This edited transcript is the last in a four-part series from an interview on Jan. 12, 2015. Julie Eason asks me about how authors can do their own publicity. Prefer audio? You can listen to the podcast on iTunes or on Stitcher Radio. You’ll find links to the first, second and third posts in this series at the end of this post.
Julie Anne: All right, I’m all about action, I’m all about taking action and I love it when a podcast says, “OK, as soon as you hang up the phone or as soon as you pull into the parking spot and you turn off this podcast,” what action, what’s the first thing you would recommend that my listeners do as soon as the episode ends?
Joan: I’m not going to try to sell you anything. I want you to take advantage of my free content. I send my snack-size email tips twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday. I’m paying more attention to authors and publishers, simply because there’s so many more authors and publishers these days than there were even two years ago. Everybody is a publisher today. Go to my website at PublicityHound.com. There’s a small white opt-in box in the upper left corner. Give me your name and email address and you’ll get your first tips on Tuesday or Saturday. It’s 100 percent free. You can go to my blog. I’ve got a whole separate category on author marketing and there’s a ton of free content there.
If you’re looking for something specific, send me an email—my email address is accessible from every page of my website—and tell me what you’re trying to do and I’ll be happy to help.
Julie Anne: I’ll tell you, listeners, I hardily recommend doing exactly what Joan just said because I have been on her free list forever and I’ve participated in her webinars and things and I have learned so much about publicity and all of the various tools that you can use to get publicity.
I’ve used it for my clients, I’ve used it for myself. If you do nothing else but go to the PublicityHound.com and you read through those things and you implement something that you learned there, you will be on your way to selling more books and making more money from your books. Absolutely, that’s fantastic.
All right, one last piece of inspiration or advice that you’d like to leave people with?
How Long You Need to Market Your Books
Joan: Always be marketing, always. People say, “How long do I have to market my books for?” Well, how long do you want to be selling books? Do you want to be selling books for the next five years? You better be out there marketing for five years. But you don’t always have to be doing the same things. You can rotate these things:
- Get out on the speaking circuit. It’s a great way to get in front of audiences.
- Guest blog, that’s a way to market your books.
- Create groups on social media sites like Facebook. Facebook can be a gold mind because there are big groups of people on Facebook, or small groups, devoted to specific niche topics. Go seek these groups. Go directly, form a relationship with the people in your target market. Don’t try to market to the world or you’re going to fail every time.
Julie Anne: Absolutely, always be marketing—always, always—no matter how many books you have out there. Your back list, I mean, Stephen King can tell you about selling from your back list. Your books are not going to go out of style unless they are about how to do Facebook and then you have to update it every week. But hopefully you’re not writing on that topic.
Joan: Can I slip in one other quick tip?
Julie Anne: Absolutely!
Spin off Products from Your Book
Joan: Most authors see their book as the end product. Smart authors see their book as the door opener to get readers interested and then to try to sell those readers a whole bunch of other products and services.
Julie Anne: Absolutely.
Joan: That could be consulting, board games, calendars, speaking engagements, T-shirts, whatever.
Julie Anne: I’ve actually created one of my free giveaway reports on how to create back-end services and products. It’s unbelievable. I actually researched, I was like, “Stephen King merchandise, I wonder if he has any merchandise?” There’s an actual Stephen King catalog out there!
Joan: Yeah, there you go.
Julie Anne: Where you can buy all kind of things like key chains from hotels that are in his book. You can even get a Stephen King’s Simpson action figure.
Joan: You know what? I’ll bet there’s a Harry Potter catalog, too.
Julie Anne: Oh, there’s a Harry Potter theme park. You never know how far you can go with back end products and services. It’s really easy for me to rattle off things that you can do if you’re a non-fiction author, because there’s a million things you can do, especially if you’re a business owner.
But oftentimes fiction authors will be like, “I don’t know…I can’t have a back end unless it’s my back books.” It’s like, “Well, no, what did Star Wars do?” You can have as much merchandise as you decide to have. It’s all up to you.
Awesome piece of advice, thank you so much, Joan. This has been a fantastic call. If people want to learn more from you, how can they do that? One more time?
Joan: They can go to PublicityHound.com, sign up for my free email tips. Click on the welcome video and it’s a warm welcome from me showing you some of the things that you can see at my site, sort of like a quick tour of my site, and some ways to stay in touch with me.
Again, please feel free to ask me a question about book publicity or publishing. I’m very generous with information. I answer my own email, and I love authors.
Julie Anne: Listeners, remember you can find all of the links and resources and everything from this episode on our website, SuccessfulAuthorPodcast.com.
One final thank you so much, Joan, I really appreciate your time.
Joan: Thank you, Julie, and thank you, authors. Go out there and get some great publicity to sell books!
Julie Anne: Awesome! Until soon, everyone, bye-bye.
See All Blog Posts in This Series
Part 1: How authors can start do-it-yourself publicity
Part 2: How to identify the target market for your book
Part 3: How to get book publicity from newspapers, TV
Part 4: More book marketing tips for fiction and nonfiction