The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan: Online and Offline Promotion Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan:

Online and Offline Promotion Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

Stephanie Chandler

Praise for The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan

"As someone who has been writing and promoting nonfiction books for decades, I can tell you that Stephanie Chandler knows what she’s doing. The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan is an essential guide to getting more exposure for you and your books online. This book should be on every author’s bookshelf!"

- Dan Poynter, Author of The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book, www.ParaPublishing.com

Nobody knows internet marketing for authors like Stephanie Chandler! This book is loaded with strategies that will help you sell more books online.

- Brian Jud, Executive Director of SPAN and author of How to Make Real Money Selling Books

Stephanie has been around the ‘book block’ many times in her jam-packed career—one full of big-time risk and reward. She holds nothing back here, sharing the vast wealth of her experience in the nonfiction realm. If publishing nonfiction is your game, this book provides an invaluable success blueprint, from someone who’s done so many things right for a long time. Buy it.

- Peter Bowerman, Author The Well-Fed Writer and The Well-Fed Self-Publisher

"Stephanie Chandler's The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan is chock-full of proven ideas for marketing your books, your program, and yourself. If you're a nonfiction author who really wants to sell books, this is an invaluable resource. Highly recommended."

- Joel Friedlander, www.TheBookDesigner.com

Essential reading for anyone who wants to be a successful writer in the digital age. This is a tremendous guide that will enable you to take advantage of the amazing opportunities for sharing your passion for your work.

- Michael Larsen, Author of How to Write a Book Proposal, co-director of the San Francisco Writers Conference

At last, a book for nonfiction authors written by a savvy business consultant that integrates the dos and don’ts of writing and publishing with credible tips for leveraging your book into opportunities and profits. Filled with concise ideas, tips, examples, personal experiences, and author profiles.

- Roger C. Parker, www.PublishedandProfitable.com

"Stephanie Chandler's new release, The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan, is a bible for the nonfiction author . . . a thorough, logical, step-by-step guide that is priceless in navigating this explosive world of options when it comes to publishing, promotion, and marketing a book. Finally, nonfiction authors have directions of their own, and don't have to hunt amongst all the fiction advice to find guidance that fits their needs. A professional guidebook to walk you through the all-too-many issues involved in getting your book into the hands of readers."

- C. Hope Clark, Editor www.FundsforWriters.com, Author of The Shy Writer Reborn

If you're looking for a checklist to design and carry out a book marketing plan, here it is. Stephanie has provided a great overview for generating book sales.

- John Kremer, Author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books

Copyright © 2013 by Stephanie Chandler. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.

The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan: Online and Offline Promotion Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

By Stephanie Chandler

1. Business & Economics: E-Commerce – Internet Marketing 2. Business & Economics: Marketing – General 3. Business & Economics: Advertising & Promotion

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-935953-54-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-935953-58-6

Cover design by Lewis Agrell

Smashwords Edition

Authority Publishing

11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-413

Gold River, CA 95670

800-877-1097

www.AuthorityPublishing.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the brilliant members of my mastermind group: Karl Palachuk, Jenifer Novak Landers, Patrick Schwerdtfeger, John Armato, Adam Frick, Jason Davis, Jake Romero, Sharon Broughton, and Julie Yarbrough. Everyone should be lucky enough to be part of a mastermind group! It’s my favorite event that I attend each month, and I am eternally grateful for the support, encouragement, friendship, and ideas spawned from this group of immensely talented business owners.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Before the Book is Published (Ideally)

Chapter 1: Build the Foundation

Define Your Goals

Identify Your Target Audience

Build Your Marketing Plan

Build Your Brand as an Authority in Your Field

Set Up Google Alerts

Hire Help

Develop Marketing Collateral

Designate Files for Clips and Victories

Ebooks are Not Optional (and Vice Versa)

How to Land on The New York Times Best Sellers List

Get Big Name Endorsements for Your Book

Trade Associations and Conferences

Author Interview: Dan Poynter

Chapter 2: Launch a Killer Website

Author Websites: How to Make Yours Rock!

