Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: September 03, 2017 12:44AM
[NOTE: Important addition to this post now newly added to the end of this post.]
If your intent is to get your book professionally published, then you need to determine several things:
l) Who, EXACTLY, is your target audience?
2) How do you see your book being marketed to this particular target audience? How do you/the publisher reach THEM? How do you motivate THEM to actually buy your book?
What marketing venues would work as marketing venues for THEM? What do the main demos you are marketing to have in common (besides Mormonism)? What publications in common do they read? What TV shows, or stations, or newspapers, or radio/TV/web talk shows (etc.) would likely promote your book to your key demos, and would actually REACH potential buyers in your key demos?
Would you have to, in essence, create a "parallel" marketing plan to what would be used if you were writing a pro-Mormonism/pro-LDS book? (Because, of course, any of the newspapers, TV stations, etc. which are owned by either the Mormon church, or by people/companies which are pro-Mormon, would be unlikely to feature your book since it would work against their interests...so how can you turn this reality around, in ways that would benefit you and your book?)
How much marketing (by any definition: message boards, blogs, etc.) would be possible on the web? Specifically: what would be your main web marketing goals, and are these venues open [enough] to you so that you could use them?
Could you use Mormon-owned, or Mormon-positive, marketing venues for NEGATIVE publicity which would have the practical, real life effect of promoting interest in YOUR book? (Negative publicity, properly utilized, can be a powerful marketing tool all by itself.)
How could you best pre-slant the content of your book to reach specific marketing demographic sub-groups--as an example: you might write a section, or plural sections, in your book which could be marketed specifically to (perhaps) women/mothers/people in general who have been victimized by religious groups (JWs, fringe evangelical groups, etc.)?
And, one way or another, if this is a commercial effort, you need to be reading PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY and noting how books of your general nature are promoted. (Your personal story of which might even be a real possibility for PW itself, once your book is close to its release date. I can see how PW might be interested in a feature article, highlighting you and your background and your book, about how "anti"-specific-religions true stories can be written and marketed in real life, including how you yourself developed the marketing plan I have been talking about in this post. This information might be of great value to book writers of any religion which has a solid marketing potential audience of EX-members: JWs...Catholics...Seventh Day Adventists...ultra-Orthodox Jews, etc.)
In the twenty-first century, successful books are often written with detailed marketing plans FIRST, and the reason for this is:
Any mainstream publisher is going to be thinking: How many copies of this can I sell at full price? How many copies are likely to be remaindered?
Are the major book chains likely to buy this for their stores?
Is this something that "we" (meaning: the PUBLISHER) can use to get publicity which will benefit OUR name recognition?
Can this author of this book create the kind of interest which will bring readers into book stores to hear [his] words of wisdom, and get [his] signature on the copies, and perhaps even broaden his potential market enough to interest the general public (people who have no interest in Mormonism, but are interested in the human story)?
Because: a great, and publishable, finished manuscript is only about half of "the" job you are undertaking.
The other "half" (getting the right publisher; the right agent; the right editor; the right p.r.) is mostly successful marketing which, in today's publishing world, is largely YOUR job...and it will be YOUR job (not the publisher's) until you have established a record of earned success that other people will be attracted to, and will want to take legitimate advantage of, in their own quest for their own continued success.
P.S. In addition to, and separate from, all of the above: include in your marketing plans a parallel group of marketing possibilities that you can potentially utilize through your advantage as a local author. If I remember correctly, you live in a highly-literate, and a very high book-buying, part of the country, which means that local media of all kinds would likely be potentially interested in promoting you and your book--as would local book clubs, writers groups, etc. (Even Sisters in Crime might be a possibility, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is a local SinC group quite close to you. If one exists, look into joining it. I think they take male members.) SinC is a prime place to learn inside-the-industry news about editors and publishers, get intros to agents (etc.), and learn how the industry is changing in ways you need to be aware of.)
Figure out the possibilities which exist which are specifically open to you as a local, newsworthy-to-them, interesting-to-them, author. If you live where I think you live, and if you utilize this potential properly, this could be a prime marketing opportunity for you that most other authors do not have.
[IMPORTANT: Google: "book marketing demographics" for info on how to identify your book's optimum demographic groups. This is very important information for you to know before you write even the first word of your manuscript.
A commercially-successful writer's First Commandment is always: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!!!]
Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2017 05:18PM by Tevai.