I just scanned my bookshelves and found six print book on book marketing and publicity and two more e-books on my Kindle. Which got me thinking (a potentially dangerous thing) — how many such books are readily available? And how many are unique and useful?
My first stop was, of course, at Amazon.com where I did a search on “book marketing publicity” to see what came up.
A list of 427 books. Hmmm… I then narrowed it down to just those categorized as Reference books.
A list of 162 books. Well…how about just those further categorized as Reference books under Publishing & Books?
Still 95 of them. Here’s just the first page of results, using a sort based on relevancy:
- Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking by Steve Weber
- The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist by Patrice-Anne Rutledge
- Book Marketing DeMystified: Enjoy Discovering the Optimal Way to Sell Your Self-Published Book, Practical advice from the inventor of print-on-demand (POD) publishing by Bruce T. Batchelor
- Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers by Brent Sampson and Dan Poynter
- Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing, or How to Publish Books for Profit with Print on Demand by Lightning Source and Book Marketing on Amazon.com by Aaron Shepard
- Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet! by Penny C Sansevieri
- The Complete Guide to Book Marketing by David Cole
- The Complete Guide to Book Publicity by Jodee Blanco
- The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity by Lissa Warren
- Author 101 Bestselling Book Publicity: The Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book–and Yourself by Rick Frishman, Robyn Freedman Spizman, and Mark Steisel
- Grumpy’s Guide to Global Marketing for Books by Carolyn Mordecai and Stephen Adams
- Publicize Your Book (Updated): An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves by Jacqueline Deval
I recognized the names of six of those authors and knew that they are, in fact, known for their marketing and publicity expertise. Maybe the others are as well, but I did not recognize their names…or their book titles. That’s no reflection on the value of the books or their contents.
Three of the books on my physical and electronic shelves are not even on that first page of search results:
- 1001 Ways to Market Your Books (1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers) by John Kremer
- Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers by Shel Horowitz
- Guerrilla Marketing for Writers : 100 Weapons to Help You Sell Your Work by Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and Michael Larsen
What I have found after reading many books on how to market books and how to get publicity for books is that there is a lot of duplication in the recommendations. You can spend a lot of money buying books telling you how to market books.
Sometimes, I think that many of the authors are actually best at telling you how to market books about book marketing. So, herewith are my recommendations about building your own book marketing library:
- Visit the author and/or book website to determine what is covered (often you can download samples)
- Check the books out at your local library to see how much information is presented that you personally are likely to put into practice and whether the writing style works for you
- Read the reviews on Amazon — not just the top three or four on the first page but scan down through all of them to get a feel for what people like and don’t like about them
Finally, don’t limit yourself just to books about marketing and publicity for books. Read a few books that discuss marketing and publicity in more general terms. For example, I’m currently reading Guerilla P.R. 2.0 by Michael Levine, and it’s a fascinating study in effective PR from a guy who has been doing it for decades for celebrities…without spending a lot of money doing so.
Whatever you do, don’t spend so much time reading and researching HOW to market that you don’t have the time or energy to actually DO any marketing. That’s commonly called “analysis paralysis.”
And it can be deadly…at least to your book promotion efforts!
Walt, I find that more and more of anything I read is about marketing. Blind marketing, in fact, where it makes no difference whether the preacher of marketing is talking about marketing books or peaches. It’s just selling ideas about selling. Not something I find appetizing.
As the cowardly lion said: “Ain’t it the truth. Ain’t it the truth.”
When listening to or reading what people say about book marketing, I always stop the find out what books they’ve actually written that are NOT about book marketing. If they’re similar to books I’m marketing and appear successful, I pay more attention.
And if I see one more title that starts out with “guerrilla” anything at all…
I very much enjoyed this column as I have read several of these books. And I also agreed with your admonishment not to spend all one’s time reading about marketing and instead actually do marketing.
Fair disclosure — I’ve only read Chapter 12 of John Kremer’s book (the one about internet marketing). But I have taken a two-day seminar with him (10 million eyeballs) here in LA. His advice is very good.
I love this post!
I have read every book on book marketing, publicity, promotion, and publishing I could get my hands on over the past few years, and before that I was reading anything my publisher shoved at me on mail-order and direct marketing, as dinosaurs are solid-gold for book promotion ideas, once you understand the overall game. Then there are all of the book/marketing websites I have poured over.
You have listed most of the best books, and only a few on the list I would say are questionable, having read every one on your list. Kremmer is by far the best, but the issue is exactly as you have succinctly stated it to be:
Duplication and paralysis stemming from being overwhelmed with information. The few people who truly understand the evolving business model (not the standard operating procedure publishing model most publicists still vehemently cling to).
Sampson (How to Sell Your Book on Amazon) comes closest to a true step-by-step guide, and his podcast series is simply the best book marketing guide–EVER!! (free on iTunes). He of course wants you to publish with his company, but in all fairness he is really not very preachy; and of course he shares his vast knowledge freely, and string-free as well.
There are a few other podcasts relating to publishing and marketing, some okay, some far too rambly, and even a few whiners. We could use a good series of podcasts for authors, but I understand it is a lot of work.
Well, that’s my attention span.