The Big Bad Book Blog

As an author, you are always on the lookout for new ways to improve your marketing strategy and grow your platform. One of the best ways to do this is by developing your power team.

What’s a power team? A familiar term among business networking professionals, a power team is comprised of individuals and/or businesses with whom you share common goals or a common client base.

How can it help you as an author? The members of your power team can help you improve your strategy, connect with more readers, identify more opportunities, hone your message, and expand your reach.

Lets look at key members of an author power team and how they help you build your career:

• Publisher: Your publisher is an industry insider. If you have chosen wisely, your publisher should have a track record of producing successful books in your genre and should be able to provide you with tips and insights to help you not only get on bookshelves, but also get in front of readers. Keep your contacts at the publisher in the loop so they are aware of all of your marketing efforts and publicity. This helps them keep your book stocked when and where it needs to be available. They can also give you feedback on publishing best practices.
• Publicist: A publicist helps you develop your marketing strategy and puts you in front of big media—radio, television, print, and online. A publicist also helps you hone your message and clarify your brand so you can reach readers. They have spent years cultivating relationships with media and industry professionals and have access to contacts you may not be able to reach on your own.
• Other Authors in Your Genre: Wait—they’re your competition, right? Not necessarily. If you have differentiated yourself well, your work will stand out when compared to other authors’ work. Each author has something unique to give to the reader, but authors in the same genre share the same audience and are marketing to the same people. If you have been growing your platform and marketing your book, you should already have a following. Pull your efforts together with another author doing the same and you can double the strength of your platform and gain twice the reach. Adding another author increases your reach that much more.
• Bloggers: Bloggers who write about your topic or genre also share marketing time with your audience. They often have an open dialogue with a following that listens to their advice and trusts their recommendations. Develop relationships with bloggers in your category, offer to write guest posts, give free review copies of your book, share links, or come up with cross-promotional activities.
• Industry Gurus: No matter what topic or genre your book covers, there will be some movers and shakers already hustling and bustling about. Cultivate a relationship with these people. They’re connected and know what your readers are looking for. They can get you into events and speaking engagements that will put you directly in front of your target audience. Plus, their opinion holds weight and can carry you deep into the hearts of your audience.

These are the primary members of your power team, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box while choosing members of your team. Each book and genre has special needs and interests that are served by many people. Aligning yourself with those people will help you engage with your audience and, in turn, sell more books.

Remember, just as with your audience, be willing to provide value before you ask for anything in return. You are looking to cultivate relationships here, not just take what you can get. Here are a few key things to remember when building your power team:

1. Be sincerely interested in the other person.
2. Find ways to help them meet their goals.
3. Be willing and able to promote and/or endorse them.
4. Relationships are a series of meaningful interactions. Make time to check in and see how they are doing, without looking for something in return.

Above all, treat them how you would want to be treated. If you are truly interested, considerate, and helpful, they will reciprocate.

You’ve probably seen them: those interviews where there is no energy and the guest is as placid as the polar ice cap. Or worse: the guest is talkative—too talkative—and  runs over the host with wanton disregard. Guests like these are rarely invited back. The key to becoming a media darling and keeping the publicity coming is to be a great interviewee. Here are a few tips to help you do just that:

• Keep it short and sweet: Whether your appearance is in print, radio, television, or otherwise, the publication or broadcast program will have a limited amount of space and airtime allotted for each item. Be respectful and keep your answers brief.
• Develop your talking points: Though questions may vary from interview to interview, there will be some basic questions asked over and over again (e.g., what is your book about, why did you start writing, what advice do you have for writers, etc.). So, develop a few key talking points that you can easily integrate into every interview. Also, customize a few for each venue. This means doing your research before you show up to the interview.
• Mention your book often!: The point of publicity is to get your name and the name of your book out there. Mention your book, website, and contact information often. Here is a short video demonstrating how to easily work that information in to the conversation.
• Dress and act professionally: The majority of a person’s impression of you is formulated before you even open your mouth. To make the best first impression, dress like you care about the interview. If it’s an online or phone interview, make sure your website and social media are professional and clean; be on time and courteous; and don’t tie up the long-distance line any longer than necessary.
• Tempo: Speak quickly enough to finish your talking point, but don’t speak so fast that no one can understand you. Take deep breaths, wait for the host to complete his or her question before answering, and actively listen to yourself so you can catch any acceleration in pace.
• Be gracious: Especially if you are a first-time author, don’t continually correct the host or editor, don’t constantly nag, and by all means say thank you!

