Independent
Authors invest a great deal of time, emotions, and (let’s be honest) money into
their independently published books. Too
often, however, authors fail to reach their target audience and therefore don’t
achieve the sales goals they had hoped they would. Much of this is because authors have difficultly differentiating
between their own personal investment in the book and the desires of the buying
public. Many authors delude themselves
into thinking that if people would “just give me a chance” or “not be
prejudiced” against independent authors then they would sell more books. Some blame “elitists” for “not being
supportive” of independent authors.
But
this attitude is counter-productive and does not take the realities of the
publishing world into account. With
literally millions of reading options available to customers, how can every
author expect customers to give all of them “a chance?”
Yet
customers will give you a chance, if you can get their attention. However getting their attention doesn’t mean
holding up a giant neon sign saying “ME ME ME!” Rather, it means tapping them on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, I
have something YOU will want to see.”
Remember,
there is a difference between asking someone’s opinion of your writing and
asking them to part with their money for the privilege to read it. Readers do not have a moral obligation to
buy your book, regardless of how much you personally love your own
writing. Your job as an author is of
course to tell a great story. But your
job as a publisher is to convince readers that it is a story they want to pay
for. And to do that, you need to
understand the triggers that get people to buy in the first place.
Being
a writer does not automatically make you proficient at marketing. The good news is, you can become proficient
once you understand the motivations of your potential customers. Understanding what motivates a person to buy
will help you focus your marketing and connect with potential readers. Even if your goal is not to make sales but
“just to be read,” understanding what it takes to get someone to open your book
in the first place can increase your readership substantially.
Primary Factors
Need: It sounds obvious, but people buy things
that they need. As a writer, your
immediate response might be, “well, people don’t need to read, so this
doesn’t apply.” You would be
wrong. Need is a funny thing, because
need is relative.
Immediate Need: You are driving along and notice that the
car is almost on empty. You need gas,
and you need it now. At times like
this, folks are inclined to pull into the first gas station they can find,
regardless of brand and price.
Long-Term Need: Your car has gone from getting 30 mpg to 25
mpg, and it seems like every other week you need to make a repair. While not an immediate need, replacing the
car becomes a long-term need. With a
long-term need, potential customers begin to research their options.
Perceived Need: Perceived needs are really wants. The car needs to be replaced, but the
customer wants the new car to have a CD player and side impact air bags. Even though the car being replaced didn’t
have these features, the customer has a perceived need in terms of what the new
car should have.
Unrecognized Need: You’ve narrowed down the type of car you
want. When you get to the dealership,
the salesman shows you a special sensor option that will alert you to obstacles
behind you when backing up. Though
you’ve never thought about it, you realize there are a lot of kids in your
neighborhood and maybe you do need to make sure you don’t back into one.
What
does this have to do with books? Your
job as a publisher is to identify potential needs and use them to reach your
customers.
Example:
Jane
and John Doe have launched their own independent publishing company Doe
Publishing, to market their own books.
Jane has released a book of inspirational poetry, while John has
released a book on home improvements.
Both books are released in April.
How can they create a “need” among potential readers?
Jane
decided to use the Mother’s Day holiday as her “need.”
“This Mother’s Day, why settle
for flowers when you can give mom something as inspirational as she is?”
To the
potential customer, the “need” is that he or she needs to get a gift for
mom. The promo line works at different
levels of need. Jane isn’t just
reminding readers that Mother’s Day is around the corner, but she also creates
a perceived need that it would be a good idea to do something non-traditional
this year for mom.
John
looks a little further ahead to the coming summer to build his “need.”
“Summer is around the
corner. Is your air conditioner
ready? Find out on page 67.”
John
targets the long-term need of the customer to make sure that their air
conditioning unit is ready for summer’s high temperatures. The promotional line implies that the book
can help the reader meet their long-term need.
Want: People buy things they don’t need all the
time. But the question is, why? Wants fall into two categories, proactive
and reactive.
