The book industry is increasingly market driven. This means that publishers are identifying markets with needs, then attempting to publish appropriate books to meet these needs.

Small self-publishers can’t compete with the marketing budgets possessed by the large publishing houses. We must be both ruthless and clever with the little marketing we can afford to do. I use the term‘afford’ in relation to both money and time. You can do much to market your book that costs very little: but it does require you to commit significant time and effort.

The trick to selling books is two-fold: first you must produce a good book that has a market, and secondly you must tell people about it. So, of course, your job as an author isn’t over when you have finished writing your book. (Indeed, your job of promoting your book is never over.)

I have done an example marketing plan for you:

Now, using the headings in the example marketing plan, try writing an initial plan of your own. Once you’ve completed your first draft of your marketing plan, photocopy it and stick it on your office wall. Update it. Check progress against it. And keep researching costs – you might find a more cost effective alternative to one of your ideas at a later date. Make a file to keep all your marketing related quotes and estimates in. The more promotions and adverts you do, the more you’ll be able to compare costs against results.

WHAT IS MARKETING?

Marketing is essentially the process of telling people about your book. Marketing can take the form of publicity, whereby you use press releases and promotional events to raise the profile of your book, or advertising, whereby you pay to advertise your book in any number of advertising mediums (newspapers, magazines, radio, or maybe even the side of a bus).

• Publicity is typically less expensive than advertising, but you have less control over the end product (your press release might be re-written or not used at all, or your book might not be reviewed favourably if it is reviewed at all).
• You have complete control over your advertising (what is said, where and when your advertisement is placed), but it is very expensive.
• People are more sceptical of paid advertisements.
• People are more likely to read editorial copy.

The discipline of marketing comprises of five inter-relating elements, typically referred to as the five‘Ps.’

• Product – the product or service you are trying to sell.
• Price – at what price will people be most likely to buy your product?
• Promotion – telling people about your product.
• Place – where people will buy your product.
• Perception – how can you influence what people think of your product?

Product

What are your book’s selling points? What will make people want to buy it? How can these selling points be emphasised by publicity and advertising?

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Price

Refer back to the pricing exercise you did in Chapter 4. Can you afford to offer customers a promotional discount? How much?

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Customer

Refer back to the Knowing Your Product exercise in Chapter 2. Who will buy your book? To be able to market your book, your prospective buyers must be identifiable and locatable.

What do they read? Where do they go? What clubs and associations are they members of? Where do they congregate during their leisure time? Where do they live? Where do they shop? You need to target your marketing at places where the highest concentrations of your target audience can be found.

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Promotion

Write down ideas for where and how you will seek publicity. Remember to ALWAYS utilise your local media. Is your family still known in your home town? Even though you’ve moved away, contact the local media there also. The media loves a‘local boy/girl done good’ kind of story. Also write down ideas for where you will place paid-for advertising.

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At the end of this chapter there is a marketing plan for you to fill out. Keep a pad and pen handy as you read through the chapter so you can note down any ideas you’d like to try out for your own book.

PROMOTING TO THE BOOK INDUSTRY

Different book retailers operate different buying policies. Your first step should always be to befriend a local branch manager if possible. Do not become a nuisance, but simply introduce yourself and explain what you are publishing and when, and ask if they would be interested in seeing a copy, with a view to selling in store. Be warned that some branch managers have no control over what books are sold in store – or use this excuse to avoid having to discuss your proposition with you at all.

Unless you have a very generous marketing budget, mailshots are the most cost-effective means of promoting your book to the book industry. (Advertising in trade publications is covered later in this chapter.) You will need to dedicate some time to preparing your mailshot databases (or pay someone else to do it for you), but once you have a database you can use it time and time again.

First you will need to prepare a promotional flyer. The critical information it should contain is:

• a visual of the book’s cover
• publication date
• number of pages
• format and dimensions
• ISBN
• classification details
• price

• fulfilment details
• summary
• promotional and publicity details
• author information
• contact details.

Once you have a design for your flyer, you can change your heading and/or a small section of the text for each mail out. (For example, prior to the signing of the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2004 I sent out a mail shot for Britain’s Hot Potato! titled‘Are You Ready for the Controversy?’)

Always send out your first mail shot as far ahead of your publication date as you can, and call this flyer‘Advance Information’. Use the sample flyer shown here as a basis to design one that suits the mood of your book. For example, if your book is aimed at the humour market, your flyer could contain a hint of humour in its content and design. However, always ensure that your design doesn’t distract the reader from the essential information you are trying to put across to book buyers.

