(Excerpted from The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living, by Peter Bowerman. Fanove, 2006. www.wellfedsp.com).

I saw a great series of billboards in Atlanta recently. It was for Apartments.com, an online clearinghouse for apartments that allows you to search for exactly what you want in any state. They could have devoted their billboard space to talking about themselves (like most companies do) and all the great things they offer: unmatched customer service, big selection, easy online access, etc. (I can picture big checked boxes, right?). They could have. But they didn’t.

The first billboard had just one short sentence (their tag line, actually) across the middle: “You want what you want.” Then, simply their logo and the Apartments.com name. Nothing more. A thing of simplicity and beauty. In one five-word sentence, they nailed THE hot button for their audience: personal taste and choice in an apartment. Heck, they managed to use the magic word “you” twice in a five-word sentence. They know what people want to hear. They understand marketing.

But, say “marketing” or “sales” to a roomful of right-brained author types and watch the sweat beads pop. The breathing gets shallow, and the eyes dart furtively toward the exits – calculating the distance from their seat to the door and beyond – anywhere they don’t have to listen to this conversation anymore. Alas, so much unnecessary angst. Getting comfortable with the whole sales and marketing thing really is easier than you think…

It’s ALL About the Customer
In the course of promoting your masterpiece, you’ll be crafting a pretty steady stream of promotional materials: press releases, marketing proposals to wholesalers, distributors, and booksellers, email pitches to book review targets, queries to publications (print- or web-based) to submit articles, notes to groups and organizations soliciting invitations to speak (and the materials that accompany the promotion of such events), and much more. As such, it’s good to understand what’s important in this process (your audiences and what they want) and what’s not (you and your book).

Which is a nice segue into the three fundamental principles of sales and marketing – principles that, incidentally, are already a part of your frame of reference as a consumer:

1) “Audience” – Always understand who your audience is and what language will best get through to them. As a consumer, you buy products that have been sold to you by advertising that knows how to speak to someone like you to get your attention.

2) The Features/Benefits Equation – Focus on driving home what you know is important to your audience, not just talking about you and your book. As a consumer, you respond to marketing that focuses on the benefits that are important to you, not just a listing of all the features of their product.

3) The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Figure out what sets your book apart in the marketplace and drive that difference home – early and often. As a consumer, you buy products because they do something better (or different) than those of competitors.

Sales = Making it Easy
Developing a marketing mindset means always looking at things through the eyes of your target audience. For example:

• You want someone to post an Amazon review (after they gushed on about your book in an email), so in order to make it as easy as possible for them, you send them the actual Amazon link to your book, not expecting them to take the time to find it themselves.

• When sending out review copies (and the emails announcing their impending arrival), you include a prominent link to your “Media Resources” section, which includes everything a potential reviewer might need to put a review together. Again, boost the likelihood that it’ll happen.

• You want some “key influencer” to promote an upcoming event of yours to their community, so you send an actual ready-to-go promo blurb, as if written by them, so that it’s just a simple cut-‘n-paste to get it handled. You know what you want them to say to their group, so write it yourself. I promise you, they’ll appreciate it.

• You contact a journalist to get some publicity, and you include a link to “News Pegs” in your Media Resources section. You want that publicity? Then don’t count on them to figure out the angle here. Make their job easier, and spell it out for them.

In all these cases, you’re thinking about them, their reality, their pressures, and the fact that you’re not a high priority in their world. And because you’re not, you need to make it as easy as humanly possible for them to do what you’re asking them to do. Let’s explore each of the three in a bit more depth…

“Who’s the Audience?”

This is absolutely THE first question you need to ask yourself whenever you’re about to put together any promotional copy. When you buy a product you heard about through some form of advertising, it’s because something spoke to you. Someone knew what to say to make you sit up and take notice – which is exactly what will happen when a message is well crafted. What’s amazing – and tragic – is how much marketing material, put together by authors and prestigious publishing houses, is poorly written and doesn’t consider the intended audience. If you can get it right, you’ll set yourself apart.