Being polite, brief, and professional will take you far with the media. And remember to prepare beforehand so you can work in all of your talking points and sell more books!

So, your book has hit the shelves and your marketing strategy is paying off in terms of interviews and appearances. You want to keep that media attention coming, but reporters and hosts have limited print space and airtime along with a vast array of topics to touch on. Remember that media professionals think and speak in terms of sound bites. To keep on their good side while still conveying the important aspects of you and your books, you need to develop your own sound bites and talking points, and have them ready long before the book hits the shelves so you can use them in your interviews.

Luckily, the questions asked by interviewers don’t vary much from media outlet to media outlet. This means you can walk into any interview prepared, but you will also have to be ready to shoot from the hip if necessary. Keep your answers short, to the point, and free of technical jargon so a broad audience can understand them.

For the most part, basic media questions include:

• What is the title of your book?
• What is your book about?
• Why did you decide to write this book?
• Who should read this book?
• Why should they read this book?
• What authority do you have to write on this topic?
• Where can people find out more about you / your book?

Even if these questions are not asked, they are points you want to work into the conversation. Most important is the title and where to buy the book. In fact, you will want to mention the title and its accompanying website several times throughout the interview or appearance. Repetition is key! An appearance in which none of this information is shared is a wasted opportunity. Don’t waste any chance to mention the book, because you might not get it again.

Once your book is ready for market, sit down with your publicist and/or your marketing team and hash out your talking points and sound bites. Learn them so well that you can easily integrate them into any conversation. Revisit them frequently to make sure they are still relevant and timely and remember: always, always, always mention the book and where to find it.

If you have written a book, or even if you haven’t, you may have heard the term “author platform.” Many authors overlook this seemingly vague and often misunderstood term. However, it is by far the most important element of your writing career, aside from the book itself.  So what is an author platform? Essentially, it’s the base of people who have a built-in interest in your book and who would regard you as an authority in your field. Your platform is your audience, your publicity plans and other promotional activities will be targeted at them.

The author platform is essential because it is what sets you apart from every other author in your genre. Publishers and media always look at author platform, sometimes even before they look to the content of the book itself. The platform is what will cut through all of the millions of advertising and media messages and carry your book to readers, and in turn drive sales. If your platform is not strong, active, and growing, publishers and media will move on to the next author who does have one.

How do you develop a platform? Before you determine that, there is an even bigger question that needs to be addressed. First, you need to start by defining your target reader. Who are you writing for? Who would be interested in the information you have to share? You need to be as specific as possible in stating your target audience. You can’t just say “anyone who reads.” Not everyone who reads is interested in every topic on the market. Instead you need to hone the target down to something like “work-from-home moms” or “twenty-something executives.” Once your audience is identified, you can start developing your platform.

Now that you have your target reader in mind, you need to define how you’ll build a group of them to serve as your platform. Using the “twenty-something executive” audience, possible outreach strategies include “tips to break the executive ceiling,” “profiles of young achievers,” “strategies for success,” etc. Whatever the focus is, it needs to relate to both your audience and your book. If your book is about underwater basket weaving, you won’t have much luck driving sales using a platform geared toward young executives.

