You're a Small Business With One Product . . . Your Book

Think of your book as a product that has to be sold. Think of yourself as an entrepreneur with one product. Then think of others who are good at their craft and modify your sentence using any of the following choices.

"I had no clue that when you become an Author, (quilter, carpenter, musician, massage therapist,lawyer, hair stylist, artist) you have to be a marketing expert." Every entrepreneur has to be a marketing expert or you will not sell any of your product.

The traditional path to book marketing was for an author to write a book (or create a product). Then find one customer, typically a book publisher (a/k/a distributor) whose business is to consolidate many books (products) into a collection from which their customers (bookstores) would choose the products they want to buy. In turn the book stores acted as consolidators from which readers (end users) would make the final purchase. In this scenario (which is actually even a bit more complex) each seller (author, publisher,distributor,bookstore) breaks the market into smaller and better defined segments making it easier to identify and reach the target demographic for a particular book.

We are experiencing the fallacy of the popular notion of "eliminating the middle man". When you do that you must now try to make sense of a large, cumbersome and complex market. Imagine standing in Time Square on News Years Eve and trying to identify who of the people assembled are your best customers.

One thing I have learned after many years of marketing all kinds of stuff for all kinds of people. Good ideas abound. Creating a product (though challenging) is not the hard part. Selling your product is the hard part.

My advice. Get good knowledgeable help. Know your market and understand how to communicate with them. If you say "Everyone will love my book." You are in big trouble.

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Reno Lovison specializes in using video to sell products and services and help authors market books.