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Targeted marketing key to successful self-publishing
Self-published authors need to be more marketing savvy and more willing to dedicate time to the task of marketing, said Jeremy Robinson, author of POD People: Beating the Print-on-Demand Stigma.
“Marketing is really the only way a self-published author can get those first books sold and kick off the word-of-mouth machine,” he said.
13 Ways to market your textbook before, during & after publication
Marketing your textbook is about author-publisher cooperation, says mathematics author Michael Sullivan. He shares 13 ways authors can market their textbook before the writing begins, as the writing progresses, before publication, after publication and when preparing for the second edition.
How to leverage a TAA Textbook Award
Receiving a TAA Textbook Award is not only a great honor, it can also be used to increase book sales and advance your writing career.
Judy Rasminsky, coauthor of Challenging Behavior in Young Children and Challenging Behavior in Elementary and Middle School, both of which have received TAA Textbook Excellence (Texty) Awards, said she and her coauthor Barbara Kaiser have leveraged the award in several ways, including:
Marketing strategies: Reinforce textbook adoptions with promotional calendar
Physical geography author Robert Christopherson recently published a calendar to promote the seventh edition of his award-winning textbook, Geosystems.
The calendar’s two opening pages describe the strengths and new features of the new edition, and list the accompanying student and instructor supplements. The calendar itself features factoids that match physical geography and Earth systems science events, as well as photos for each month depicting physical geography subjects, such as the rapeseed crop in full bloom in northern Scottland; frost-shattered rock in Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean; and a birch forest in south-central Norway.
6 Tips for marketing your textbook
Q: “I have been writing a textbook but so far have been unable to interest a major publisher. I may publish it with a small publisher without a sales force. That leaves me to market the textbook. Can you share some advice for what I should do in this situation?”
A: Robert Christopherson, professor emeritus of geography at American River College and author of the leading physical geography textbooks in the U.S. and Canada:
- Examine similar textbooks in the field you are writing in over the past 10 years. Record publisher names, editors listed on the copyright page, and begin a list of any reviewers listed in the Preface. This process will give you an idea of publishers active in the discipline and some you might want to contact with your proposal.