own families.

You can visit Susan at www.susanlreichert.com; https:susanreichert.blogspot.com; https://www.facebook.com/SusanLeeReichert; https://twitter.com/swmeditor; https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-reichert-55922a13/;