There are many ways to connect with your potential readers so you can build a platform, including: a website (both for you and your book itself), blogs, social media, speaking, teaching, appearances, organizational involvement (e.g. writers and trade groups, charities, local organizations), book signings, articles—just about any activity you can think of. However, in order to successfully grow your platform, each of these activities needs to be cohesive and relevant to the overall topic and consistent with your message. Be sure to keep your activities manageable and linked to book sales. This mean sharing your blog posts through social media accounts, promoting events through all of your media channels, participating in organizations that cater to your audience, referring to your book frequently in interviews and conversations, and linking to the book website anywhere you have an Internet presence, among others.

If you are still unsure about the strength of your platform and how to develop it, your publicist is the best resource to help you. You might also want to look at the following resources:

Christina Katz “Get Known Before The Book Deal” (hyperlink)

Jane Freidman’s Blog  “There Are No Rules”

Writers Digest

Getting news media coverage for your book can be challenging, especially when the number of traditional media outlets (such as daily newspaper book review sections) is shrinking.  However, too many of the lucky or deserving handful who are given a chance to get their message to the masses waste their opportunity.

As one who has worked in book publishing for twenty years and has been involved in arranging thousands of interviews for authors, I can say that most authors—even seminar speakers, motivational trainers, and life coaches—often don’t fully exploit their knowledge, ability, or passion.  Rather than turning their radio or television interview into a memorable, experience, they simply treat it as a defensive situation with a standard approach of “I just don’t want to be embarrassed.”

Here are nine ways to be proactive and steal the show.

1. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good line. Instead of merely making a statement, say something with some colorful language. One could say,  “To lose weight, drink eight to ten glasses of water a day,”or you could show some personality: “If you wanna drop those ten unwanted pounds, then drop down ten glasses of water every day. Drink up or fatten up. It’s your choice.” See the difference?

2. Give an action step, not an advertisement. Never say, “You can buy my book at www.whatever.com.” Instead, say the name of your book in a smooth sentence: “How to Lose Weight on Your Lunch Break is like having a therapist in your bed. You can access twenty-five free tips at www.whatever.com.” Now you’ve provided value and stated a specific offer.

3. Make a point and provide an example. People remember a story or something they can specifically identify with rather than an abstract statement.

4. Make it relevant when possible. Tie your message into the news or to what’s on people’s minds at a given moment in time.

5. Confess or admit to something. Don’t tell us you cheated on your spouse when you’re hawking a cookbook, but do tell us how your six-year-old kid thought your cake tasted like crap. Self-deprecating humor is good. Or tell us how you made a dish twenty times until you found the missing ingredient.

6. Create an enemy. Put every conversation in the context of good versus evil, new versus old, us versus them, etc. Enemies are everywhere. If you’re talking about personal finance, vilify government bailout and corporate greed; if you discuss a disease, you want to eradicate it; if you want to help parents be better at raising kids your enemy can be a situation (kids whining while you’re driving). There’s no end to finding a villain—it can be a person, group, ideology, circumstance, fate—whatever.

7. Express emotions and play to people’s fears, desires, needs, and weaknesses. Make assumptions about the people who will buy your book and identify their concerns. Your interviews should answer these concerns. If you wrote a book on dating and you know the fear of never getting married is in the back of your potential readers’ minds, address the issue and do so in a way that it gives a positive, proactive feeling. This will naturally lead them to visit your site.

8. Ask the talk show host or his or her audience for help. Tell them you’re trying to do something (i.e., get people to stop smoking if your book is about addiction).  Suggest people email you their ideas on how to eradicate the problem.  Not only does it unite people, it gives you a whole bunch of email contacts to follow up with.

9. Be colorful, not boring. Think of a waitress who can simply bring you a plate of food or one who can do a little dance before serving you.  Who will you remember? Don’t just drone on with useful info or ideas—deliver it with style.
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Brian Feinblum is the Chief Marketing Officer of Planned Television Arts, a book publicity company and leader in the media placement field since 1962. If you want to know more on how to promote your book during a media interview, please send your queries to Brian at feinblumb@plannedtvarts.com or call him at 212-583-2718.