Where does book marketing take place today?
Certainly not in the bookstore.
That is, not with traditional author readings or signings. Unless you’re an author with a media following and the ability to put together an event – such as Lena Dunham did with her recent tour to promote her book of essays, or such as Kansas City’s Rainy Day Books does with its noteworthy book events. As a publisher friend told me, author tours are not cost-effective. You spend money sending an author on the road hoping someone will show up at a bookstore, and the sale of those books doesn’t offset the cost of the trip.
Book marketing doesn’t take place on television.
Unless you’re an author with a media following and can get booked on John Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Very rarely does an author even make it to the broadcast talk shows, such as David Letterman (unless you’re David Sedaris).
Book marketing doesn’t take place through advertising.
Unless you’re an author with a media following and a few bestsellers under your belt, with a publisher who can indulge your wish to be featured in an expensive advertisement in a newspaper or on local television (James Patterson gets this kind of treatment).
Book marketing takes place online.
And even that online landscape is changing, as people gravitate more toward mobile apps and less toward web-based engagement. But the web is still mightily important for reaching people, building an audience and attracting potential readers and buyers.
Book marketing takes place through your online platform – through your blogs, your social-media interactions, your Facebook page, your engagement with other blogs. It takes place on Amazon or other e-book retailers through special sales (if you self-publish).
Book marketing takes place years before your book comes out. It doesn’t begin when your manuscript is finished. It begins well before, as you organize your book – you begin to formulate a plan to reach readers as you write, not after you write.
Book marketing takes place today everywhere but the bookstore, really. You still want your readers to buy at bookstores (virtual or actual). But you want them to be with you where they go. You reach them by having conversations, online.
Sure, author appearances can be good, and it’s nice to have a one-on-one with a fan – authors are isolated most of the time. But what people are most interested in is what you say, and how you say it – and to get them to pay attention, you need to meet them where they spend most of their time: online.