Karin Rex of Lansdale, Pa., asks this week’s “Help This Hound” question:
My book, Microsoft Office 2010 Demystified, was just published a few weeks ago. But the publisher is doing NO publicity for the book. The Demystified series is one of their best book series with over 100 titles!
Obviously, I’ll need to toot my own horn, but how?
The primary audience for this book is professors/teachers who teach courses that involve Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook or Access. The book covers all five applications and includes quizzes at the end of every chapter and a final exam at the end of the book. The obvious secondary audience is, well, anybody else who uses Office. Here are a few snippets from a recent Computerworld article:
“Office 2010 is the most successful consumer version we have ever shipped, and the product is also performing extremely well in the business segment,” said Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer.
“Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history, with license sales over 50% ahead of Office 2007 for the equivalent period following launch,” said Bill Koefoed, the general manager for investor relations at Microsoft.
With numbers like that, you KNOW a lot of people are gonna need a book like mine! So, can your Hounds throw me a bone and offer their best tips on how I can spread the word?
This book sounds like a good one to try to sell in bulk. If there are any local business supply stores or even computer service shops left near you ((as opposed to Office Max) see if you can partner on a live event. They would sponsor and purchase a book for everyone who attends. You could speak on a specific skill and highlight the fact that the store sells the software etc.
If you cannot find a partner, you could still consider holding a free workshop yourself and sell books back of the room along with consultations etc. You could also charge and include the book in the cost of admission.
Create lots of 2- to 3-minute videos and upload to your YouTube channel. If you don’t have a YouTube channel, start one.
Each video should have about 3 how-to tips on how to solve a problem people frequently encounter with one of the programs you teach. Write a title, a description and tags that include the same keywords people use when searching Google for info on that problem.
Then send them all to a page at your website where they can opt in to a special report (free) that includes tips from the book. Then sell the book from the report.
You can do talking-head videos, but your topic screams for screen-capture videos in which you can demonstrate on the screen how to solve a problem in a Microsoft program and viewers can actually see where you are clicking and what you’re doing. You want to buy and learn Camtasia. Find somebody in your community who can teach you how to use it, then start cranking out videos. Outsource the job of editing to a freelancer on a site like ODesk or Elance.com.
Hi Karin,
When you wrote in your post that your book offers end-of-chapter quizzes, this promotional idea came to mind…
I’ll assume that you have been touting the book on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites. If so, use these contacts to drive people to your website which can offer free, mini quizzes for folks to test their knowledge of Office 2010.
I would make these quizzes ‘fun’ by offering questions with answers that would surprise users who already believe they know enough about Office 2010. I say this because I believe the book will be useful for people who believe they know enough about Office through self-use but really haven’t tapped into all of its usefulness.
For example, I was manually formatting a Table of Contents for my virtual assistant welcome packet and realized after poking around Word 2010 that the program offered a useful tool which would automatically number and position my titles much more uniformly than through my own remedial method.
So my suggestion is to promote the book in a tongue-in-cheek way, by saying, “Think you know all there is to know about Office 2010?” or “Are you really sure you using all of Office 2010 to its full potential?” or “Test Yourself. Pass our Office 2010 quiz for bragging rights.” Then offer a fun quiz on a sales page (directed from your third party social media sites), which then allows people to purchase the book directly from that page.
Additionally, I believe your targeted audience could be drilled down even further from ‘…anyone else who uses Office…’ to specific segments such as virtual assistants (like myself), online business managers, small business owners who specialize in document management, publicity experts, general administrators, author assistants, authors, speakers and coaches. (But I would pick only a few professions and specialize in reaching those markets…not try to appeal to everyone.)
It all begins with the creation of a mailing list set up on a website offering something of value (a white paper, a tips page, or a free downloadable chapter) in exchange for an email address. Once you have that you can ‘nurse’ these leads, directing them to a sales page where the book can be purchased.
It takes time to build a good list but once you have a good foundation, the list grows as people share your knowledge and tell their friends about your fun quizzes.
Good Luck!
Janine Gregor
Social Media and Publicity Virtual Assistant
Janine, your idea to offer quizzes is a real winner! It makes it interactive. Love the phrase “bragging rights.” Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment and great ideas.
Hi Karin and a big congratulations on your book!
So you are not into “dong” lots of stuff I would recommend to sit down and create a marketing plan starting with the ideas that have come up. All these ideas are stellar.
My first thought went to what Janine spoke to. Create a whole list of vertical markets
when you do your brainstorming head for a list of 30 and don’t give up because the last 5 will reap GREAT rewards for you. As you want to maximize the people who you interface with, I trust you have a back end upsell. So when you look at your vertical market list go with the people who will spend the moolah: )
You will normally get further ahead if you interact with your power partners or authority partners. These people have the influence and can drive people on their list to you. Create affiliate relationships and if you have a backend, you’ll be able to create JV’s easier:)
Create a telesummit with your partners. They can give away something and drive people to your list to buy your book. Their give away can be bonuses for your book. So it will be a win win win.
Of course created a kick ass press release calendar so you’ll know when to send out your press releases–so each builds upon the other.
Sponsorships are a great way to go because there are many companies that have budgets to buy books ‘by the truckloads.’ Once you get your vertical markets.it will be simple to create lists of sponsors that you can go to.
Stay with the strategies that will give you the biggest bang for your time.
Trusting this is of help and value to you. May you experience BIG windfalls of success:)
-Ileana Kane
Ileana, your suggestion to Karin to brainstorm a list of 30 vertical markets will force her to think about audiences that might not have come to mind initially.
And partnering with influential people in vertical markets is just plain smart. They already have the credibility.
How about contacting professors in computer technology at your local colleges? Don’t ignore community colleges. They might have students taking microsoft Word at the entry level. How about teachers in the high schools who are teaching computer programs to their students? Look into other programs in local high schools and see if they’re teaching the material. Around here we have a Boces program for special kids and as an after school program for returning students. Then find the national organizations sponsoring these programs. For example, the national Teacher’s Federation must have a computer specialty. Good Luck! Judith
Wow! What a terrific slew of ideas already! Thank you so much. Love the YouTube Video channel idea (I don’t have one yet) and also the fun quiz idea. I think I am going to try and combine those two into one somehow. I also like the bulk selling idea – I didn’t realize that I could actually approach those markets myself.
Thanks to all!
Karin, my Hounds really came through this time! Glad we could help. Check back here occasionally because you may find more ideas.
Congrats for your book, I’m gonna get this one today 🙂
I love all these ideas myself.
I look forward to hearing how you do, Karin.
Good luck!
Janine