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How Not to Market Your Books


One reason authors and independent or publish on demand (POD) publishers should not spend money on advertising is distribution channel limitations. Since POD and many non-traditionally published books are documented differently with the Library of Congress, they are excluded from the same channels as traditionally published books, thus creative marketing effort are necessary. Librarians and bookstores receive a book’s information from the Library of Congress and distributors. If your book is not in the CIP process as described in Get Rich in a Niche, chances are great that it will not be picked up by librarians and traditional books stores. More distribution channel opportunities are becoming available with Lightning Source and Createspace, however, without the CIP, books may be excluded.

Some predators and aggressive book marketing agencies try to persuade authors to pay for their connections and inroads with major buyers. In reality, all they do is add your book information to a database with several hundred others and email it to their points of contact. The points of contact may not even be a result of a personal relationship, but simply a collection of email addresses. Librarians and book stores already have an acquisitions system in place. Avoid this type of business or you may lose money.

Some also earn a living writing about the success of internet advertising. They claim that you should be buying mailing lists for libraries and bookstores, email campaigns and magazines to successfully sell books. However, these methods just don’t work and are non-applicable to niche marketing. Others claim that the internet is an untapped gold mine and all you have to do is make a product, pay a fee and sit back and collect millions of dollars.

There are some reputable services that in and of themselves, are not bad. However, they don’t always work for niche marketing because they may not know your niche-market as well as you do.  So, before you spend money, be sure your audience is specifically targeted in the campaign

Jeffrey W. Bennett, ISP is the owner of Red Bike Publishing. Jeff is an accomplished writer of non-fiction books, novels and periodicals. He also owns Red bike Publishing. Published books include: "Get Rich in a Niche-Insider's Guide to Self Publishing in a Specialized Industry" and "Commitment-A Novel". Jeff is an expert in security and has written many security books including: "Insider's Guide to Security Clearances" and "DoD Security Clearances and Contracts Guidebook". See Red Bike Publishing for print copies of: Army Leadership The Ranger Handbook The Army Physical Readiness Manual Drill and Ceremonies The ITAR The NISPOM


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