Create a Web Sales Page for Your Book

Search Engine Optimization Basics

Why Every Author Needs a Blog

Ways to Increase Blog Traffic and Reader Engagement

How to Add More Content to Your Blog

Write Better Blog Post Titles

Email Marketing for Authors

Author Interview: Patrick Schwerdtfeger

Chapter 3: Social Media Mastery

Twitter Success

Facebook Fans

Promote with Pinterest

LinkedIn Leads

Get Google+

YouTube Video Marketing

Author Interview: Bob Baker

Part 2: Book Launch

Chapter 4: Build Your Launch Plans

Product Launch Promotion Checklist

Ask Your Contacts for Support

Amazon Bestseller Campaigns

Promote with Incentives

Plan Your Launch Party

How to Autograph Books

Author Interview: Michelle Dunn

Chapter 5: Publicity and the Media

What You Need to Know Before You Pitch the Media

Press Releases

How to Build a List of Media Contacts

Pitch the Media Directly

50 Reasons to Contact the Media

Media Training for Authors

Get Found by Media Pros

Contact Internet Media Sources

Virtual Book Tours

Author Interview: Hal Elrod

Chapter 6: Boost Sales on Amazon

Create an Author Central Account

Amazon Pricing and the Used Book Network

Understanding Sales Rank on Amazon

How Amazon Cross-Promotes Books

Search Inside the Book Program

Get More Reviews

Your Amazon Public Profile and Book Reviews

KDP Select

Link Your Print and Kindle Editions Together

How to Give Away Copies of Your Kindle Ebook

Author Interview: Allen Fahden

Part 3: After the Book is Released

Chapter 7: Offline Marketing Tactics

Book Awards Programs

Give Away Copies

Book Signing Events

How to Find Book Reviewers

Write for Print Publications

Run a Group with Meetup.com

Direct Mail Campaigns

Author Interview: Steve Sisgold

Chapter 8: Online Marketing Tactics

Host Your Own Ebook Give-Away (Without Amazon KDP)

Participate in Blog Carnivals

Write for Websites

Promote with Podcasts

Start an Internet Radio Show

Host Webinars and Teleseminars

Online Contests

Paid Advertising

Google Ads

Facebook Ads

Advertising on Twitter and LinkedIn

Author Interview: William Teie

Chapter 9: Professional Speaking

How to Break in to Professional Speaking

Give Great Presentations

Transition to Paid Speaking

Speaker Intake Form

What You Can Learn from TED Speakers

Author Interview: Heidi BK Sloss

Chapter 10: Revenue Generation

Consulting and Coaching

Live Workshops and Training Classes

Webinars, Teleseminars, and Online Events

Certification Programs

Information Products

50 Ways to Transform Content into Information Products

Paid Freelance Writing

Bulk Sales

Smart Phone Apps

Corporate Sponsors

Author Interview: Andrew Rogerson

Resources

About the Author

Introduction

I set out in this world to be a novelist. I have loved writing for as long as I can remember, and when you love to write you often come to believe that you should write the Great American Novel. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that I wasn’t destined to write fiction. I lacked the imagination needed to invent stories, and my initial efforts were downright awful.

Along the way I accidentally discovered that I had a passion for writing nonfiction, which can combine the joys of teaching (something I have also long had a passion for) with the creativity of writing; it involves storytelling based on facts, which for me are a lot easier to produce than figments of my imagination.

I am sharing this with you because my hope is that, as a nonfiction writer, you will develop the same pride and joy that fiction writers experience. I have met so many nonfiction writers over the years who don’t really own their author status or believe that the books they produce have artistic value. Writing nonfiction is a craft that is just as important and creative and powerful as writing fiction. It took me a long time to realize and embrace this reality. Not everyone can produce great fiction, but not everyone can produce great nonfiction, either. You have a skill that few others possess.

