Books Debbie Macomber
MJ Rose – Author and Book Marketer by Gumbowriters
MJ Rose is the international bestselling author of 10 novels. She has also written non-fiction including How to Publish and Promote Online.
What successful authors are you proud to have you worked with that really work just as hard as you to build their audience?
This is tough because I’m not allowed to disclose all the authors I do work with but some who I have worked with (and several of whom either were friends or have become friends) are listed below. In some cases they’ve hired me – in other cases their publisher’s have.
Doug Clegg, Carla Neggers, Lisa Tucker, Linda Fairstein, David Morrell, Steve Berry, Debbie Macomber, Linda Lael Miller, Barry Eisler, Susan Mallery, Heather Grahm, Joshua Henkin, Robert Alexander… the list could go on and on – but this group proves – all kinds of authors at all different points in their careers. These days most authors are working to build their audiences even when their audiences are already huge.
We all know that there are no guarantees when pitching to the media but what are a few things you’ve seen that really peak a journalist interest in covering a novelist?
I’m not a publicist – I do marketing. What’s the difference? I pay for placement of ads and letters from the author to the people who buy and sell their books. I do come up with ideas for how authors can position themselves and how they can do outreach to readers. But that’s still not PR, which is pitching the media for stories.
In PR you pay for a publicist to make an effort to get you press.
With Marketing you pay a marketer to come up with a great way to sell the book and buy the space in print or online to run ads/notices/notes etc.
When it comes to pitching the media – the media is not all that interested in novelists unless there is really NEWS with a capital N or its a local story. The media really wants Branjelina – not us writers who no one had ever heard of. Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, R.L. Stein and David Baldacci don’t get as much press in a year together as a mediocre reality show TV star gets in a week.
So authors need to be very careful not to spend their whole budget on PR – which is publicists trying to pitch the media – because all too often the media doesn’t bite no matter how good the publicist and then the authors has paid for huge effort and no results.
I tell authors to at least split their budget between PR and marketing. With what I do at Authorbuzz.com there’s no paying for effort – you are paying for ads and letters going to readers, librarians, booksellers, book club members et. If you buy the service, the ads show up.
Also I tell all authors you must, must, must get recommendations before you hire anyone – from at least one author you’ve heard of or look at a legit client list and make sure it’s current. I know far too many authors who spent small fortunes with people they never checked out.
What things have you seen successful authors do to build their audience besides the typical bookmarks, etc.?
Bookmarks are not even something I suggest. Not postcards either. It’s all noise and a waste of paper really. You need to have a plan and work with some experts on getting hundreds of thousands of potential readers info about the book and the chance to read an excerpt.
Books are like cars – unless you’ve driven that model before you need to test-drive it before you buy it. Meaning. Most people buy books from authors they’ve read before or after picking up a book in a store and reading a few pages or after someone who you know has your taste tell you how great it is.
So what you have to do is reach out to thousands so when they walk in the store they see your book and think – hey I heard of that! And pick it up. Or when they see the 10th interview or review of the book on line they say – this book is everywhere and click over to an online store to read a few pages.
Authors can’t just wait for people to find their websites. No one wakes up in the morning and says today I am going to find an author I have never heard of who has written a book I never heard of and go to his website. You can’t do in reach marketing – waiting for them to find you at your site – you need to go to where they are – where potential readers are.
The tough part of that is that few readers go to book sites/blogs etc. Most people who read just browse in stores. In fact 67% of all people who buy books say they don’t know what they are going to buy before they walk in the store. So you better make sure when they are in the store they’ve heard of your book and seen the cover so it looks familiar.
That’s one of the reasons I love ads on line – cheap and can reach millions for a fraction of the cost of ads in print media or TV. I can do a huge campaign for an author for $6000 – so that over 2 million people will see the book cover and be exposed to an ad three times each. For that amount you can’t even buy the smallest ad at the New York Times – which goes to half that number of people only once – and no one remembers anything they only see once.
About the Author
This article is courtesy of http://www.gumbowriters.com
Author Debbie Macomber discusses her writing and the Cedar Cove series
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