Books are an interesting commodity. Recently even the definition of what makes a book a “book” has been debated with regards to the rise of ebooks and digital media in general. Personally, I consider a book to be a physical product, an ebook to be the digital version of that product, and the words inside to be a story. And the story is the most important part – everything else revolves around that (as it should). Just like most everyone else though, I still tend to use the term “book” to encompass a story in any format…mainly out of habit. But in marketing terms, I think it’s important to distinguish the two.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I’ve been working on a marketing strategy. When I first started publishing my stories, I decided not to put much effort into marketing until I had at least three of them out (because it would be more effective then). Now I have six out, soon to be nine, and I’m also helping a friend publish and promote her work. So a marketing strategy seems smart at this point.

The first thing I’m focusing on is trying to get rid of that “market the cover” mindset. I love my covers, and I think a good cover is very important, but it’s the story I want people to buy. So my first order of business next month will be to look at all of my blurbs and see if I can’t rewrite them to be more enticing if needed. I’ll also be adding short excerpts to all of my sales pages, because while you can download a long sample nearly everywhere, not everyone wants to click (and samples are normally downloaded “to read later”). Adding excerpts to my descriptions means that everyone gets a small sample right then and there, both of my writing and of the story.

I’m also going to post lines from my stories when tweeting/sharing, rather than just titles. A very brief snippet of the work, but hopefully something to entice people to click the link, where they’ll be taken to my web store to read the excerpt and if they choose, download sample chapters.

I’ll be creating some ad campaigns as well, both to post on my sites, and to buy space on other sites for. Banner ads won’t just have the cover/title though, or even just a pithy saying. They’ll have direct quotes from the book, and the cover ads will be the same. I won’t be buying a lot of ad space on author sites though, but rather on forums and sites where my target market hangs out.  

I’m currently revamping my shopping cart – moving to a completely different host and software that will make my store more like the big web stores. Multiple payment options will be available (instead of just paypal), gift certificates, coupon codes, a wish list, pre-orders and one of the really nice things about the new software is that people can post reviews directly to my products on the site.  This shopping cart also has the unique ability to set up a store right in Facebook, and it has agreements with a lot of other sales sites that I’ll be able to post products to right from my own store. So the potential for wider distribution on sites that are *not just for books* is there, and made very easy with this product. All for about $5 more than I’m paying now – a steal, really.

I’ll be playing with formats too – mainly for my ebooks. It’s hard to give an ebook as a gift – a digital gift certificate isn’t really wrappable or fun to watch people open. So I’ll be doing some test marketing with CD cards – business card sized CD’s that will have a label with the cover of the book, and contain book files (several formats) and directions for installing them. Customers will be able to buy these for a slightly higher price than just the standard ebook (just like any software – you want the physical media, you pay a little more), and will then have something they can wrap up for gifting, complete with the author’s signature. They’ll be available in my store as soon as December, and depending on how that goes, I may send them out to local bookstores to see how they’re received.

In keeping with that, I’ll be marketing different formats of books in different places. Next year I’ll have flyers to send out to bookstores featuring print books, and possibly the ebook CD cards. Ebook marketing will remain more online, due to the nature of the format. The new shopping cart software allows me to set wholesale and retail prices, so that book sellers can buy stock directly from me at whatever discount I set, so I’ll be putting that together in an attractive-to-stores cost as well. It’s a beautiful system, really – retailers can order from me, I place the order with CreateSpace and have it shipped directly to them, and the order is filled, with no inventory for me to deal with and about five minutes worth of work. Slightly more work for the CD cards, but they’re small. I think it will be a good system.

Naturally my main strategy is still to keep writing & publishing more books, and I’m really excited about the new Rattles anthologies. But a little marketing at this point may give my sales a nice little boost. We shall see...stay tuned.