How to Best Build a Winning Book Marketing Strategy - BM380

Narrator [00:00:07]:

If you're an author or plan to be one, get excited, because this podcast is for you. Book Marketing Mentors is the only podcast dedicated to helping you successfully market and sell your book. If you're ready for empowering conversations with successful marketing mavens, then grab a coffee or tea and listen to your host, international best-selling author, Susan Friedman.

Susan Friedmann [00:00:30]:

Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is yours truly, and I'm here in the studio with my friend and colleague Jane Maulucci, who's going to play my role as host of the show doing the interviewing. So, Jane, welcome to the show. Again, thank you for doing this.

Jane Maulucci [00:01:06]:

My pleasure.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:07]:

Always exciting to work with you.

Jane Maulucci [00:01:09]:

It's always fun to work with you, Susan. You always give me so much information, so I can't wait to get started.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:14]:

So I believe, Jane, we are going to talk about messaging today.

Jane Maulucci [00:01:19]:

Yeah, because one of the things that I've learned from authors that I've worked with, they're a little startled when they look up their topic, for instance, on Amazon, and find out that, oh, my gosh, there's already 639,000 books on this topic. They get a little disheartened. And I'm wondering, how do you manage your authors when they're dealing with that kind of situation?

Susan Friedmann [00:01:43]:

Yeah, what a great question. It's very easy to get disheartened when you're up against so much competition. And most topics have lots of competition. More than we really want to know about sales, leadership, motivation, inspiration. There are people out there who've written about pretty much most of the subjects under the sun. So how do we stand out? I invite authors to go back. And what was the reason? What was the motivation to write the book in the first place? Was it that you were inspired by some event? Maybe it was a spiritual awakening. Maybe it was an addiction that you've overcome. Maybe you had an autistic child that you want to share some methodology that worked for you. Maybe it's a sales training or leadership method system that you want to share with the world. Well, yes, what I just said was incorrect. Share with the world as much as you feel what you have to offer could be applicable to everyone. It's really tough, in fact, as far as I'm concerned, impossible to try and sell to everyone. I mean, not even the greats of the greats, the procter and gambles of this world can even try and do that. What do they do? They target, they niche their message, their product to a certain group of people. And I feel, Jane, that's a lot of where authors fall down is that they fail to have actually honed in on a specific group of people who they could market to with their message, with their method, with whatever message that they want to share out there in the marketplace.

Jane Maulucci [00:03:52]:

Yeah. It sounds like you're suggesting that instead of buckshot getting out to the whole world and hoping you hit someone that instead you should narrow it down and do it like an arrow and just aim at one specific target. Is that a better plan?

Susan Friedmann [00:04:09]:

That's a great analogy. I remember when I was in PR many years ago, there was always this saying, if you throw enough spaghetti against the wall, some of it's going to stick. Well, we don't want to take that chance because that's such a long shot. It's not worth it unless you've got oodles of money to spend on advertising and whatever else you want to spend your money on in the marketing game. Now, the best and the most cost effective way and the most efficient way is to really narrow that focus. Who is your message for? Even though, as I said, it could be a universal message. But let's forget that and let's say let's hone in on salespeople in the automotive industry or leadership in healthcare or motivation for, again, maybe nurses or people who need what you have to offer. And often, Jane, authors say to me, well, I don't know where to start and I direct them to their experience. Most authors have had some kind of experience. They've worked in an industry. They've got some credibility in an industry, maybe as a teacher, maybe as a nurse, maybe as an accountant, maybe as a manager of some kind. That's the expertise and that's the industry that I invite you at least to start with. Doesn't mean you have to stay there forever, but start with something that you know and penetrate that industry.

Jane Maulucci [00:06:02]:

So work with the people that you're familiar with, that you've got common language with, that you have a common understanding with.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:09]:

Yes. And you've got credibility often. Let's say you were an RN. Well, once an RN, always an RN from what I've been told. But if you were a registered nurse yes, you know and understand the trials and tribulations, the frustrations, the burnout. You know that environment. If you've got a method, if you've got some kind of motivation that you can help, then that's your target audience because you have the credibility. You've walked in their moccasins, so to speak. So yes, that's my advice first and foremost is to go after an audience who you know and often who know you as well.

Jane Maulucci [00:06:57]:

Could you use that as an example for us? Could you kind of break that down? So imagine a nurse has written a book about working in an emergency room, I don't know, talking about burnout or whatever. How would that nurse target those people?

Susan Friedmann [00:07:13]:

This is a really good question and it could be open to a lot of different opportunities.

