Marketing

[Guenter Heyes - (Author)]

My take on marketing is quite different as many might agree with:

As a new author I get swamped with e-mails and notifications as how to make sure that tomorrow I will be as successful as "Steven King" or the other great authors. I consider this approach a complete false one. It seems a "North American" phenomena that one has to pay to be promoted. Nothing is more removed from the truth than this assumption!

1st of all one has to realize this: If the book is good, readable and liked, then it HAS to sell. This is the same as if I had a hod-dog stand. I do not need marketing in order to sell my hot-dogs, because the likes for hot-dogs or a small snack will bring people to come to my stand. If the quality of the food I serve is naturally a bad one, then I will loose customers quite rapidly, and if the food is that bad that people end up in hospital with food poisoning, then the authorities will close down this hot-dog stand rapidly because of the health risk that I pose.

There is a totally different way of marketing that seems to have slipped under the carpet. However this type of marketing has to be revived. Let me stick to the hot-dogs a bit for the example. Some time ago I was organizing and participating in a environmental conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I was responsible for ensuring that snacks were served after the presentation. I managed to get hold of a delicatessen manufacturer who claimed to have the best meats on the island. Unsure about his claim he then produced to me a list of all the restaurants and hotels that boy his products. I checked out a few before committing myself to entrust this man with the catering to the conference. His claims were true! Not only did these establishments use "some of his products" - they were running exclusively their entire reputation on quality meats and delicatessen with this supplier alone.

What is the moral of the story? By providing me with the list of the said establishments, he not only supplied me with references for the validity of his claims concerning the quality of his products, but he also promoted his clients who buy his products. The result was that after the conference many follow up discussions and meetings were then scheduled to take place exactly in those establishments that were on this man's clients list!

So who was the winner? Both were. The producer of the products that we asked to cater for us as well the establishments that depended on his supplies. Not only did those restaurants receive a few more "drop in guests" for the duration of these conferences, many of those guests also became regular clients to these establishments. These establishments gained more and more reputation not by spending tons of money for advertisement, they gained their clients due to quality and reliability. For the person making these delicatessen, the rule was simple. If he would suddenly produce bade quality, then these establishments would cease to use his products. This is logical at 1st. However in order to ensure a steady production and growth in business he also needed to make sure that people would consume his products. How can he ensure that his products will be used if he does not promote the very clients that purchase them?

Now back to the books. Many of us are using POD publishers. We pay a specific amount to get into print, and then the fun begins! In order to be promoted we receive an "Offer" for a "Promotional package" at X-amount of $. We are offered other "Packages" for Y-amount of $. Now why would this be? Is it that the POD's simply make their money on the actual initial publishing fees that we pay them? Is it not in their interest that we authors actually get these books also SOLD? Then why would we need promotional packages?

I buck the trend on this. I refuse to give my "product" - (Book) - to be used bu others to enrich themselves by additional charges and "promotional packages". Only a "Bad Product" needs advertisement! As the old saying goes: If one builds a better mouse-trap, then the world will beat a path to his door.

As long as the one who have read our books do not throw them back at us and demand their money back, then the "Product" is good! Therefore it is up to the publisher to promote us! Not up to us to pay him to please say something that we got books for sale. After all it is the publisher who will earn a lot of money if we achieve 10,000 or 100,000 or more prints sold. So I see no reason to pay him extra to promote me.

There has to be a simpler and better way. One for sure would be to figure out in what genre as well what causes and interests ones books fall into. Thus then associate with Special Interest Groups. With the help of the internet, the 1,0000's of social networking groups and so forth, success can be had. After all we DID produce quality literature.

So my stand is simple:
If YOU - (Publisher) - want to make money with MY product, then YOU - (Publisher) - work for it.

Guenter

[LADYCOP]

You are right Guen you should not have to pay them to put out the goods about your books. They just want to have their palms greased and dont give a shit about the book and its contents, its all about the all mighty dollar. They need to put forth an honest effort to promote the work and not constantly think how much i can get for doing the promoting of the book. But then thats life and thats why things are so screwed up today too many money grabbing people