How can you make the book you’ve written work for your business?
11 January 2016 by Richard Burton in Book publishing, Business and finance, Publishing for business
Over the years Infinite Ideas has published dozens of books with businesses and the research we’ve done shows that a printed book is a unique promotional tool. We found that out of ten thousand consultants in the UK 72% of respondents claimed that as a result of being published recognition of their brand increased; nearly 60% claimed that they picked up more speaking events after being published and 65% stated that being published gained them more clients. That’s quite compelling, and it supports some of our own anecdotal evidence. One Infinite Ideas author gained a six figure consulting contract as a result of his book being bought at an airport bookshop; another ended up as a speaker at the World Economic Forum at Davos two years in succession.
Many authors think that writing their book is hard work but soon find that writing is the easy part! There’s no point putting all those evening and weekend shifts in on your book if you then fail to work it to increase sales and brand awareness, and that requires a degree of diligence and innovation. Your publisher will (or should) work hard to secure presence in bookshops and generate media coverage but can do very little to access the constituency that has already bought into your brand – your clients, audiences and followers. So here are some tips for maximizing the impact of your book.
- Send a signed complimentary copy with a personal, handwritten letter to all your clients and prospects. Explain why you have written the book and how you think it will help them specifically. Individualize each letter as far as you can. Writing it by hand rather than typing strengthens the impression that you have taken the time to think about the person who is reading it and their business or professional needs. Nobody gets excited by a generic template.
- Send a copy to each of your media contacts with a note pointing out aspects of the book that you think are newsworthy. In a recent survey 32% of people said they bought a book because they were influenced by reviews in newspapers, magazines and online, so you can’t afford to ignore it. Once again, your publisher should be working the media but you will need to fill in the gaps. So find out what they are doing and work with their PR to generate maximum exposure. Journalists get hundreds of approaches a week so yours needs to stand out and there’s no better way of doing that than by personal contact. If you don’t have any media contacts ask friends and colleagues for theirs and use their names (with their permission) in the subject box of your emails.
- If you’re not already on the speaking circuit now’s the time to start. Speaking engagements are a priceless channel for selling your book. Ideally you should build a free copy for each delegate into the fee you get for the event. If that’s not possible take some books to sell (and make sure you have a facility for taking payment). At the very least you should have some fliers available that give your audience details of your latest book, preferably with a discount. If you have impressed your audience many will want a souvenir of the event and what could firm up your relationship with these potential new clients better than a signed copy of your book.
- Social media is (are) vital. Start promoting your book a few months prior to publication on Facebook and Twitter and encourage as many people as possible to become fans and share your book in their networks. These are more fun social networks and designed to give instant gratification. To stay relevant create a hashtag that is unique to your brand and use it every time you post a tweet or an update. This should develop momentum and you will be able to monitor whether people are responding to your contributions. You should also explore Tumblr and Pinterest which are particularly good at being visually stimulating and easily shared. Make sure the pictures you associate with your brand and your book are relevant to the content, otherwise you may end up with the wrong types of followers, those who are not likely to benefit from reading your content. It’s good to link your posts to what is currently trending, but always link back to why that is relevant to your book.
If your book is designed to promote your business you must engage fully with LinkedIn, which is an essential networking tool. Join groups on LinkedIn that relate to your business. It is an excellent space to share newsworthy items that can help with careers, and members are likely to respond if you write a blog post and share it (always with a link to your book at the end). Promote thoughtful content that gets people to engage with the ideas in your book and engages them in discussion. Reach out to people who you think could endorse your book, such as leaders in your particular field, or an author of a competing title. You don’t get any medals for wanting to do all of this alone.
There’s much more that you can do of course, and I’ll be returning to this subject with more techniques to market your work. Meanwhile we have written two books which are available free on www.infideas.com
Get published: A first-time writer’s guide to publishing
Guerrilla tactics for marketing and selling your book
We love to talk to authors about their books. If you want to have an informal chat, feel free to email us at info@infideas.com to see how we can help you out.