Proactive: Proactive wants are those things directly
associated with the customer’s happiness.
We seek out things that we enjoy or bring us personal satisfaction. Most fiction fills the proactive desires of
the reader. The reader enjoys a certain
genre or style of writing, and they seek it out. Proactive wants are internally motivated based on individual
tastes and desires.
Reactive: Reactive wants are those things indirectly
associated with the customer’s happiness.
Often, reactive wants are externally motivated. Everyone else is reading X, therefore I
should be reading X. Reactive desires
are often associated with a feeling of belonging or prestige. When a customer seeks to meet a reactive
want, he or she is often trying to fulfill what they see as a shortcoming. Self-help books are often reactive
purchases. People that are happy with
their weight don’t buy diet books, after all.
So how do these two types of wants come into play? Let’s think about how larger companies use
these two types of wants in their marketing.
WalMart’s slogan, “Save Money.
Live Better” is a perfect example.
It plays to both types of wants.
Save Money is a proactive want. Everyone wants to save money. Even people who have a lot of money like to
save money. But look at the second part. Live Better. This is a reactive want pitch. The implication is that you aren’t living as
well as you could be, but that WalMart can help you to achieve that goal.
But how does this relate to books? You can use both types of wants to craft marketing material for
your book.
Example:
After
the success of their first books, Jane and John decide it might be fun (and
profitable) to put together a cookbook.
Both enjoy cooking, so they put together their favorite gourmet recipes,
but slightly altered to be prepared on a budget.
Don’t let the recession
stop you from enjoying delicious meals!
Turn your kitchen into a gourmet restaurant with this collection of
thirty recipes that taste expensive, but aren’t.
The ad
targets proactive customers. People
that enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes, but also have concerns
about the economy.
Just because your food
budget is tight doesn’t mean your holiday guests need to think you are.
The
promotional line sends a clear message to reactive buyers that might be
concerned about how their holiday guests perceive them. For people concerned about “Keeping up with
the Jones’s,” this type of advertising can be a powerful message.
Secondary
Factors
Affordability: If you are targeting a customer base with no
income, creating all the need and desire in the world won’t make any
sales. While it sounds simple, authors
often overlook the affordability factor.
Because affordability doesn’t just mean whether or not a customer has
cash on hand to buy something.
Affordability includes perceived affordability as well as actual
affordability.
Perceived affordability is how easily the consumer can see
themselves buying an item. It’s not
just what they CAN spend, but what they can envision themselves being willing
to spend.
Consider, for example, where you direct your customers in your
marketing. If you are using a service
such as Lulu.com or Createspace.com, your immediate desire may be to direct the
customers to your personal storefront so they can buy direct from the
printer. After all, your profit per
book would be higher if people bought directly from your storefront than if
they bought from Amazon, right?
But while this might increase your profit per book, it can
lower overall revenue. Why? Because of the perceived affordability of
your book. Suppose your book sells for
$13.99 from your storefront. Many
print-on-demand services have high shipping costs. Your potential customer may end up with a shipping cost of $4-$6
on a $13.99 book. The customer balks,
because of the perceived unaffordability of the book when the shipping fees are
included.
A Customer directed to Amazon.com or a similar vendor will
often find much lower shipping prices, and often free shipping. The perceived affordability of the book goes
up, encouraging the customer to purchase.
Anything that can affect the final price of your book should be
taken into consideration when looking at your distribution options. While shipping costs may not be a deal
breaker in and of themselves, combined with problems with Convenience (to be
discussed momentarily) it can cost you sales.
Sales, coupons, and discounts are all ways of creating the
perception of affordability. Anything
that leads a customer to think she is getting a deal increases the
affordability factor of your work.
Example:
Doe
Publishing has set up its own website, and is selling copies of their books
online using Paypal. They want to
entice buyers to buy directly from them in order to increase their profits. They are handling all of the shipping
themselves for now, and can’t afford to offer free shipping.
