In his article “Four Reasons Why You Must Take Responsibility for Your Own Marketing,” Michael Hyatt explained: “No one knows your book better than you. I often hear authors complain all the time, “My publisher’s marketing director hasn’t even read my book.” Yes, no one is more passionate about your product than you.
No one is likely to do it if you don’t. I wish this weren’t the case, but for 95 percent of all authors, it is. Sure, a traditional publisher will deploy a standard set of marketing activities. But these are generally not enough to get your book noticed—especially in a world where more than one million new book titles are published every year. Marketing directors and publicists generally don’t have the time and resources necessary to make your book a success.”
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Literary Agent Rachelle Gardener has a long list (more of a wish-list) what marketing efforts big trade publishers do – more often only for bestselling authors. When negotiating (hopefully you do!) a publishing contract ask to include this steps into your contract. After all, it is the minimum a publisher should do for every author. Here is the list: https://rachellegardner.com/do-publishers-market-books/
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Most Trade Publishers Hold Author’s Promotion Back
The only part in a publishing contracts states who is obligated to promote a book is: the writer. The publisher can opt out of promotion at any point. As if publishers know how to promote books in the first place… Often they are not even able to set up an attractive sales or author page at retailers websites. Check out the sales pages and missing pages of bestselling authors.
The world’s largest trade publishers don’t train their staff or employ marketing specialists to do this for their “money makers”, let alone their B-list authors. Yes, Publishers have deep pockets, but they don’t know how to invest in effective advertising or how to sell books to readers. No, not to bookstores – to readers.
Another example of how unprofessional publishing companies are handling the book promotion and sales pages of their authors at online retailers can be found in two of my recent blogs:
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/test-yourself-how-professional-are-you-publishing-part-1/
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/2nd-part-of-test-yourself-how-professional-are-you-publishing/
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“Published” Authors Have Their Promotions Restrained
As the book world and social media has changed, publishers haven’t changed their marketing strategies one bit. For an empty promise – not even backed up in the contract – a writer will lose control of her intellectual property. And equally important: lose the ability to participate in all of the various ways that books actually do sell to readers. For example, book bundles often sell thousands of copies. However, “bundling” does not work with mainstream publishers—in part because of contractual issues.
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Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote in one of her articles:
“No traditional publisher will let you put your book in a 99-cent ebook bundle with other writers on, say, Amazon, not even for a limited time. Because that means the traditional publisher would have to partner with its competitors. The traditional publisher won’t allow it for a $50 ebook bundle either. Nor will most traditional publishers bundle the books in your series together. The traditional publishers publish once and then move on to the next book. Any promotions, any rejiggering of the book itself, will not happen.”
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Publishers have been getting a bad rap lately (in many cases well deserved) about marketing books. Ultimately, unless books are sold to readers, nobody wins.
The best advice for writers is to create content, such as blog articles and sell them to magazines and newspapers or write guest blogs. Sometimes authors can even make more money with writing newspaper and magazine articles. So, why not doing what you like best: WRITING – and at the same time market your books with writing – and earn money – more then you might get for your published book?
Read more:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/smart-authors-get-paid-for-marketing-their-books/
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/how-smart-writers-write-to-market-their-books/
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