Writing a book is something that a reported 80% of people would like to do, but only a small percentage will actually follow that dream through to completion. If you’re reading this book, you’re on that journey. You may not be done with your first manuscript yet, or you may have many books to your credit already. Wherever you are in the writing journey, you are making it happen. You are achieving a dream that exists on so many people’s bucket lists—and that is something to be proud of.

After you celebrate the monumental achievement of writing and publishing a book, you are then faced with the hardest task of all: marketing. My goal in writing this book is to make the challenge ahead of you a little bit easier. Included throughout The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan are tried and true methods for promoting your work. You probably won’t use them all, but you can find and implement the tactics that fit your needs and goals.

At the end of each chapter, I have included an interview with a nonfiction author so that you can also learn from their experiences. No two authors have exactly the same journey, and there is power in learning from each other.

My Author Journey

If you’ve read any of my previous books or you’ve seen me speak at an event, you probably already know about my history. I won’t be offended if you skip ahead to chapter one! For everyone else, following is an overview about how I ended up writing nonfiction, and discovering the path I was supposed to travel, even though it was never really in my plans.

In 2003, I quit my Silicon Valley sales job and opened a 2,800 square-foot new and used bookstore in Sacramento, California. Nearly everyone I knew thought I had lost my mind. I don’t blame them. I swapped a $4 million annual sales quota to sell $4 paperbacks, which doesn’t sound like the smartest decision I’ve ever heard.

I was burnt out on corporate America and ready for a big lifestyle change. As a long-time book lover, I fell for the romantic notion of running a bookstore, and my big master plan was that I would sit in the back office and write novels. And so the store was built from the ground up, shelf by shelf, with 20,000 books put into inventory. I also adopted two fat adult cats from the SPCA, because any bookstore worth visiting should have a store cat.

About six weeks after the store opened, I remember standing at the checkout counter, looking around the store and thinking to myself, Holy crap. What have I done? I didn’t want to run a retail store. There were a million headaches I hadn’t anticipated. After years in software sales, running around from place to place meeting with clients each day, I was suddenly trapped in a building from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days per week. I didn’t enjoy managing minimum wage employees. There were cockroaches visiting from the restaurant next door. There were visits from the occasional homeless person and numerous customers who were weird, unstable, and even threatening. We were also robbed one day, while my toughest-looking, tattooed employee was running the register.

To make matters worse, I had opened the store in a strip mall that didn’t have a lot of street visibility. I spent thousands of dollars on expensive phone book ads, coupon mailers, and other advertising methods that weren’t working at the level I had hoped. I realized I had no choice but to find other marketing methods that produced better results.

I started by learning about search engine optimization (SEO), and was amazed at how easy it was to get the store website to the top of Google search results—and that effort brought in far more shoppers. Then we started selling online and promoting store events online. I reached out to local media and was able to get some big coverage for the store. All of these efforts began to add up, and before I knew it, the store was profitable and I could afford to have a staff keep it running.

While all of this was going on, I decided to start a writer’s group at the store and explore my dream of writing a novel. I began by sharing short stories with the group, and while nobody ever said the words, I could tell my stories weren’t very good. It was a sad day when I realized that I wasn’t meant to write fiction.

Soon my Silicon Valley friends started making the two-hour drive up to Sacramento to see my store in action. Many said that they wanted some of that entrepreneurial spirit to rub off on them. They were frustrated with their jobs, but afraid to take a big leap of faith and do what I did. I will forever be grateful for those visits, emails, and phone calls because it sparked something in me that I wasn’t expecting. It occurred to me that perhaps I could help them realize that there could be life after corporate America.