Jane
decides that they will provide each customer with a free bonus PDF. The free bonus PDF, while costing little
more than Jane’s time to prepare, adds to the perceived affordability of buying
the book directly from the site, because the customer is getting additional
recipes for free.
Order your copy of Gourmet
Cooking on a Budget today, and start cooking tonight! When you order your
copy of Gourmet Cooking on a Budget, we’ll send you a free bonus PDF
with three free recipes that don’t appear in the book! You can download the PDF and use these
wonderful recipes immediately.
Convenience: It’s the dirty little secret of
marketing. Customers are lazy. Customers are easily distracted by the
thousands of messages they are inundated with, and if they have to jump through
hoops to buy your product they may give up and turn their attention
elsewhere. By the same token, if you
make it easy for them to buy, customers will often buy items they would not
normally even consider. Companies spend
millions of dollars on in store marketing displays and point-of-purchase
advertising to make it as easy as possible for a customer to see, touch, and
buy their products.
On the internet, many sites have moved to make the shopping
experience as quick and easy as possible.
“One-click” shopping, in which customers can store their address,
shipping, and payment preferences, is found on almost all of the major retail
sites. Offering more options to make
things easy for the customer increases the chance of a sale.
As an independent author, you need to keep convenience under
consideration. Sure, you would prefer
customers mail you a check or money order to buy your book so you can avoid
Paypal or credit card fees, but how many sales will you lose if you refuse to
take Paypal and expect customers to write you a check, mail it to you manually,
and then sit around waiting for their order?
The more options you offer your customers, the better the
chance they will make a purchase.
Emotional Investment: Engaging potential customers on a personal
level encourages them to buy from you.
People like to do business with people they like. The reason companies like Avon, Mary Kay,
and Tupperware thrive regardless of the economy is that they have mastered the
art of encouraging the emotional investment by the customer. Tupperware parties encourage a personal
connection between the customer and the seller. And once that connection is created, it becomes very easy to get
a customer to open his or her wallet.
Building that emotional investment is crucial to independent
authors. Once a customer becomes
emotionally invested in a product, they are not only more likely to buy it, but
to encourage others to do the same.
The key to building an emotional investment, however, is to
focus on the customer. Social
networking sites, forums, and even community events are great ways to build an
emotional investment. However, the
critical mistake many self-publishing authors make in their social networking
is to focus on themselves and dismiss the emotional needs of their
readers.
Example:
Jane
and John join a social networking site to promote their company. Most of their initial posts talk about their
new books. While they generate some
interest, the site doesn’t seem to be drawing a lot of traffic to their
company.
After
getting more comfortable with the site, Jane posts an article on what its like
to run a business with her husband, and asks other readers to chime in with
their stories. The article gets a lot
of attention as other members jump in to the conversation about their
family-run businesses. The attention
converts to hits to Doe Publishing’s website as readers want to look for more
information.
Often referred to
as “soft selling,” the indirect approach makes people more emotionally invested
in what you are doing. The more a
potential customer interacts with you, the more likely they are to buy.
Some ways to
build an emotional investment:
Cause-Based
Marketing: Have a favorite charity? Why not support it? Many
charities have forums or social arms that allow for both direct and virtual
networking. Not only will you feel
better by helping a cause you believe in, you’ll make others feel good about
doing business with you. People tend to
want to support those that support things that are important to them.
Newsletter: Build a mailing list, and create a regular
newsletter. The newsletter shouldn’t be
merely ad copy (though obviously you should include some). Make sure to give the readers a reason to
want to get the newsletter. If you
publish do-it-yourself manuals, each issue could include free advice on various
household repairs. If you publish
fiction, each issue could include book reviews of other books you have read or
even reprints of classic public domain stories.
Reader-provided
web content: Allowing your
readers to be involved in your site is a great way to build their investment in
your work. Dedicate a portion of your
website for your readers. If you write
children’s books, maybe you invite readers to submit illustrations drawn by
their children to post on the site. If
you write cookbooks, ask for reader recipes.
