Tuesday 30 September 2014

Marketing: A Numbers Game?

The theory is that if you have something for sale i.e a book (imagine that) which has had the seal of approval from honest friends and family, been enjoyed by a few people who have no connections to you, and has had investment by those who have a high skill set in the field of whatever product is being sold, then really making sales is a numbers game, right? When I say numbers game this is what I mean: the art of getting the item for sale to be seen by as many people as possible, because amongst all those people there will be those who enjoy it. Funnily enough this is the point I’m at with my book, and obviously why I am writing about it. The question is, how to you gain sufficient exposure to find those people who will like my book?

Well, that would be marketing... ‘sigh.’ I both love and hate marketing. I think marketing can be fun, as it’s another way to be creative, but I also hate it as being an introvert those initial steps of selling yourself and the product are very difficult. I have thought about door to door sales with the book, as I think it could be pretty productive, but due to nearly giving myself a panic attack when I was about to try this I’ve had to come up with a happy medium. So thanks to the help of my good friend Vix I had some posters designed and printed; I’m no good with computer type stuff but having a friend to help to make a poster was awesome, so thank you Vix.
 
The posters were printed yesterday and I put some at the University where I studied and still have friends. Then today I asked a number shops in Stirling’s town center if they would allow me to put one in their windows. A huge thank you to all the shops that did, your support is immensely appreciated. Obviously, some of the shops I picked intentionally as they relate to the target audience of those who like reading and enjoy a fantasy story, but having posters in as many places as I can sticks to the theory this blog update addressed at the start.

I also went into the local newspaper’s offices, the Stirling Observer, to hopefully rely on their kindness and support once again. I left them a copy and my details so I’m hoping they do a review.

Now that I’ve done some marketing it is time to see if the above theory plays out or not. So I guess I’ll keep an eye on sales. If you are reading this because of the posters then thank you for taking the time to see if my story the Book of Prophecy might be something you would like to read. I hope it is and if you haven’t done so feel free to read the first three chapters via the Amazon link on my website and then clicking ‘look inside.’ If you do buy it I hope you enjoy the story and thank you very very much.

I guess the next update will probably be how well putting up posters did, and if it didn’t help what I will try next to help people know the Book of Prophecy exists for their reading delight.