Marketing Is Important

By C. LaRene Hall

I spent this last weekend at the Homestead attending the LUW Conference. As always, when I attend these things I always come away with a resolve to do better.

Since I recently had a book published, I was really interested in the marketing workshops. There was one taught by Richard Paul Evans and another one by Jill Vanderwood. They were both exceptional and taught me many new ideas.

Mr. Evans gave us some ideas on – How do you know if you have the right product?
1. Is there an audience?
2. Is that audience big enough to provide success?
3. Who is going to purchase the book?
4. Can you create perpetual motion? Marketing is the starter engine in the car.
5. Does it fulfill a need?
6. What is it about your book that sells it? Find it – crack the code.
7. Find out what your unique proposition is. You keep looking until you find what it is.

He also told us that we should take prisoners – names of everyone – a mailing list. Have an emailing list. Send out newsletters. Join mailing list. It was a good class.

I didn’t get to take notes during Jill’s presentation because I was busy taking a video for her. Because she is a dear friend, I have seen first-hand the many things she does to promote her book. I’ve attended the book parties that she has held. She always goes the second mile, and gets organizations involved by doing fundraisers. During the class she handed out a couple of valuable handouts.

After your book is published, here are some suggestions from her:
1. Send out press releases.
2. Have a charity event.
3. Plan your book interview
4. Plan your book trailer
5. Send out review copies
6. Join a PR Network
7. Continue to send out articles
8. Continue to blog
9. Spend time reviewing books/movies
10. Arrange speaking engagements
11. Enter your book in contests
12. Arrange an interview with the media

For those of you who didn’t read my blog last week take a look on clhall.blogspot.com. Jill actually did a leap for Literacy to raise money for their program. Jill has taught me lots about marketing.