Category: Marketing

I recently had a fascinating week; Nine agents (including the ones who weren’t interested in my work) shared industry insights and offered suggestions for improving my pitch.

 
This post is the first in a three part series on what I learned. The agents provided info on marketing (publishers won’t sell you marketing schemes, that was a big one), the need for a social platform when you’re starting out (you don’t. The agent and publisher will help you build one), and of course, what a proper pitch should look like.

About a year ago I paid to have my pitch professionalized. That pitch had a 3% success rate. I scrapped it, wrote my own, listened to what each agent told me about making it work, and hit 66% success rate.

This installment of I Pitched Nine Agents in Two Days – Six said Yes! Here’s What I Learned deals with Do’s and Don’t’s. The next installment (available starting 21 Oct 2020) goes over a conversation between myself and agents who’ve been authors and worked in publishing houses. The last installment (available starting 28 Oct 2020) details the evolution of my pitch based on their suggestions.

Enjoy!

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Back when Susan and I ran our own company, I often told clients “Never believe your own hype.”

Some clients were offended. Some laughed and nodded.

The big problem with hype is the hyper knows its BS and behave in three basic ways:

1. They know they’re BSing and are constantly on guard lest someone should catch them in their BS (this often results in impostor syndrome. You can find lots of info on Impostor Syndrome in Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History)
2. They know they’re BSing and want to be caught because they desperately need structure in their lives
3. They believe their own BS and are delusional. Either get them help or get away from them

 
It’s worth noting once you get beyond a certain size, it doesn’t matter if someone sniffs out your BS. Get past a certain size and you’re the Emperor and everybody loves your clothes even though you’re buck-naked. The one who really suffers here is the Emperor: Their kingdom is on the brink and they refuse to recognize it as such.

Marketing hype usually falls into Group 1 because Groups 2 and 3 are mostly populated by people with such blatant character flaws they may as well be carrying lunchboards around or ringing bells as they move about. They tend to be that obvious.

Let’s focus on Group 1. Danger lies in between the Emperor and the boastful kid on the playground. The danger itself is you not being able to recognize the BS for what it is (hearkening back to “I have an incredible opportunity to share”).

So here, dear ones, are three kinds of hype to be aware of and guard against.
Continue reading “More Publishing Hype”

Friend Liz Tuckwell asked me for some pointers on reading her work on video for an audience.

Wanting to be helpful, I made a video for her.

She said I should share it on my blog.

Here it is.

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Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
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Re: Trying to help you sell books. I’ve tried to do this with two other friends in years past. No luck. It’s hard to sell a one-off book profitably on pay-per-click basis – both hardcover or an ebook series. I have not found any way to make it happen. There are some folks out there who prey on new authors and try to get them to sign up for a training series on how to sell their book. The only thing they sell, it seems, is their training series and dashed hopes. Sorry I can’t help you there and don’t know anyone who has succeeded. – Matt Van Wagner, internationally recognized Adwords authority

I received another “incredible opportunity” in my emails a few months back.

Normally I dismiss such offers and let it go at that. This time other authors who received the same offer contacted me asking my opinion.

A few things to note before diving in; the offer deals with Amazon Ads. I have nothing against Amazon Ads, lots against misleading marketing. Especially to vulnerable markets.

The current indie-authorverse is vulnerable because it is a young market. Young markets, like young children, like young animals, are innocent. They don’t appreciate that the nice man offering them candy might hurt them, hence are open to predation. The young, markets or otherwise, don’t have the same filters regarding purchases that experienced purchasers have. Think of it this way; Someone buying their first car looks for different things than someone buying their third or fourth car. Should you be shopping for car #10, you don’t ask lots of questions because you know what you want and what to look for.

The same is true on the marketing side. How you market to a first time buyer is different than how you market to an experienced buyer. Good salespeople and marketers use different buzzwords (think keywords but in commercials, print, and in-person) based on who they’re pitching at the moment and the general maturity of the audience as a whole.

How do I know this? I owned and ran an international marketing advisory company for over 25 years and wrote three books on the subject. How do I know this happens to authors? I talk to authors from everywhere and do research, research, and, umm, oh yes, research.

You can stop reading after this section
Amazon is in the business of selling ads, not books, food, sporting equipment, coffee makers or anything else. Their percentage on any sale is relatively minimal compared to what they make from the ads for that sale.

Some people run successful Amazon Ad campaigns for a while – note “for a while” – because Amazon learned from Google to change the ad-buy algorithms periodically without letting people know, hence any winning Amazon Ads strategy fails given enough time.

Anybody with a repeatable, infallible method for selling products via Amazon Ads (or anything else) will give you a guarantee because they know they have nothing to lose; their method is repeatable and infallible.

Read what follows and let me know if you see any guarantee.

The received email
Continue reading ““I have an incredible opportunity to share””