StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Self-Publishing|How to Promote Your Self-published Book

How to Promote Your Self-published Book

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Self-Publishing|How to Promote Your Self-published BookAuthors who have secured a traditional arrangement with a book publisher do not need to concern themselves with marketing or distribution, as this will be handled for them. However, self-published authors find themselves in a different position. Of course, some authors write simply for the joy of it, but for many people, one of the objectives of writing a book is for it to be bought, read, and enjoyed by as many people as possible. To achieve this, self-published authors face the challenge of marketing their work and securing multiple distribution channels. This guide does not include every marketing or distribution channel you might want to consider, but it introduces several concepts and marketing tips to get you started.

Create a website or blog for your book

Before you’ve finished writing the book, you could be securing your first readers if you build your own website or blog. Creating a website full of articles and engaging content on topics which are related to your target audience’s interests is a great way to gain visibility online. If your book is about divorce or family breakdown, you may want to create a website which focuses on professional insights and other books which are related. You can then start to add your own insights and excerpts from your book.

If you optimise your content for search engines, when internet users type related words or phrases into Google, your content could be top of the list of results. This is called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. You could even create an email mailing list and encourage visitors to sign up to receive updates about your upcoming book or promote giveaways. These email contacts will not only give you a base audience to directly promote future releases but you can direct them to your website’s money pages when there is an offer. You can easily create an email signature with a button to download your book or direct them to a specific page on your website.

The earlier you can create your website, the more buzz you can generate around your book and the more time you’ll have to improve your website’s ranking.

Maximise your online exposure

In addition to optimising your website for search engine results, you can also increase your online exposure by getting involved on other websites. This could be by contributing to forums on related topics or genres of literature, or you could write an article for someone else’s blog. Whenever you publish content, be sure to include your byline with a link to your website. Social media is also a great way to maximise your reach, as you can set up a profile on Twitter or an author’s page on Facebook. When you share updates about your book or promotions, you can include a link to your website or the platform where you are selling the book. You can also use social media to engage with your readers.

Hold a launch party

While it’s true that digital marketing is often the strongest force when it comes to promoting and selling a book, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for more traditional approaches. When your book is released, you could hold a launch party and invite influential people in your community. This could be at a bookstore or a library, but if you make enough of a splash you may be able to get it covered by the local press. In addition to selling your book, you could produce and sell promotional merchandise such as t-shirt printing or other products. If people wear or use the products which are emblazoned with the title of your novel, they will spread awareness in their social circles and the general public.

Take your lead from other authors

When it comes to designing a cover, choosing a title, the typography, etc., take a look at what successful books in your genre have done. You may not like all of what you see, but you may find some themes amongst them which could suggest they are more appealing than others. You may also come across repeated vocabulary in the books, which could be useful in your book’s metadata, i.e. the description of your book which search engines will use when trying to match an online query with a result.

Source reviews for your book

Reviews are a fantastic selling tool for many products and books are no exception. The author or publisher of a book can rhapsodise all day long about its merits, but until we know our fellow readers are in agreement, we are likely to be sceptical. If you have published books before you may be able to contact people who have reviewed a previous book with a free copy and a request for a review.

If you have never published before, you could look at the reviews on Amazon for books in the same genre, as they may be willing to give yours a try. It’s best to look for reviewers who write succinctly and seem to have real insight into the books they are reading, as this will result in higher quality reviews of your book. In addition, try to contact around 3-4 times as many reviewers as you would like reviews, as it’s not guaranteed that you will get a response.

You could also promote your book on Goodreads, which is an online community with more than 65 million members. Here you can create a profile page about your book and yourself as well as invite reviews, give books away or host forum discussions about your book.

Write an effective blurb

A blurb is a promotional description of your book which is used on the back of printed versions and online. They are generally around 100-150 words long and give the reader just enough information to grab their attention and intrigue them, so they want to read more of the story. It can include an introduction to characters, plot or the overall theme or it could be a particularly exciting excerpt from the book itself. Some blurbs will also include quotes from positive editorial reviews. Read more about how to write a blurb.

Hire a professional designer for the cover

Never judge a book by its cover is one of the truest sayings out there, but all too often that’s exactly what people will do. If your book’s cover is too plain, unprofessional, too garish or generally poorly designed, you are decreasing the likelihood that someone will give it a chance. Find a professional book cover designer who can work with you to capture the essence of the book in the most visually appealing way.

Use multiple distribution channels

You need to make your book available on as many sales platforms as possible, but it’s best to target the biggest in the early stages at least. Amazon is one of the biggest names in book sales in terms of both print and digital with two self-publishing services. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) handles eBooks and print books are by CreateSpace. Other popular eBook platforms include Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iBooks, and Kobo. There are also eBook aggregator services like Draft2Digital, which will distribute your book to several different retailers, automatically adapting the book into the required format for each.