BUILDING A DATABASE OF BOOKSELLERS

Waterstones

Waterstones do not operate a central buying system. All buying decisions are made at branch level, which means you will need to contact every branch individually. Before doing so, it would be enormously in your favour if you tried to establish a supplier account with Waterstones. To do so you need to:

• 1.Ensure your book has an ISBN and barcode.
• 2.Register your book title with Nielsen BookData.
• 3.Set up a trading relationship with Gardners Books Ltd (the book wholesaler who will supply your book to all Water-stones’ branches).

You should be doing steps one and two regardless of whether or not you want to sell your books at Waterstones, which leaves your main challenge the creation of a trading relationship with Gardners. (See Chapter 9, which discusses book wholesalers.)

Once you have fulfilled the necessary criteria, Waterstones will send you a list of all branches together with their addresses and telephone numbers. There are over 220, so you will need to invest some time setting up a mailmerge database. Some people swear that taking the considerable time to ring each branch to get a relevant contact name is worthwhile. Other people send out promotional leaflets addressed to the relevant buying manager (e.g. The Buying Manager: Children’s Fiction, or The Buying Manager: Cookery).

If you can not get a trading relationship with Gardners, approach your local branch manager and convince him or her that your fabulous book should be stocked in the local branch at least.

Waterstones
Capital Court
Capital Interchange Way
Brentford
TW8 OEX

Tel: 020 8742 3800
www.waterstones.co.uk

WH Smith

WH Smith operate an Approved Independent Publisher’s Scheme. Again, you need a trading relationship with Gardners Books, who will supply your books to the WH Smith Distribution Centre. Contact Gardners for further information (see Chapter 9). There is no harm in sending your book to the relevant book buyer (ring and request the name). Some authors achieve success having their book stocked on an informal basis at a local branch, others do not.

WH Smith is the UK’s largest bookseller, with 542 high street stores and 200 travel stores.

WH Smith
Greenbridge Road
Swindon
SN3 3LD
Tel: 01793 6l6l6l

Books etc.

(Books etc. is owned by the Borders Group.) There are 32 stores in the UK.

122 Charing Cross Road
London
WC2H 0JR
Tel: 020 7379 7313
www.booketc.co.uk

Ottakar’s

At the time of writing Ottakar’s was subject to a takeover bid. To get up-to-date information you will need to ask your local branch manager for head office contact details, or visit their website (www.ottakars.co.uk). There are currently over 70 stores in the UK.

Blackwells

Blackwells is the academic and professional bookseller. There are 80 stores across UK plus nine Heffers stores in Cambridge.

50 Broad Street
Oxford
OX1 3BQ
Tel: 01865 792792
http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk

John Smith & Son

John Smith & Son serves the community of Scottish universities.

57-61 St Vincent Street
Glasgow
G2 5TB
Tel: 01412 217422
www.johnsmith.co.uk

James Thin

James Thin has shops across Scotland, plus the Volume One chain in England.

53-59 South Bridge
Edinburgh
EH1 1YS
Tel: 01316 228222
www.jthin.co.uk

The Booksellers Association

As the name suggests, this is an association representing booksellers throughout the UK, including independent bookstores. The BSA keeps an up-to-date database of their members. You can purchase mailing labels from them – for use only once- at a reasonable price (£12 per 100 labels). Their database can be selected according to a number of useful categories, based on their geographic location or type of book. So, for example, you could request labels of all London bookshops specialising in travel books, or all bookshops in the South West that stock books on trains and railways.

The Booksellers Association
Tel: 020 7802 0802
Email: mail@booksellers.org.uk

REVIEWS

It is undeniably difficult to get a book review of a self-published book into a national newspaper so my advice is to stick to local and regional papers.

Think back to the marketing exercises you have done. Who is your target audience? What magazines and newspapers might they read? Are there magazines that specifically cover your book’s topic? (For example, if your book is about gardening, you should send a review copy to all the gardening magazines.)

Once you’ve compiled a shortlist of magazines, invest an hour or so to research their contents. Do they have a books page? Visit the periodicals section of your library and read through some copies. Ring them and ask for the name of the books editor.

Once you have a list of names and addresses you are ready to prepare your reviews mailshot. Things to remember:

Send your review copy to the relevant editor

Do this well ahead of your publication date. Remember that monthly magazines go to print over two months prior to the cover month.

