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Marketing
and Promoting by Barbara Brabec I built my home-based business and my reputation as an expert in the home-business industry through a combination of publicity, word-of-mouth advertising, speaking, regular direct mailings, a newsletter I published for fifteen years, and magazine columns written over a period of thirty years. I first began to promote my books on the Internet in mid-1998. The Power of Publicity I never spent money on traditional advertising, but I did invest in some cooperative mailings in the early days of my business, and even produced a couple of profitable mailings myself. However, nothing has worked as well for me as publicity and word-of-mouth advertising. My first book was published in late 1979, and for the next twenty years there wasn't a month that I didn't receive publicity for one or more of my books or publications in one or more newspapers, business magazines, newsletters, or home-business periodicals. When I finally got my first Web site up in mid-1998, I found my name and publications mentioned on dozens of sites; now they are mentioned on thousands. In earlier years, major mentions of my books in Family Circle, Woman's Day, Parade, and Time put thousands of dollars into my pockets, both directly and indirectly. All my PR efforts were crowned in 1989 with a week-long appearance on ABC TV's Home Show, where I was the home-business expert on their "Homemade Money" series, titled after my book. For a few minutes each day, my book and I were in the limelight, and my royalty checks a few months later proved the enormous power of a few minutes of television exposure. It's difficult to know for sure, but I estimate my appearance here sold 12,000-15,000 books at the bookstore level. I know it added enormously to my satisfaction level and credibility as an expert. Ten years later, my total life's effort in making Barbara Brabec a "household word" in the home-business industry led to my work as a "personality" on a major e-commerce site and some very satisfying work as Series Editor on a line of eleven books published by Prima Publishing in 1999-2000. Indeed, I am proof positive that constant promotion pays off in the end. Building a Network If you plan to publish (or simply aggressively promote) your own books, I cannot overemphasize the importance of networking with your peers and building and using promotional and "key contact" mailing lists. It took me years to develop my mailing lists, but they gave me an important edge over my competitors during the years when I was selling my own books and newsletter. One of the most successful strategies I've used through the years is to identify and work with other successful business writers, from free-lancers and syndicated columnists, to fellow authors. Many of my best contacts have come merely from reading a lot of publications and networking with my peers. Since I no longer sell my books by mail, but merely promote their sale through established retail outlets, I don't do the kind of intense marketing and publicity mailings I used to do, but I periodically send e-mail releases to selected contacts on my key mailing lists. Over the years, I got a lot of mileage out of direct mailings to educators such as teachers, extension specialists, directors at small business development centers, SBA and SCORE personnel, economic development directors, and organizations. This was always a great "word-of-mouth army" for my books. Individuals who received my mailings seldom ordered anything from me, but I knew they had an appreciation for my work and a willingness to tell others about it. If you can identify such people for your mailing list, you will find they are in a position to influence other buyers through their personal recommendations, as well as through the bulletins, newsletters, resource lists, or workshop handouts they may distribute at conferences, seminars, or local networking groups.
Speaking As a Promotional Tool Most of the successful writers I know end up speaking sooner or later and, for many, "back-of-the-room sales" of books and tapes often generate more money than the speaking fee itself. This was never the case for me because I never had more than four books to offer at any one time but, during the years when I was actively speaking professionally, book sales were nonetheless profitable. My speaking engagements fell into two basic categories:
I encourage all nonfiction writers who are able to travel to branch out by offering workshops because they provide a great way to learn more about your reader-market, build your mailing list, and improve both your speaking techniques and marketing strategies. In the beginning, you may be lucky to get $50 or $100 for a talk or workshop, but as you gain experience and become known in your field, you may be able to command fees of $1500 a day or more. (If you're working within the home-business or crafts industry, it will be difficult to get more money than this, as budgets are always extremely tight. The sky is the limit, however, if you can break into big business conferences.) In Summary I can no longer travel because my husband's health won't allow it and, if the truth be known, I long ago grew weary of the stress involved in traveling, speaking, and selling my own books. After you've done anything for thirty years, it tends to get tiresome (to say the least). Now I am content to merely write full time for the Internet, plan new books, and do editing work if other opportunities present themselves in the future. God willing, I will write some eBooks before I run out of steam, but I no longer have the desire or energy to publish and sell my books by mail. Yet I know I can never stop promoting myself or my books or sales will drop and, in time, they will go out of print. And this is one of the hardest lessons an author has to learn. Publishers traditionally give all new titles (or new editions) a promotional push, but after that, all they do is list the book in their trade catalog. So authors who write a book for a trade publisher and then sit back waiting for their royalty checks to roll in are likely to find their "baby" on the publisher's remainder list within two years.
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