This timely 62-page booklet may be just what you need to jumpstart your own marketing and branding, and/or simply do what it promises: that is, publish your book and allow it to become a “strategic business development asset.”
I have to say from the start that I was intrigued by reading this book, as writing (I have published over 30 books) and publishing (and my books have been with many major publishers, such as Pearson and Routledge, as well as self-published through Lulu) have been my primary concerns for over 30 years. The thing is: if you’re published by a major you tend to assume that they’re responsible for marketing your book, and therefore you don’t do anything yourself; And if you self-publish, by the time you finish writing the book, you often have very little energy left to promote it. And to be honest too: many authors suffer from the idea that their writing is intrinsically interesting, so they just have to write and publish and voila! – your merits will be discovered. Unfortunately, such a fantasy is wishful thinking at best and dangerous at worst. Many excellent books have been published only to disappear completely from view for lack of proper marketing and sales.
Like any other activity designed to make money, publishing is a business (albeit a strange one!) and one must consider not only the alpha (writing the book) but also the omega of successfully bringing it to market). Does Georgia Kirke’s slim volume help you do that?
The answer has to be a resounding yes: this is a surprisingly useful and simple book. Its brevity is a strength, especially for busy business people who need to get to the heart of the matter quickly. In order to turn your book into a “strategic business development asset,” Kirke recommends four pillars, or four assumptions that she breaks down: One, that “the marketing of your book and the quality of the book’s content are of equal importance.” That seems very harsh and very realistic to me: the commercialization of a book that contains nugatory content does not make sense. Two, taking the long-term view of the country. In other words, one has to be strategic; It’s a bit like pets: they’re for life, not just for Christmas! Three, book marketing works best with a plan. Hardly a revelation, but it’s actually so important to stress because so many people think they can do without one. Four, one size does not fit all. And this is also true: if there was only one way to succeed in book publishing, everyone would be doing it. You need creativity here as much as anywhere if you want to make an impact.
Having established these assumptions, Kirke goes on to break down the three stages of editorial self-promotion. Many good ideas and useful tips follow. My favorite, which shows me that Kirke really knows what he’s doing, is on his advice to become an Amazon bestseller. As she comments, “you can become a bestseller in half an hour or so by tagging your book in less popular categories, arranging to buy a bunch of them the same day it comes out, and lining up reviews for the day of publication,” but as she later realistically comments, “achieving bestseller status that way may not be very helpful to you.” making reading so valuable that they talk about it, share it, and most importantly, put it into action.”
But I’ve saved the best for last. The really outstanding feature of Kirke’s book is the final chapter, and the book is worth its price for this chapter alone. In fact, it’s barely a chapter in the traditional sense: it’s a list of 80 marketing tools and ideas for promoting her book, and they’re pretty terrific. I went through them all and realized that in my time I had only put about half of the 80s into practice, that there were about 40 ideas that my wife and I would now need to review and that could be extremely useful for the promotion of my books. So it’s time for busy and action stuff!
Therefore, I fully recommend Georgia Kirke’s to any author, but especially to self-published authors who want to create an extra edge for their book promotion. This is a must read.