Advance information

Enclose a copy of your advance information book flyer with the review copy. Enclosing a sample book review in the form of a press release (see below) is a further option.

Reply cards

Some publishers send out a reply card with review copies. As the return rate is not high – some reviewers are unable to acknowledge when and where their review may be published or broadcast – I would suggest that your marketing budget would be better spent on something else.

Further information

Ensure that somewhere on your accompanying material you have clearly alerted the reviewer to where they can get further information. For example, ‘To request a book cover or author image jpeg, please email xx@xx.’ (Or if you have a website you could have them available for downloading.)

Include copies of other favourable reviews

If you have some; highlight the most favourable sections, so the reviewer’s eyes are drawn immediately to them. Cut and paste an assortment of reviews so they are arranged neatly on one A4 sheet. Perhaps you don’t have reviews per se, but a number of comments from people who have read the book, for example, a class of school children. Cut and past these comments onto an A4 sheet similarly, and title the page‘Reader’s Comments’.

Preparing your sample book review

Writing good book reviews is certainly an art, but don’t fret about this for now. For your purposes you need to master an interesting review that journalists searching through press releases will find readable. Have a long and short sample review prepared; as some journalists will happily quote them almost verbatim.

The key thing about book reviews is they are a commentary about a book, not a summary of a book. Normally of course it is not you, the author, reviewing your own book. So put yourselves in the eyes of your readers. Detach yourself and from a third-person point do the following:

• Summarise the content of the book.
• Describe the book (choose three or four key adjectives. Is the book interesting, entertaining, thought-provoking, sad?).
• Explain why the book is interesting, entertaining etc.
• Describe your reactions to the book. (Difficult to do as the author, but imagine how your readers might respond to what you’ve written.)
• What issues does the book explore?
• What evidence does the book use to prove its point (if relevant)?
• How does the book relate to others in its genre?
• Consider by what criteria the book will be judged, and give your opinion as to how it fares. (Depending on the genre of your book, readers will have different expectations of the style of writing, the content/story, references, and so on. Consider the market at which your book is pitched, and how your readers will judge it.)

Write your sample book reviews being mindful of where you will be sending them, and the audience you are hoping to reach. Be selective about the messages you want each of your book reviews to emphasise. You won’t have the space to include every component of a book review as listed above: choose what is most relevant to your book, and best helps you get across the messages you want to promote to the specific audience you’re targeting.

Remember, the point of your book review is to achieve some controlled publicity about your book.

Note also that you’ll have to‘big up’ your skills and achievements! You might feel uncomfortable singing your own praises so blatantly, but you’ll just need to get over it, as they say. (You’ll find it hard to self-promote and publicise your book until you do.)

I’ve put my key chosen words in bold italics. The underlined part of the review is the brief summary of the book that you must include towards the start of your review. The points I wanted to emphasise were:

• The book is happily aimed at the‘chick-lit/mummy-lit’ market.
• It is a light-hearted novel: not too intellectually challenging.
• But, it is thought-provoking and does explore some real issues.

PROMOTING YOUR BOOK TO THE PUBLIC

It is easier and cheaper than you might think to organise some promotional activities for your book. It is also easy to get carried away with promotions – some of them are fun to do – and if you’re not careful you will blow three-quarters of your marketing budget on a great new idea you’ve had, even though it won’t meet your initial objectives. Refer back frequently to your marketing notes and promotions plan.

Promotions checklist

• Who is the promotion aimed at? (General public? Specific audience?)
• What is its objective? (Raise profile of book? Generate sales of xx amount? Get some free publicity in media? Secure some new outlets in which your book will be sold? Hold promotional event at which books can be sold directly?)

• Who will help you organise your promotion, and if necessary, staff an event?
• What is your budget?
• Are any promotional gimmicks you plan to use relevant to your target audience?

Types of promotions

There are a wealth of promotional gimmicks and activities you can use to promote your book. Here are some ideas:

Giveaway items

These items, such as balloons and bookmarks for example, can have your book name/cover image printed onto them. Give them away at a launch event or book signing, or if you visit schools or reading groups.

Self-publicity

Use yourself, your car, and every other opportunity you have to promote your book. Rope in any friends or family members who are willing to join the cause. Print t-shirts and car stickers and display them. Print some small stickers to plaster on every envelope you post.

Ornate some books as a prize

Approach your local paper, your local school, or other relevant clubs and organisations. Offer to donate a few copies of your book as a prize, either for a specific competition relating to your book, or a general charitable raffle.

