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.

I know what you’re thinking. What’s an author tagline?

It’s that catchy phrase, that clever one-liner that helps readers identify you and that your publicist can use to help you develop your platform. Why do you need it? So you can have a focal point, a clear and concise foundation from which to build all of your marketing efforts.

The tagline is the heart of your message, the slogan for your author campaign, but coming up with one may take some trial and error. Before you can start developing your tagline, you first need to answer a few key questions:

• Who is your audience?
• What value do you bring them?
• Why should you be the one to bring them that value?

The answers to those three questions establish the guts of your platform. For the sake of developing an example, lets say your audience is thirty-something divorcees and that your expertise is helping them jump back into the dating scene. You are the best person to give them this advice because you are a matchmaker with a ninety percent success rate and you have just published a book that outlines your top dating tips and advice. From there, you can create a list of possible taglines:

• “Getting you back in the game”
• “Divorced, but not dead”
• “Second time’s a charm”

When developing your own tagline, you would want to make a list of more than three, and even mix and match parts of several to come up with a phrase that is both short and catchy. Though not related to an author platform, here are a few tag lines that work well:

• “Funny name, serious sandwich” —Schlotzky’s Deli
• “Just do it” —Nike
• “Think outside the box” —Apple
• “The Uncola” —7up
• “Life Unscripted” —TLC

You get a sense of what each company is about based on the tagline. Each company’s brand springs forth from their tagline and all of their marketing efforts work to perpetuate the idea established by their tagline.  Keep that in mind when developing your own tagline.

Also, you don’t want to rush the process. Take your time. Bounce ideas off several people whose opinion you trust.  Sleep on it a few nights to make sure it’s something you can live with. It’s much more difficult to switch paddles midstream than it is to start with the right equipment in the first place. So, once you commit to a tagline, stick with it and make sure your outreach efforts and all of your marketing stays consistent with your message.

Whether you are publishing with a traditional house, an independent publisher, or self-publishing, the bulk of book marketing responsibility is on you as the author. Many authors are choosing to hire a book publicist to help connect with readers and potential audience members.

Before you hire a publicist, it is important to ask a few basic questions to help you determine if he or she is legitimate, effective, and has the background and strengths that you are looking for:

Payment & Fees

• Do you charge a monthly retainer or is payment based on bookings?
• How much is the retainer?

Campaign Details

• How long do most of your campaigns last?
• What type of publicity do you book most: radio, TV, online (blogs, etc) or print?
• Can you describe the involvement required from me?
• Can you describe the extent of online initiatives? The balance between online and traditional media?
• Who will be involved in my campaign?
• How far in advance of publication do you start working?

Campaign Results

• What kind of results are reasonable to expect?
• What results do you consider particularly successful?

Former Clients and Books

• How many national bookings have you gotten in the past 6 months? Which ones? For what book?
• Will you send me a sample schedule for a client with a book similar to mine?
• May I speak with some authors you’ve represented?

Every author may not need to ask every question, and some authors may want to go into more detail about what they are specifically interested in. But these represent some of the most important items to know before you hire your publicist.

Visit Galleycat to see a great list of book marketing experts and publicists to follow on Twitter.

Very actionable advice on gathering author blurbs via PW’s “Ask a Publicist” feature.