The first is to understand what do you want the book to do for you. If you just want to sell books, that's a hard way of going about it. Now, yes, you can sell books in bulk, and I work with many of my authors to teach them how they can sell books in bulk. But if you want to make money with your book, the best way is through speaking, training, and coaching. You decide which of those you want to do. Let's say you want to speak, then you look at the opportunities. Where can you speak in front of your target audience? Are there events? There's a nurses association, they have an annual conference. Could you be a speaker at that conference? Could you do a breakout session at that conference?

Let's say it's a breakout session. You may or may not get paid for that. However, if you are speaking in front of your target audience, I do invite you to consider that it is well worth your while to speak in front of them, especially if they are decision-makers. Because if they like you, if they like the subject matter, which obviously is more important, then they could potentially hire you to come in and teach their staff. So you want to look at what is it that you could offer? Maybe it's training, and you look at training opportunities.

Look locally first, because before you go national and then international, let's start smaller. Maybe there's something on a local level or a state level that you could look at. There are states with chapters of different associations. Go in, speak to a chapter, and again, let them know that you're interested in somebody at the national level. Could they introduce you to someone? Could they open doors for you? You want to constantly use this as networking opportunities. As I say, whether you get paid or you don't get paid in the first instance. And be prepared.

I spoke many, many times, gratis, just because I wanted to be in front of my target audience. When I was in the trade show industry, I was at the trade show for the trade show industry, which sounds quite funny in hindsight, but that's where my decision-makers were. These were the people who could hire me to do training for their exhibitors. You want to look at speaking to people. If you're not getting paid, who can hire you? And of course, if you are getting paid, well, even better. And then when you are getting paid, I invite you to look at opportunities. How can you have your meeting planner purchase books for everyone who's going to be in your audience? Now, that's already a great way to sell in bulk. If there are 100, 100, 200, and 500 people in the audience, doesn't matter. Everybody needs to go home with a copy of your book because you can only cover a certain amount in a speech or even in a training program. But when they walk away with the book, they've got your whole methodology, how you do what you do, and the expertise that you can share with them.

Jane Maulucci [00:11:02]:

And they're kind of taking you home with them.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:05]:

Absolutely. People love souvenirs. I mean, hey, every time you go on vacation, what do you want? You want a souvenir from the wonderful time that you had? Your book is like that souvenir that people purchase when they're on vacation. Hey, they're at a conference. So instead the souvenir is to take a piece of you home with them.

Jane Maulucci [00:11:26]:

Susan every author has to have some way to reach out to their tribe. What are some of the tools that you can suggest that they use to make those connections?

Susan Friedmann [00:11:35]:

There are many different tools, and obviously, a lot will depend on what you're looking to do with the book. If you want speaking, training, or coaching, if you want to do those activities, or if you just want to sell books in bulk. So, different strategies. But the one that stands out for me is one that's very popular at the moment and that is strategic podcast. Guesting podcasts are hot. Think of this one.

I've been doing it now for seven years. It's ranked in the top 1.5 percent of podcasts listened to worldwide. I have guests on my show. Yes, you're interviewing me. I'm my own guest for this particular episode. But most of my episodes are when I have an expert in an area that can help my target audience. Now, every author with a book has that expertise. That's why you wrote the book. You poured your expertise into those two covers.

Now it's a matter of finding podcasts that attract your target audience so that you can get your message out. They don't want to necessarily know that you've written a book. Somebody's not going to have you on their show just because you wrote a book. But what your book can do for the audience, that's what's interesting. How does it relate maybe to an event that's going on?

We talked about burnout earlier around the holidays. That's a tough time for people when they get stressed, when there is a lot of burnout when you've got a lot going on. I mean, can you relate this to a topic in your book that you can talk about? Where is your expertise? I'm always looking for my guests. I'm looking for their expertise. I want them to share that expertise with the authors who are listening to the podcast in the same way you want to look at where can you share your message with your target audience.

Now, it's going to take some research because there are thousands of podcasts out there. But start looking in your niche. Just Google podcasts for financial planners or podcasts for healthcare workers, or for HR consultants, or really hone in. Don't just go for podcasts. I mean, you're going to come up with thousands, even millions now, but just really hone in and you'll get the top 25.

