Successful authors need three things:
A book
Buyers
Marketing
A book is the obvious. Without a book you have nothing to sell. Without something to sell you can't make money.
Next, buyers; lots of buyers. This is again very obvious but for some reason many authors don't put much thought at all into how they will find buyers or the buyers will find them. They seem to think the book is simply going to sell. Not so. Virtually any author needs to have a hand in connecting book with buyers.
This is where marketing comes in. To attract lots of buyers you absolutely must market. Yet, a huge question is. “Where do you put your time, money and energy?”
The fact is you absolutely must put time into marketing. There’s no getting around it. If you are the person doing the marketing you will have to hire someone to do it for you. Finding the right “someone” can be tricky and that’s for a different discussion.
If you are strapped for time, money and knowledge here’s the best way to get started. Do a Google search for free resources on social media marketing. General information can take you a long way in your knowledge level.
I can hear some men and women saying, “I can’t measure ROI with social media marketing.” Not everything has an immediate ROI, yet for the majority of authors social media marketing is critical to your overall marketing.
Let’s assume you found some great resources for marketing with social media. The next challenge is finding time to study the information. Here’s where absolute honesty comes in.
Many authors will defend their position about lack of time. With a careful analysis of how we spend our time it can often be shocking to see how much waste we have.
How much television do you watch? How much time do you spend with personal calls during your workday? How often do you get sidetracked from one project to another? All of this needs to be taken into consideration. Can any of these activities be curtailed and replaced with marketing time?
To assure time to market, schedule a small block of time for marketing into your daily activities. That’s right, schedule it in.
Years ago I attended a marketing seminar where one of the speakers gave a tip that forever changed the way I do business.
He said, “Take the first hour of the day to monetize your business.” I say, “Take the first hour of your day to market you and your books.”
When the desire for an outcome is greater than the reasons not to do something we DO make the necessary adjustments. In other words, when the desire to sell books is greater than the reasons you can’t market you will make the necessary adjustments.
Kathleen Gage: Receive Power Profits 101: Must-Dos in Marketing
to Make More Money This Month Than Your Entire Last Year! FREE video http://www.powerupforprofits.com/
Kathleen works with consciously focused speakers, authors, coaches and consultants helping them to build six figure businesses by packaging their knowledge so they can reach more of their market, impact positive change and create multiple streams of revenue.