If you have an e-commerce website which can accept payments and process online orders, you can generate traffic to the website by linking from social media posts. The more people you can get to click through to your website, the higher the likelihood of sales. However, remember that you will need to convert website visitors into customers when they are there or they may quickly leave the website. This not only means fewer sales but also a higher bounce rate, which Google will penalise your website for, i.e. it can damage your ranking score.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Retail Success|The 4 Keys To Retail Success

The 4 Keys To Retail Success

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Retail Success|The 4 Keys To Retail SuccessRetail is one of the best kinds of business you can possibly be involved in. After all, people are generally always going to want to buy products from retail stores, and if you can set it upright and manage it properly you will find that it is not too challenging to be able to get people interested in your store. This is especially simple and straightforward if you happen to run a food retail store, or a fashion store, or anything which sells items which people always need and will always need. If you are keen to make it even easier for yourself, however, then there are plenty of things that you can do towards that end. You can, for instance, take a look at some of the following ideas on how to ensure retail success. You might be surprised at how powerful some of these can be once you put them into practice in your store.

Focus On The Experience

Something that makes a huge difference if when you change your perspective from what the business needs or wants to what is right for the customer. In general, you should always make decisions based on what the customer would think. As you walk around your retail store – or explore its online web pages – you should imagine that you are the customer. What would you want to see, what should change or disappear entirely, and how can you be sure that it is going to be the best experience possible for each of your customers? This is something which you need to ask yourself at all times. Introducing incentives like convenience store loyalty programs is a way to gain returning customers to use their rewards. The more that you do this, the more likely it is that you will be able to ensure your customers have the best experience possible, which is probably the most important thing to be sure of after all.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Retail Success|The 4 Keys To Retail SuccessGet Pricing Right

If there is one sure-fire quick way to get rid of your customers, it is by pricing your products wrong. People don’t want to pay too much for anything, and if you are consistently getting the price too high then it will mean that people just start to go elsewhere. At the same time, you need to make enough of a profit for it to be worthwhile, so you have to try and find a balance there somehow. That is easier said than done, but there is one tool which you might want to have in your arsenal here to make it easier: research.

There are a few kinds of research which can really help you with pricing. One is pricing analysis, where you look at what other competitors are offering for the same product, or a similar product. That will ensure that you are being competitive, which is the main thing when it comes to pricing. Then you have a tool from the likes of Trade Vitality which allows you to see what the minimum advertised price is that you are allowed to use for something. That can be particularly helpful when you are drawing people in with low prices, or when you have a sale on, for instance. As long as you can get the pricing right in all this, you will find that your retail store is going to have much more success on the whole.

Cleanliness

How clean you keep the store is hugely important too, and hugely relevant, as if it is not clean you will find that the customer is not going to be anywhere near as happy with the experience. The simple way to keep it clean is to hire someone to clean it every day, and then a deep clean every week. That will ensure that it remains clean, but you also need to make a point among your staff of having a policy whereby you clean up as you go along. That will be necessary for health and safety, and will keep the store looking its absolute best.

Marketing

Remember too that you can’t really get much done in businesses of any kind without a strong marketing tactic. The better you know how to approach your marketing, the more likely it is that you will be able to get more customers in, so that is absolutely something that you need to focus on. It’s best to employ a combination of both local advertising and digital marketing, so that you can get a wide, but targeted, reach. Get that right, and there is no reason why your retail business won’t see great success in the future.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Podcast | StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 2 - An Interview with Diana McLain Smith, author of Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 2 – An Interview with Diana McLain Smith, author of Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag posts on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 2 – An Interview with Diana McLain Smith, author of Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength explores the relationship challenges that can hinder optimal team performance and how to overcome them. During our discussion, Diana McLain Smith, author of Divide or Conquer and partner at the Monitor Group, a global management consulting firm, shares with us her insights regarding:

  • the importance of relationships to team performance
  • tools executives and managers can use to improve their business relationships
  • how third parties support, accelerate, and solidify improved relationships
  • how personality types, as defined by measures such as DiSC and MBTI, fit into her relationship improvement model
  • the complex web of relationships that exist within organizations and teams

Additional Information

Complimenting the invaluable insights Diana shares in Divide or Conquer and this special edition podcast, are the additional relationship building materials and resources found on her websites, Diana McLain Smith (www.DianaMcLainSmith.com), Action Design (www.ActionDesign.com), and Monitor Group (www.Monitor.com).


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Diana McLain SmithDiana McLain Smith, author of Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength, is a partner at the Monitor Group, a global management consulting firm and founding partner of Action Design, a small firm specializing in organizational learning and professional development. For the past 25 years, Diana has advised leaders and their teams on how to build relationships strong enough to master their toughest challenges. She has taught courses and delivered lectures at the Harvard Law School, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. To read Diana’s full biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | 5 Ways To Ease Your Employees Out of Debt

5 Ways To Ease Your Employees Out of Debt

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | 5 Ways To Ease Your Employees Out of DebtThere are several ways that you can provide incentives or benefits to your employees. In this day and age, employers have come to realize the importance of having long-term employees that know the company’s trade by heart. It’s no longer a matter of hiring the best ones but a question of how to get these employees to stay.