Provide a forum for readers to interact with each other if
possible.
Social
Networking: While it is
impractical to try to have a meaningful presence of every social networking
site, select one or two and become an active member. That means not only talking about yourself, but showing interest
in others as well.
Value: Lastly, people buy items in which they see
an inherent value. That value may be a
practical value, such as buying an item that will help save money. Or it might be an intrinsic value, such as
buying a collector’s edition of a beloved classic. Building value in your work increases the chances of someone
spending money on it.
For independent authors, much of the work in building value
comes during the production of the book.
Is the cover attractive? Is the
format consistent with the reader’s expectations? A shoddy cover or sloppy formatting decreases the value of your
book. If your book looks like it was
thrown together in a hurry, the reader will feel you placed no value in
it. And if you as the author don’t
value your work, why should the reader?
Pricing also is an issue.
If you price your book too high, then you risk losing the affordability
factor. However, you can also price
your work too low and in the process devalue it. Keep in mind the norms of the genre when pricing your book. You are not selling a commodity like rice or
oil. You are selling a unique
vision. You don’t benefit by
undercutting the competition.
Do the research and look at the pricing norms of your
industry. While fiction paperbacks
generally fall under $20, technical manuals can commonly sell for over
$60. If the norm for your industry is
$60, you don’t benefit by selling your book for $30. In fact, you can hurt sales by positioning your book as “cut-rate”
and therefore devalue it.
Testimonials and book reviews can also build value in your
book. But the perceived quality of the
testimonial or review is much more important than the quantity. For example, which testimonial would hold
more value to you if you were in the market for a cookbook?
I love this
cookbook! I use it all the time and the
recipes are tasty! Everyone should buy
this book!
Kathy C., Dallas, TX.
Or
The recipes in this
cookbook will bring out the gourmet chef in even the casual cook. Prepare delicious meals for a fraction of
the cost of dining out. I hope this
doesn’t cut into my business!
Kathleen Cardelli, owner of Cardelli’s Restaurant, Dallas,
TX.
The
first testimonial is an anonymous quote.
As a reader, you don’t know if this is a professional reviewer, a casual
food buff, or a friend of the author!
The second testimonial is crystal clear in its source, and does more to
build the inherent value of the book.
Sometimes
in a misguided effort to just generate as many reviews as possible, authors
solicit reviews from sources that either have no real value or that might bring
down the value of your work depending on your target audience.
Consider the following review:
This is
a really good book if you like good stories with great characters you will love
this book just like I did. The plot
will keep you guessing non-stop and you will be surprised by the ending because
it is a complete surprise. I couldn’t
put this book down and you won’t either!
Leah
Paynes, Payne’s Reviews.
If I told you this was a review for a young adult mass market
title, would this review add value to the book? Among the target audience, most likely. If I told you this was a review for a literary historical novel,
would this review add value to the book?
Among a literary target market, definitely not. The expectations of value between the two
audiences are different, and therefore while the review can increase the value
of one type of book, it can actually decrease the value of other.
Another means of building value is success, or rather, the perception
of success. When you see a book
promotion that says ONE MILLION COPIES IN PRINT!, why do you think that
declaration would be important? The
inference is that the book is successful, and therefore has greater inherent
value.
Creating value in this manner takes a
long-term effort and requires the author to really focus on his or her
credentials. In some ways, the author
must present herself as an “expert” in her field. Writing articles for local newspapers and magazines, making
appearances at book fairs and conventions (and announcing them on your site),
celebrating even small victories (regional awards, nominations, etc) builds up
the overall value of your work.
Creating the perception of success also involves taking into
account your own language. Are you a
self-publishing author that was rejected by traditional publishers for years
and decided to do it yourself? Or are
you an independent author with years of writing experience that launched his or
her own company? Both statements may be
technically true, but the first statement creates the impression of a no-talent
hack. The second statement, however,
creates the perception of success.
