Book Promotion is Not Book Selling
There is a talk going on right now in one of my author/blogger groups about the difference between book promotion and book selling, and I wanted to talk about it on my blogs.
As a writer, you should know by now that writing the book is just the first step. If you dream of money along with publication, then you are going to have to learn a lot about marketing, networking and book promotion.
I am a virtual book tour coordinator with Pump Up Your Book Promotion, and I have been working a lot with authors to help them promote their books. Everything from setting up a blog to finding podcasts to be a guest on gets covered. Many authors know this and are becoming quite familiar with the virtual tour process.
However, too many authors are still confused about one thing:
Book promotions are not book sales.
My job as a tour coordinator is not to sell your books, strange as that may sound at first. My job is to promote your book. Promotions and sales are two different things.
As much as I would love to sell thousands of books for all of my authors, I can’t. I’m not a salesperson; I’m a publicist. Two different things.
Bottom line? Even if you go on tour (or do some other promotion) and your sales don’t skyrocket, that does not in any way mean your tour or other promotion(s) failed.
The point is to get your name out there so people ‘know’ you. You want to be in the top of the search engines, which will help you heaps when it comes time to sell the books. Promotions and marketing are an amazing help in the grand scheme of things, but they do not directly equal sales.
Leave a Reply