Let's say when you've got those, then you've got a little bit of homework to do as well, is to listen to those podcasts. Find out, first of all, who has guests. You don't want to contact somebody who doesn't have a guest and then know what kind of guests they're looking for. If you listen to a podcast, if you read about that podcast, you'll learn about what that host is looking for in a guest. I get pitched all the time by PR agents who want to share somebody with me, and as soon as they say, oh, so and so wrote a book and you should interview them, that is an immediate no. I'm not looking for someone who has necessarily just written a book. In fact, some of my guests don't even have a book. I want them to share their expertise. Now, it helps them to give them extra credibility if they've written a book, but it's not a must for my show. But it's nice when they have because as I say, it gives that extra credibility as an expert in their field. And that's what podcast hosts are looking for many times. So you're going to have to listen to them. The show. I love it when somebody has listened to my show and then comes on and says, hey, listen to your show, and I really feel that I'll be a good match for it, or I've got a client who I feel is a good match, then I'm like, okay, let's talk.

Jane Maulucci [00:16:12]:

Yeah, one of the people that you had interviewed, which would seem kind of disjointed, but actually works, was David H. Lawrence the 23rd, and he was talking about how to do audiobooks. And now he doesn't have a book out, but he's perfectly appropriate for your Book Marketing Mentors Podcast. And it helps the people who are listening to your podcast. So when people are trying to get their message out, that's how they've got to think about who needs their message.

Susan Friedmann [00:16:42]:

Yes, and he was a super guest, and we were talking about something that's very current, which is audiobooks. Again, that was an expertise that I wanted my audience to learn more about. And thanks to you, he was an incredible interview. It's well worth authors listening to that interview. Go and do a search because I'm on 380 different episodes by now. So you'll have to do a search for audiobooks and you'll come up with a few that you can listen to.

Jane Maulucci [00:17:23]:

That's great. From what you've said, Susan, it sounds like you're really packaging your message in the language that will reach out to the people that you're familiar with. By doing that, you're more likely to have success with your message, also known as your book, and all the other ancillary things that go with your book and message. I think that sounds tremendous, aside from when you first look at that whole list and find out that, oh my gosh, time management has been done 600 times. Why should I write another book about time management? But you've got something particular for your tribe, your audience, the people that you are connected with. I think that's so helpful.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:07]:

Your message, yes, is a great message, but who is it a great message for? And that is key here, is understanding that your message is valuable and your approach is unique. Yes, there are thousands, if not millions, of books on sales or leadership or motivation inspiration. They're books on every single subject. But yours is unique because your experience is unique. And the way that you share your experience or the model that you have developed is unique. That's what you're sharing. You're sharing your uniqueness, again, to a specific audience.

If you've got sales training that you want to do, as I say, for financial planners or I was just invited to be a speaker at a conference to actually financial planners talking about the importance of having a book in that environment, helping to give the financial planners potentially more credibility and to help them stand out in the marketplace. Because there are thousands of financial planners out there. It's the same with real estate agents. As you know, both of us have worked with a few real estate agents who have published a book through Aviva Publishing, and that helps them stand out in a very crowded marketplace. But they're different. They're sharing their expertise. Often with real estate agents, it's on a local level rather than a state or national or even international level. So, again, don't forget your home crowd. This home crowd is so important. I remember getting business from local companies when I was looking for people afar afield, and it was like, oh, why do I have to travel so far when I've got somebody on my doorstep who's interested in my subject matter? By the way, and I've mentioned this on other programs, Jane, your local media, love local. Local experts, local celebrities, which is what. You could potentially be.

Susan Friedmann [00:20:43]:

You've written a book. You're an expert in an area. Share that. Don't hide. People need what you have to offer. Now, I know that I'm talking to myself as well with this. I've had a tendency, and I'd admit it, that sometimes I've tended to hide not sharing the message the way I could be. I know exactly what that feels about, like but if you don't tell people, if you don't toot your own horn, why should somebody else?

Jane Maulucci [00:21:14]:

Exactly. Well, Susan, we've come to the part of the show where I get to ask you for your golden nugget. So with all this great information, what's the one golden nugget we should pull away from this event today?

Susan Friedmann [00:21:28]:

Remember your message and who it's for? I believe that that is the essence of everything that you're doing. You build your whole platform based on that. Your message will lead to the method that you're going to use. Be it speaking, training, or coaching, which will lead to a marketing plan, a marketing strategy that you can use. So often, authors are going backward and looking at the strategy to get the method to sell the books and the message. So, no, let's start with that message and who that message is for. Then you can move along the path in a much more sequential and a much more efficient and effective way to, at the end of the day, get known as that credible expert in your industry, and become recognized as that expert. And, hey, I send that with love and light to everybody listening to this podcast. So thank you, Jane, for doing this again for me.

Jane Maulucci [00:22:46]:

I appreciate it.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:48]:

It's so much fun. By the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales. You've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. Go to BrainstormWithSusan.com to schedule your free call. In the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparked some idea is you can use to sell more books. So, until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.