Joe Taylor

You think you know what you know, until you find out you don’t. I learned some lessons selling my first book, “I’m Just Lucky To Own My Own Car” that I assumed would be applicable to promoting “In The Twist Of The Dial…What happened to radio, 1960 to 2020”, the book about my career and how radio has changed over the years. After the first book I questioned the efficacy of live readings, because they seemed to only draw friends and fellow members of Writers Block Party. I didn’t feel I was attracting strangers to come, listen, and buy my book.

I’ve made it a practice to personally reach out to friends and acquaintances who I think might be interested in my books. In doing that I stumbled into a fellow I worked with years ago who had the responsibility of booking speakers for his Rotary Club in Kittaning. They were a friendly lot that I got to chat up before my reading. Seven of the dozen people who were there bought my radio book. Total strangers every one. Most towns have Rotary Clubs and, having been a Rotarian I can tell you, booking guests is a weekly challenge. So, their members are happy to have us and predisposed to buying our books. I’ve recommended this to other authors and will continue reaching out to Rotary Clubs myself.

I know that most of us in the group who’ve written books have done library readings, usually drawing folks we know who come out to support us, but not necessarily buy our book. In my opinion and experience the success of a library reading is dependent upon the amount of support you get from the library to actually put people in the seats. The DuBois Public Library did a fantastic job of promoting my reading publicly and actively encouraging people to attend. Along with five people that I knew, the Library brought in a least another dozen. Seven of them bought my book. (Yes, seven is apparently lucky for me.) By the way, the Q&A session after your reading is critical. It’s a chance for you to use the questions the audience asks to entice them to find out more, by buying your book.

The topic of, or type of book determines to a large degree how you want to market it. “I’m Just Lucky To Own My Own Car” was a quirky collection of flash and micro pieces. I just scatter shot it out to fellow writers, friends, anyone I could think of who might appreciate an off center look at life. It was very personal. “In The Twist Of The Dial” is a book that could be targeted—to people who work in radio, or have worked in it. Because much of it involves my radio experiences in Pittsburgh, western and north central Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, I could target it geographically. I was able to find Facebook groups populated by radio people (formerly and presently). They allowed me to post my book cover, description, and a direct link to my Amazon order page. This has resulted in a goodly number of buys, and they are all strangers. I have seen by their comments that they are sharing info on my book with others. When my book on growing up Italian-American comes out next fall I plan on using this strategy-finding Facebook groups formed around our heritage and unique experiences.

I’ll share a little secret with you—newspaper editors and radio and TV producers are hungry-if not desperate for local stories and people to interview. You are doing them a favor-doing their work for them, when you contact them to interview you about your book. Don’t be shy. Just be sure to give them a good strong idea of what your book is about and why their readers/listeners/viewers would be interested in it. I’ve done three radio interviews and had two newspaper stories about my radio book so far. I’ve noticed an immediate uptick in sales following each.

“Networking” is probably one of the most overused and annoying words of our time. But, it works, if you have a dedicated group of people who man or woman your network. I have five friends, my Generators, who re-post and share every post and YouTube video that I put on my Joe Taylor Writer Facebook page. Many of these entries include the direct link to my Amazon order page. I had a post recently that was seen by 1,200 people. I check my Amazon reports every Saturday and have seen sales posted even during weeks when I’ve done nothing to promote the book. I can only assume that this is the result of sharing and re-posting by my Generators as well as members of the Facebook groups I’ve targeted.

It might seem to you that it takes a lot of effort and determination to market and sell your book. Well, it does. But then you had the dedication to writing your book, to endless editing, and fussing over every word, to get it right—to get what was important to you down on paper and in your book. You owe it to yourself to put the effort and determination into getting people to read what you wrote. They won’t know how good it is unless they read it.