We have always believed that a book is not a book. A book is a foundation in which savvy authors can build an entire business. It is very difficult to get rich selling books…unless you are mega-star author like Tom Clancy or Danielle Stele.

But having a book in bookstore doesn’t mean it’s sold.  The harsh reality is this:   the accomplishment of having a published book in a book store doesn’t guarantee success. 

Why?  It boils down to simple math and location, location, location.  There can be 50,000 titles in any given book store.  Your book could be on the bottom shelf in the very back corner of the store – the worst place.  How will customers even find your book?   Not to mention that you are also competing with 49,999 other titles.

Your book needs a prime location to be easily visible to the highest volume of customer traffic.  The best spot is usually the three or four tables at the front of the store – but that book store real estate is usually already taken by big-name authors such as Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, and comes with a high price tag.  Publishers for such big-name authors pay tens of thousands of dollars to secure those up-front locations, and even then prime location doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. 

Every book store sells books on consignment.  If a book doesn’t sell within 90 days, the bookstore can return it to the publisher without having to make any payment whatsoever. 

More and more bookstores are adding coffee shops and cafes.  This lures visitors to engage in casual reading – but often doesn’t relay into sales.

Then there’s the internet.  In this day and age the internet drives business, with the world of book publishing being no exception since more and more book sales are being transacted online.

So for an author’s book sales to be successful, the author must have a proactive platform for marketing channels.  This platform is a strategic marketing plan that includes identifying the target audience, identifying and delivering the message that the target audience wants to hear, and identifying sales markets that the author already has access to such as church congregations or Rotary International.  This is a critical point to success in order for a book to hold its own in a book store.

Authors must understand the reality of competing with the other titles in a book store.  That’s why a comprehensive, proactive plan for marketing channels that extend beyond bookstores is absolutely essential.  Having your book in a bookstore doesn’t hurt at all – but it’s certainly not the instant answer to success.

In 1996 and 1997 the American Booksellers Association, the Book Industry Study Group, and Publisher’s Weekly, asked adult book purchasers what were the most critical factors for buying books. Most people expect that the top reasons people buy books are book covers, marketing, price, reviews, etc. However, the three answers that stand-out beyond all others are:

(1) The subject of the book

(2) The author’s reputation

(3) The informational content about the book on the inside flaps and the back cover were most critical

AUTHOR SPENDING & ACTIVITIES IN BOOK MARKETING

A survey entitled, “The Business Impact of Writing a Book,” by Wellesley Hills Group gathered information from 200 authors about the impact of book marketing.

For those of you that were not one of our 50 authors or guests from around the globe that descended into Charleston for this year’s Summit, too bad for you…because you missed an intense 2 days of book marketing and money-making information.

Advantage author and internet marketing multimillionaire Tom Antion highlighted the conference by showing attendees how to build a 3 prong attack to making big bucks online.  Those three prongs include website, database and list development, and product development.  Advantage author and Celebrity Lawyer Nick Nanton discussed the principles of his new book, Celebrity Branding You.  Nick gave our audience a step-by-step blueprint to turn themselves into a celebrity.  Advantage author Jim Ziegler taught attendees how to use their book to build a 7-figure consulting business and spent over 1 hour answer questions…and now question was out-of-bounds.  The audience was scared to death when we learned that Jim once gave a radio interview to AMS speaker and radio host Wayne Kelly in his underwear.

Because of popular demand, the 2009 Author Marketing Summit™ is already being planned.   We will be issuing a “Save the Date” reminder next month.