Tag: marketing

Truth or Consequences: It’s Not Just a Town in New Mexico Any More

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: New Mexico window]Traffic is down here at Someday Box. We aren’t surprised, Best Beloved and I. The reposts from Finding Why and Business Heretics. Excerpts. Links to hither and yon.

Being the needy angsty type, my first impulse is to ask how I can make you love me more. The Dylan poster on my wall says it doesn’t matter who loves you as long as you love you.

Most of you show up on Friday, after the newsletter goes out. The in-between posts get less love, maybe because they’re not fresh. Maybe because the titles aren’t compelling. Maybe because they’re about someone else instead of me, and you’re all slavering and lusting for more me, less them.

Maybe I should have my head examined.

Truth is, there are consequences to change.

… more … “Truth or Consequences: It’s Not Just a Town in New Mexico Any More”

You Are What You Measure

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Reading Callie’s thoughts at Steven Pressfield’s blog a while back raised some marketing questions in my head.

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1261292 by Miguel Saavedra http://www.sxc.hu/profile/saavem” width=”222″ height=”259″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-3343]Which are you more interested in:

  • number of books sold or number of new fans?
  • number of words written or percentage of days you write something rather than nothing?
  • page views for your blog, or posts you’re proud of?

It’s good business to keep track of statistics.

It’s human nature to pay more attention to what’s easy to count instead of what’s hard to count.

It’s not always obvious that what matters to your business (you know, selling books as your own publisher?) is hard to count.

… more … “You Are What You Measure”

Everything You Need to Know About Self-Publishing & Marketing and I Didn’t Write It

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

This is the book you were looking for.

Write. Publish. Repeat. is the book I was writing, in fact. Except I didn’t write it. A couple even more experienced and successful guys beat me to the punch.

Barring my note below, this is the book I was writing. Mine was going to be called Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors.

Try as I might, I can’t find a reason to invest the time and creative energy into duplicating a book that already exists.

… more … “Everything You Need to Know About Self-Publishing & Marketing and I Didn’t Write It”

Making Progress on My Marketing Book

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1016743 by Hazel Bregazzi http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Hbregazzi” width=”187″ height=”274″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2741]In two days we have transmogrified three-quarters of a page of notes into nearly nine-thousand words, making up the first two chapters of Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors.

It’s going to be a real push to launch the book on January 1st as I had hoped.

I’m not certain I’m going to make it. I am certain I’m still going to try.

Books are 99% Commodity — Sell the Other 1%

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

There are more books than you could read in a hundred years, even if that’s all you ever did. In a way, books are a commodity.

The firehose-stream of new books, both independent and traditionally published, makes individual books even harder to distinguish. Your only hope of being found is to focus relentlessly on the 1% which makes your book unique.

I’m not suggesting that you find a way to convince people that your book is unlike anything which has ever come before. If you’ve written a murder mystery, your book is 99% like every murder mystery since Poe invented the genre. If your book is a historical romance, ditto.

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1115981 by meral akbulut http://www.sxc.hu/profile/merala” width=”440″ height=”158″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-2710]

… more … “Books are 99% Commodity — Sell the Other 1%”

Is Theory Enough?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I’ve studied humanistic marketing methods extensively during the past decade. What I’ve learned changed my life, not just my business.

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1024629 by Mikhail Lavrenov http://www.sxc.hu/profile/MikLav” width=”440″ height=”283″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-2280]

In 2006 the company I worked for shut down, just as my Best Beloved came home from 4 months in the hospital after a near-death experience. After struggling for 4 years we gave up the home we were renting in order to house-sit, in part because we could no longer afford to pay rent and utilities. From that poverty, we’ve come to making a decent living in 2013. I’ll define “decent living” — we pay all our bills on time these days, we’re celebrating our 10th anniversary with a loooong weekend in a bed and breakfast on the coast of Lake Michigan, and we’re planning a 3-month trip to Ireland some time in the next 18 months.

We don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, but we’re no longer poor, even by my humble standards.

Here’s what I haven’t done yet: applied that marketing expertise to selling my own books.

… more … “Is Theory Enough?”

Advertising Only Amplifies Visibility

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

When Walter Danley signed up for my newsletter, as is my custom I sent him a personal welcome. I asked Walter if he had any specific questions he’d like to see answered.

Hey Joel;

In response to your query, I have two issues I’d like answers to.

  1. If I found a short cut to the promotion of the book, I could finish one of the two WIP that need me.
  2. Does paid advertising work, and if so, how would you measure the ROI?

Now, Joel, I read your comments about advice being free if it’s in your head. Please don’t do a ton of research on these questions!

Walter

I’ll answer #2 right now: advertising amplifies visibility.

… more … “Advertising Only Amplifies Visibility”

Will This Book Be Right for You?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Most authors think marketing is a scary deep dark hole. I think it’s filled with rainbows and possibly unicorns, so I’m writing a book to see if you can learn to be as goofy about it as I am.

[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/857803 by Jose Bernalte http://www.mrkstudios.com/” width=”440″ height=”197″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-2169]

You’ll be disappointed to find that Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors will not be a step by step marketing guide. Like all my books it’s a why to rather than a how to.

But it will include lots of information like

… more … “Will This Book Be Right for You?”