Different Audience, Different Thrust
I have some key audiences for my Well-Fed Writer books: writers, at-home-Moms, home-based business seekers, and the 55+ crowd, for starters. But, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” marketing pitch I can make to all these groups. I have to talk to each of them specifically, and to the things they care about. Logical.

The Features/Benefits Equation

Some time back, I was contacted by an author who wanted me to review a press release for their new book. Yikes. It was full of superlative adjectives about the book, hyperbolic gushing-on about the author, and other unforgivable self-indulgences. In short, tailor-made for a quick trip to the circular file. So common. So unnecessary.

The Features/Benefits Equation is an absolute cornerstone of sales and marketing and a concept with which we’re already intimately acquainted.

Basic Definitions
In the publishing context, features are all about a book and its author. Benefits are about your target audiences – what’s important to them, and how your book addresses those issues. Always begin with benefits, follow with features. The more you make it about you and your book, the more likely your intended audience will ignore you.

A Book Example
Okay, using my first book as an example, you think people care that Peter Bowerman leveraged a sales and marketing career into a new career in the lucrative field of commercial writing and then wrote a book about it? That the book covers X, Y and Z subjects? Yawwwwwwwwn. That’s all about me and my book.

If you were a prospect for my book, I’d wager good money that you’d care far more about the fact that there’s this lucrative field called commercial writing, where you can make the kind of money (i.e., $50-125 an hour) you’ve always dreamed of making. A field that can provide a great income while letting you work from your home, have more time for life, loved ones, and leisure. A field that gives you the opportunity to finally fulfill your dream of being a writer for a living. Sound better? Course it does. Because that’s all about you – your favorite thing in the whole world!

Then, once I get your attention with things I know mean something to you, then, I can tell you a bit about me: And it just so happens that Peter Bowerman, seasoned commercial writer, has written a few award winning books on the subject – providing all the how-to detail you need to get your own personal commercial freelancing show on the road.

Potent Press Releases
In the course of promoting my self-published book, I’ve gotten a lot of practice writing press releases. Given how inundated my target audience (media people) is with releases, it’s always an uphill battle to get noticed.

Here’s the plain truth about journalists: They couldn’t care less that you’ve written a book (unless you’re Stephen King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, et al.). The rest of us? Fuggedaboudit. Send them a press release announcing you’ve written a book and you’ll be lucky if they wipe their nose with it before tossing it. A release about a book and its author is…features.

That reporter wants benefits: “I SO don’t care about your book. Tell me why that book is important to my readers/viewers.” Not the book, but the angle represented by the book. Those are the benefits.

USP - The Unique Selling Proposition

Every book is unique in some way. Once you determine the audience for your book, zero in on its Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – THE thing that sets that book apart in a marketplace full of competitors. What does it do that others don’t? Obviously, this is more important with non-fiction than fiction, but even with the latter, your various audiences (from both the business and book buying ends) still want to know what makes it stand out in its genre.

Once you determine your book’s USPs, make sure they show up in your back cover copy and in most everything else you send out. Drive the message home. Identifying your USP also provides more clarity as to what your mission is, and what piece of the marketplace you’re claiming.

Getting comfortable with sales and marketing doesn’t have to be painful. And when you make these concepts your friends, and they become second nature, you set the stage for some serious promotional success.

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Got a book in you? Can’t land a publisher? Why not do it yourself, and make a living from it? Sound good? Then, check out the free report on self-publishing at www.wellfedsp.com, the home of the 2006 release The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. Author Peter Bowerman is known for the award-winning (and self-published) Well-Fed Writer titles (on the lucrative field of commercial freelancing), which have provided him with a full-time living for over five years. (www.wellfedwriter.com).

Last 5 posts by Peter Bowerman

• Eight Reasons Why Self-Publishers Fail (And How to Easily Avoid Them!) - April 17th, 2008
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