I had read dozens of business books during the year I spent planning my corporate exodus, yet they were all pretty much the same. None of them addressed some of the real-world issues I faced, like how to negotiate a commercial lease (I scored three months of free rent for my store!), how to create an operations manual, and what was involved in managing employees. I realized that I could follow Toni Morrison’s advice: If there is a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

And so I began writing my first book, which became The Business Startup Checklist and Planning Guide: Seize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams! That year I attended the San Francisco Writer’s Conference, an experience that was a major turning point in my career. I had the opportunity to participate in speed dating with agents, where I sat in front of literary agents for two minutes each and pitched my book. Many requested book proposals, so I returned home and sent them out, eagerly awaiting an offer for a book deal.

But then the rejections followed, most telling me that I didn’t have a platform. I was unclear about what that meant until I received a call on my cell phone one day while I was at the bookstore. It was Michael Larsen, a well-known and respected literary agent in San Francisco. He told me that he liked my work, but that nobody knew who I was. I needed to go out and build a platform, which meant that I should be speaking to thousands of people each year. When I suggested that was like putting the cart before the horse and that I’d get invited to speak once I had a book available, he agreed but said that big publishing houses wanted authors to come to them with a built-in audience. They weren’t in the business of taking risks, so once I had an audience I would be more likely to land a book deal.

I will forever be grateful to Mike Larsen for taking the time to call me that day. He shaped my future in more ways than he will ever know, and he remains a dear friend.

After that call, I had to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to become a road warrior, but I needed to find an audience. Then I realized that I’d had some good success with marketing the bookstore online. Perhaps I could find my audience of readers with a website.

I really had no idea what I was doing, but I decided I’d figure it out as I went along. I quickly launched a website, http://BusinessInfoGuide.com, with the goal of attracting aspiring entrepreneurs. I started writing articles and sharing resources, and the more I wrote, the more traffic the site received. I added a sign-up box for an e-newsletter, and sent the first edition out to a grand total of eight subscribers.

Since I was impatient with the prospect of waiting for a traditional book deal, I decided to self-publish. I hired a custom publishing company to help with the production since I didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with finding contractors, getting bids for printers, and setting up distribution.

I decided to list the book for pre-sale two months before it was in print, and that darn book started selling immediately. That was when I truly began to understand the power of marketing online. I also understood where the big publishers were coming from. If I hadn’t built an audience, my book wouldn’t be selling. I had to go find my readers.

After that, I decided I wanted to sell information products on the site in the form of workbooks and special reports. I looked for a book on how to do so, but couldn’t find one so I studied how other people were selling their products and tried to model their strategies. I listed two products for sale and they began selling immediately. It was truly astounding.

Since nobody had written a book about how to create and sell information products, I set out to write book number two. But by then I had significant website traffic and a growing email list, which meant I had an audience. I wrote a book proposal and sent it to exactly two publishers. About a month later I signed a deal with John Wiley and Sons to publish From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, eBooks, and Information Products.

That book was a game-changer for me because it helped me reach a whole new audience. The book sold well and attracted a bigger following. Before I knew it, I was receiving invitations to speak at events, as well as inquiries about consulting. I suddenly found myself with a whole new career I hadn’t planned on.

Thankfully the bookstore was pretty much running itself by then. I showed up once or twice a week to deal with cash and paychecks, but spent most of my time at my home office, writing, consulting and traveling to speaking engagements.

After that, I scheduled lunch with a literary agent I’d met at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference two years earlier. She wanted to hear about the business book idea I was working on. I brought along a copy of a workbook I was selling from my site called Online Marketing for Authors. I thought some of her clients might be interested in a copy. She thumbed through it while I rambled on about my business book idea, and then she interrupted me and said, I think I can sell this. Are you interested in selling it? It hadn’t even occurred to me, but I agreed. Several weeks later, she brought me a deal from Quill Driver Books, and they renamed the book: The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books. (I still think my previous title was better, but when you sell the rights to your book, you give up all control.)

After that, my agent sold my next book to Career Press: LEAP! 101 Ways to Grow Your Business. In the midst of all of this, I had increasing resentment for the bookstore. It felt like a