Studies have shown that employees’ well being has a huge impact on their performance. Their financial worries take up 13 hours of their time in a month. That can be a huge loss of profit in a company if we’re basing it on productivity alone! So, what can a company do to ease the financial worries of his employees? Here are some of the proven ways that you might want to try.

1. Financial Security Program

Salary and wages are great ways to reduce the debt of your employees. But, like any other jobs, salaries are sometimes inadequate to meet their financial needs. This is why some companies have started offering financial security program in a form of retirement plan and the likes. It will also potentially increase the productivity of the employees and the company will surely retain their workers as well.

2. Assist Employees in Checking Credit Reports

Did you know that every consumer has a right to a free credit report every year? As an employer, this is the best way to assist your employees in looking into his credit reports and analyze his financial behavior. This can also be done on the internet by following the instructions given by the credit bureau. The report will show your employee’s exposure to credit and how well they are managing their debt. This should be done side-by-side with the employees. It can also improve your relationship in the workplace as the employee knows that you care about his financial well-being.

3. Provide Financial Literacy Course

Now that businesses and companies have realized the importance of financial literacy to their employees, there are several readily available online materials that can be offered to employees who want to avail of these financial courses. If you find that your employees could use some direction, ask them where they are struggling and look for materials that are available online that they might find helpful and interesting. To make sure that they watch these courses, you can even offer an incentive on whoever finishes the material first.

4. Offer Housing Allowance

Another thing that businesses might consider in assisting their employees financially would be to give housing allowance. Business leaders have come to prioritize the retention of their employees in a competitive marketplace and they know that housing is a huge factor that employees consider in getting a job. House allowance is given so that the employee won’t have to worry about meeting the cost of renting and accommodation.

Employers should look at local rent reports like this from ABODO where rent prices decreased over the last month. This may be a good thing to consider especially if rent prices are fluctuating from to time.

5. Convert Vacation Wages to Loan Payment

Ever hired an employee that has an unpaid student loan? Offering to convert their vacation wages as payment for their loan is just a brilliant idea to help them pay off their debt. Employees mostly get 28 vacation days in a year and if that is converted into cash to pay off their student loan, that is an ample amount that they will no longer worry about. It may not seem much on the part of the employer, but it will definitely mean much to those who work nonstop just to make ends meet. This will also be an additional productivity on the part of the employee.

Conclusion

With these kinds of strategies in the workplace, employees will be more capable of managing their finances, hence, they can focus on the task and improve their productivity. They will feel that they are being taken care of and will be more likely to stay in their respective jobs.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business Software|5 common business problems solved with software

5 common business problems solved with software

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business Software|5 common business problems solved with softwareMany of the problems your business is currently facing can be solved by finding the right software. In our times, when our lives are getting more and more intertwined with the digital world, it’s only natural that the same will be happening at work. You can decide to use some of the already existing programs, but there’s also a possibility of choosing bespoke options. Just remember that when you’re looking for software developers in Poland or any other country, you need to make sure their offer is good for your company. The price shouldn’t be the main factor behind your decision, it’s their previous work you should be focusing on.

Productivity

Productivity is the key to success in business. The more work you get done, the better the results you’ll be able to achieve. Modern technology can enable you and your employees to complete all your tasks much faster. Everything from sending documents to tracking expenses can now be done in a matter of seconds with the right programs. Another effective solution you should consider implementing in your company is the use of online calendars. They make it easy to create convenient schedules that can be regularly updated for everyone to see and follow.

Documents

Running a company requires producing a lot of different documents, and it used to be really difficult to keep track of all of them. The point is that if an important piece of text gets misplaced, it can lead to serious consequences for your business. But if you make everyone at the office use compatible software and provide a possibility to store all the files in the cloud, you’ll be able to access everything easily and make sure it won’t get lost.

Administration costs

Administration can create additional operating costs because it requires hiring more employees. But if you find ways to make tasks like tracking activities within a company, manage expenses and invoices, more time-effective, everyone will have more time for completing other work. It will not only boost your productivity but also lower the costs. There’s no need to personally take care of every little detail. You shouldn’t ignore the opportunities offered by modern technology, because your business has a lot to gain from such solutions.

Attracting new clients

As the internet is becoming a bigger part of our lives with each passing year, it creates a lot of different possibilities to communicate with one another. You can use such options to improve your contact with your clients. By using social media, you can easily get your message across. Such platforms are a great way to keep people interested in your offer and inform them of all the changes. But you have to remember that if you want your profile to attract new customers, you need to create content that will be engaging and appealing. A great way to save time is to use applications that allow you to schedule regular updates on your profiles in advance. This way, you can focus on other things and not be distracted.

Security

Keeping your data secure is an extremely important thing. That’s why, if you want to keep your business safe from potential risks, you need to make sure all your passwords are strong and regularly changed. Another sure way to protect yourself is to have backup storage for your documents. The truth is that if you lose your files, your company will find itself in a difficult position. So don’t underestimate such dangers, as even smaller companies can encounter problems with security.

Implementing technology in your business offers many benefits at a relatively low cost. Of course, if your company has very specific requirements, the price will get higher. But still, it’s possible to find satisfying options that will let your small business expand without having to spend a fortune.