1001 Ways to Market Your Books

Make Friends Sell Books

Make Friends Sell Books
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Posted December 25, 2007, 9:41 AM EST: John Kremer seems to live and breathe book marketing. One of his mottos is that selling is all about making friends and the more you work with 1001 Ways to Market your Book the sooner you recognize the truth in that statement. Connecting with people and networking is all about making friends. The first time you thumb through the 700-page book you are almost overwhelmed by the daunting task ahead. Just turn a couple of pages and you¿ll find the dedication. It¿s only a few lines but near the bottom is a line filled with hope. John says, `Take your time. Do it right. And enjoy.¿ Keep that in mind and do one task at a time. Then before you know it, you¿ll be highlighting sections and marking page numbers for points of reference. The book contains everything from Internet sales, websites, blogs and newsletters to bookstores and book fairs. And a whole lot more. Tom Barnes author of: `Doc Holliday¿s Road to Tombstone.'

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Midwest Book Review: December 2006

Marketing and promotions wizard John Kremer has at long last issued the sixth edition of his incredibly smart and useful How-To book for marketing and selling books. In twenty-one chapters and over 700 pages, Kremer covers EVERYTHING: from fundamentals of promoting books to publicizing, advertising, networking, and advice about never giving up. Particularly wonderful chapters include 'How to Sell More Books via the Internet,' 'Getting Distribution,' and 'How to Sell Subsidiary Rights,' but every single chapter contains commonsense, clever techniques and ideas for marketing and selling. Kremer includes articles and web links to dozens of other experts including great advice by Pam Lontos in '14 Most Common Publicity Mistakes Authors Make,' Kathi Dunn's 'Design Your Book to Build Your Brand,' and Chris Roerden and Pat Miller's 'Market-Savvy Editing.' A virtual cornucopia of tips, ideas, activities, and techniques, this is one of the greatest books on book promotions ever written. If you're a publisher or author, don't miss this tremendous resource. I can't recommend it more highly.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Mayra Calvani -- Armchair Interviews

If you were able to choose only one book on book marketing today, this would be definitely it. This 700-page monster has all the information any author or publisher will ever need to market and promote books, and to create a ¿state-of-the-art¿ marketing plan. In spite of the huge amount of information Kremer offers, the book is well organized and the subjects easy to find, either from the table of contents or index. The author also includes articles by experts on various subjects, as well as an amalgam of up-to-date links and resources. What sets this book part from others in the field, besides the amount of information, are the details. There are many books on promotion out there, but few go as deep as this one. In this sense, this is an invaluable reference work. Though it is impossible to list all the subjects covered, following are some of them: basic fundamentals of book marketing, planning, distributors and wholesalers, major book reviewers, arranging print/radio/TV interviews, book tours, book signings, advertising (direct mail, finding lists, telemarketing, print ads), offbeat marketing, book fairs and conferences, catalogs, internet promotion, selling to bookstores, libraries, gifts shops and many other retail markets, subsidiary and foreign rights, and much, much more. Kremer explores each subject in depth and offers clear, pragmatic advice on how to succeed at each level of promotion. Have your highlighter, pencil and Post-its ready, as this is a book you¿ll want to dissect and examine section by section. A book that should be not on your shelf but on your desk at all times, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books comes highly recommended from this reviewer.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Out of date, self promoting, still has some value.

As a former software executive, in charge of product development and even sales, I am not unfamiliar with the concepts of marketing. However, all businesses are different and the book business is a strange group of players, so I wanted to beef up on this.

I will start with the Cons, but there are indeed pros:

1) 600 pages of bullet lists. Yes, the world is used to bullet lists and short, rapid fire paragraphs for each bullet. BUT, this is a book, not a powerpoint presentation. Get some REAL depth once in awhile.

2) Out of date. It does capture the fact that there is an Internet . It does not capture the eBook trend (not really at all). It does not capture that Amazon by the end of this year will control 70% of the ENTIRE N. American book market (including audio books). It does not capture trends by Apple, nor even Google. It does not, for instance, capture that the only big brick and mortar left is Barnes and Noble and they are struggling (what are the opportunities there?).

3) I just get annoyed at too much self promotion, tooting of horn, pointing you to another place to spend your money. I know it is a reality of these kinds of books, so generally it can be ignored.

4) Bias toward non-fiction. The types of promotions, cross marketing, and other activities that make up 60 % of this book are geared toward non-fiction. Lets put that to about 200 pages that apply to fiction. Still not terrible, but you do have to sift through it.

5) Repetitive. Yeah, when teaching you tend to repeat. When reading I like to avoid it.

6) Big publisher, single author, not much between.

The "case studies" (more on that later) are talking about single authors, generally NOT self published (see "out of date" above) or publishers that spend "$1,125,000 on the rights to the book" then "$750,000 marketing budget." Yeah, I can market a book too, with that kind of budget.

7) The advice is often simplistic. "Develop Brand Names" ... yeah...ok...don't give me a bulleted list of all the different books/companies that built a brand name and what that brand is. You had me at "brand name" ... discuss HOW to do that. On a budget! (There are thoughts presented in the book, to be fair, but still).

PROS:

There are significant pros to this. Three stars indicates more favorable than not.

1) Good reference list. You can leaf through this and build your own targeted thought process. BUT, you should have some marketing experience already. Or product management. This is not really a HOW TO book, as is implicitly implied by the title. Think of this as a menu planner, not a recipe book for amateurs.

2) It does have advice for publishers. That is what I was looking for. The advice is indeed high level, but it is a starting point.

3) There really are not too many good books out there. This is almost necessary because of that. I am tempted to write my own (yeah, some decade when I have free time).

4) It is possible to "translate" the ideas that are out of date to current world, but you have to think about it.

5) I think the book makes clear that there are no silver bullets.

6) There is fair emphasis on the long haul. This is good, too many people, companies, authors, expect instant success.