In the previous post, I summarized some of the advice of best-selling author John Gray ("Men are from Mars") regarding building your career. It's from an interview conducted by book publicity guru Steve Harrison. Here's part 2:
By teaching workshops first, you really get to know your
audience and how best to get your message across.
This should lead you to your “hook” or niche. In Gray’s case, it was helping men and women understand their differences and communicate better but it wasn’t until he came up with the Mars and Venus wording (after having seen “E.T.”) that the concept took off.
He said when you encounter an idea whose time has come you get goosebumps, and if you have a book with one of those, there’s a good chance it will be a success. As you teach or discuss your topic, be alert for any stories that have that effect on you.
He revealed that it took a year for the book to reach the New York Times best-seller list. But eventually it dropped off the list and he learned that it’s important to prepare for the drop. Now more of his income comes from presentations, lectures, and licensing a coaching company—with an emphasis on passive income.
One shocker: he appeared on Oprah but only for a couple of minutes, which had no impact on his sales. The publishers dropped him at that point, and he had to take charge of his own promotion. He advertised in a magazine that listed authors available for interviews and spent a good part of one year doing as many radio interviews as possible. After a year, the book took off, he sold more than a million copies and got in touch with Oprah’s company again, including a USA Today profile of him. They booked him again and eventually did a whole show on just his book, and that took the book to another level.
He says the secret of promotion is radio. Send the radio hosts your book, follow up, do their shows and eventually you’ll get a result. I wonder how much this is changing in favor of the internet these days, especially for UK authors because there are not as many independent radio stations in the UK as there are in the United States).
(My book, "Your Writing Coach," takes you all the way from your idea to the final product--see more about it at www.yourwritingcoach.com and order it from any online or offline retailer.)
