My father once told me that “No one cares about your money as much as you do.” As authors, no one cares about our books as much as we do.
One of the reasons I wanted to become part of IBMG (www.IndependentBookMarketingGroup.com) is because no “book marketing specialist” or “internet marketing guru” I’ve met really understood the book publishing business. They were mainly experts on one thing, like social media or Google AdWords, or had an impressive roster of Fortune 500 companies, and they didn’t know exactly what to do with a single author.
One day while sitting around with a bunch of writers, and after sharing our experiences about marketing people we’d hired, we realized that none of us had had a positive experience. At one point someone turned philosophical: “If a book is published, and no one knows about it, is it really published?”
Thus, IBMG was born. We decided that we would each learn how to use various resources effectively–not just learn how to create a Facebook page or a Twitter account. We decided to focus on networking and learning from people who were EFFECTIVELY DOING what we wanted to do. The bottom line is that we decided to take control over the marketing and sales of our books–as a team.
Other IBMG members include Beth Whittenbury, Vickey Kall, Alan Cook, Bernadette Shih and Stacey Aaronson. All are published writers and share one common goal: effective book marketing and sales.
IBMG is creating a platform that includes the effective use of online resources as well as real-people-networking resources, e.g., sponsorship and product-placement agents.
We are our own clients first. Each book, whether it’s non-fiction or a novel, can draw from a different “combination of colors on the marketing palette.” It’s not one size fits all.
Most of my novels were published and marketed by HarperCollins, but I realize that in 2013 and beyond, knowing how to effectively market and sell your own work is like owning the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The IBMG website is www.IndependentBookMarketingGroup.com. Here we document our successes and failures as we get better at skills we are committed to learn. We also highlight blogs we like from the Indie Publishing world–particularly blogs about book marketing–but also blogs about Indie Publishing in general.
We encourage you to check out the site and, if you like what you see, become a member.