August 25, 2018 | Jaqui Lane

How to sell your business book

There are four key elements to market and sell your business book

Unless you are in marketing one of the more challenging aspects of writing and publishing your own business book is how to market it to achieve the sales/exposure/recognition you want.

1. A marketing strategy and plan

Your book won’t sell itself and you won’t be able to market and sell it effectively unless you are clear about your target audience and when, where and how to reach them. You need to research and develop your marketing strategy and plan as you write and produce your book. It will take between 2-3 months to develop and refine it so start early. If you are not sure what to do or how to do this contract someone who is and work with them on it.

2. Commit the resources over time

An important element of your marketing plan is establishing the timeframe for its implementation and a budget. The two most important resources most of us have are time and money This comes into sharp relief when you develop your marketing plan. Given you are a key resource in the marketing plan (being available for interviews, presentations, speeches, conference panels, articles etc) managing the time you’re going to allocate to marketing your book is vital. Similarly, with a marketing plan covering 15-18 months you need to create a budget and allocate this across the key areas of your marketing to ensure it lasts throughout the time period you’ve allocated. Many people fall into the trap of focusing all their attention on their business book launch and the immediate weeks after this. Successful business books are successful because their authors spend a significant and consistent amount of time presenting to audiences about their book, getting coverage on Influencers shows, across the media and in industry/company events and conferences. All this costs money and time, so you need to plan how much and where you’re going to focus it.

3. Delegate and follow up

As part of your marketing plan you need to be very clear about what support you’ll need. This will vary on the time you have/can allocate to the various tasks and what tasks only you can do and what you can contract out. Where possible outsource the delivery of your social media (the posting, engagement and SEO work). Provided you’ve created a content marketing plan the execution of it can be undertaken by someone else. I work with a virtual team now but I had to change the way I operated, most importantly, how and who I worked with. This is not easy and it takes a bit of time. I also knew that I needed advice and help so I sought out a business coach…the best decision I ever made. There’s so much to learn and yes, you can DIY it…you can also speed up the learning and learn from those who are experts. Irrespective of what pathway you choose make sure you have clear reporting structures in place and review the metrics of posts across the different channels.

4. Measure results

Unlike advertising of old (that old saying 50% of marketing works but no-one is sure what 50%) marketing using social media and through a good SEO program will tell you exactly what posts, promotions and actions are working and what’s not. Regularly review the analytics and adjust your post content, activity, times/dates based on the feedback you are getting. There’s nothing more frustrating that making the effort to post, engage and spend money and time on specific social media platforms and to have no engagement. The world doesn’t need more average business books. Well targeted business book will succeed, You need to understand the content your target audience wants, and then give it to them. If this skill set is not something you want to learn, recognise this early and contract someone who can do this for you. Summary Creating a marketing strategy and plan might be something you’re quite comfortable with OR something you’ve never had to do. Either way, it’s something you need to do for your business book and a marketing strategy and plan for a business book is different from probably anything you’ve done before. If you don’t know where to start, want some advice contact me at [email protected]  

A final word from Jaqui

The ideas shared here come from working closely with business leaders, authors, and organisations over many years — shaping books, documenting histories, and seeing what works in practice and what does not.

If you would like ongoing insight into writing, publishing, and building a book that carries weight, you are welcome to subscribe to The Book Adviser articles.

And if you are considering writing a business book, or want your existing book to achieve greater traction, we can explore the right approach together.

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