In case you missed the first post on this topic, I’m keeping a diary of the process of getting my next non-fiction book, “Your Writing Coach,” published. Yesterday I had a conference call with two people from the publisher’s office in Boston. The timing of the pre-publication events is interesting if you’ve never seen behind the scenes before.
The book is due to be published in the U.S. in May, but the publisher’s sales reps will be calling on the book store chains the last two weeks of December and the first two weeks of January. After that, they will hit the independents, store by store, for another three months. As you can imagine, it’s the orders from the chains that have the greatest influence on the success or failure of a new book.
Before the sales reps hit the road, they are briefed by the publishers about the new books they’ll be repping, and this is where we have to make an impression. The more excited we can get the reps about my book, the more likely it is that they’ll transmit some of that excitement to the buyers.
The main tool we will have to get them enthused is a sales kit that will include a sample chapter, photo, and some material about what makes this book stand out. The idea of a USP—Unique Selling Proposition—is crucial because there are already a lot of books out there about writing. When that sales kit is ready, I’ll share a few of the features with you.
We also talked about what marketing efforts we can undertake, and the need to get started with that now, a full seven months before publication. For example, I plan to make up a useful tips flyer that can be given away at writing conferences, and to offer to speak at a few of the major events. Because they plan their speakers far in advance, I will have to make those approaches soon. Usually we think of the publicity and marketing of a book as taking three months around the date of publication, but it’s clear that it’s going to be more like one year, starting six months before and going on for six months after.
Stay tuned for more! (By the way, my most recent book is an e-book, “Time Management for Writers,” which you can find on the ‘stuff to buy’ page of my website, www.timetowrite.com.)