For example, I approached my local Chamber of Commerce about my book Britain’s Hot Potato/ 1 gave a light-hearted presentation at a business breakfast and distributed some quiz questions I had prepared on the European Union. Each table competed for the quiz prize – some wine (donated by The Chamber of Commerce) and some copies of my book. I also had copies of all of my books for sale in the foyer.

Use your Yellow Pages to source local companies who produce balloons, car stickers, t-shirts and the like. (Look under Corporate Gifts or Promotional Items. There should be several companies listed, offering you all manner of promotional goodies.) You should be able to use the same designed image on several different products.

If you only want a small number of some items printed for a one-off event, t-shirts or coffee mugs for example, try a high street store like Snappy Snaps, who will produce such items from a scanned colour image.

HOW TO WRITE A PRESS RELEASE

Most news desks receive hundreds of press releases every day, so limit your press release to one A4 page. Use the example on page 91 of a press release structure and practise writing two or three different press releases about your book.

Remember that newspapers have different editorial deadlines depending on whether they are a morning, mid-day or evening newspaper. Consider this if your news release is about a specific event with an associated photo opportunity. You need to stage the photo opportunity so the photographer and journalist have enough time to do their job and meet their copy deadlines. Similarly, some news desks have fewer staff working over the weekend and might be less able to send a reporter or photographer to your event. Check what else is on in your local vicinity on the day you want to hold your event or photo opportunity – what competition is there for news coverage?

RADIO

A list of national and regional radio stations can be found in either The Writer’s Handbook or The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. Listen to the radio stations or otherwise research their programmes.

Which are most likely to be interested in your book? Find out the producer’s name for the programme, and write to them (not the announcer). Include a copy of the book and your publicity flyer. If you have any experience of radio interviews, or public speaking or similar, mention it. (Producers need to feel confident that you won’t melt with nerves on the day.) Follow up with a phone call three or four days after you’ve posted your letter to try to establish personal contact.

If you secure a radio interview, prepare yourself by anticipating likely questions and rehearsing your answers. If you enter the studio feeling confident in your preparation, it will be vastly easier for you to relax and sound confident on the air.

TELEVISION

You should always include regional BBC and independent television centres on your media list. Present yourself in your press release not just as a creative author, but as an enterprising business person who has‘taken the bull by the horns’.

Ensure the promotional event you are press releasing includes a good viewing opportunity: a quirky book launch event, or a school reading, for example. If the story is interesting enough the national bulletins will quickly pick it up.

And if your press releases are ignored by the television centres, don’t delete them from your press list. Like everyone in the media, television news bulletin producers also suffer from‘no news days’. If you catch their eye on a day when little else is happening on the news desk, your fortune might change.

It is significantly more difficult to secure coverage of your book on a national television programme. If your book is non-fiction, there may be a programme directly relevant to the content matter. If you think your book is relevant to a specific programme, write to the producer explaining why you think he or she might be interested in your book. Enclose a free copy (obviously), and outline any suggestions you may have for how the book may be incorporated into the programme. If your book is a non-fiction book, sell yourself as an expert on its subject matter.

Do consider whether approaching television is an effective use of your time and promotional book copies.

Another, more achievable means of getting television coverage is to offer copies of your books as prizes for programme competitions or charity links. Think back to your marketing plan. Are there any marketing‘hooks’ that will appeal to television producers?

For example, if your book is about chocolate, which programmes might be interested in a feature and book giveaway on International Chocolate Lover’s Day (or similar)? If your book is a novel, is there anything in its setting (time and place) that can be used for a marketing hook: an anniversary of a famous event significant to the story, for example?

Listings of television contacts can be found in either The Writer’s Handbook or The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.

ORGANISING YOUR BOOK LAUNCH

Your book’s publication date provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a book launch. A book launch in turn provides a good excuse for a press release, and a bit of a bash that might generate some publicity and sales. So have a book launch!

There are three preferable venues for a book launch:

• your local bookshop
• your local library
• a specific venue relevant to your book’s topic. For example, if your book is about canal boats, stage your launch at a canal visitor centre (assuming it’s reasonably local).

If none of the above venues work out, use the local village hall, an art gallery or cafe. Note however that it is preferable to have your book launch in a public place (if only five people show up the low turn out won’t be so obvious). And unless you have more faith in the weather than I do, never arrange a book signing in an exposed outdoors location (in the market square or in the park).

Remember that the purpose of your book launch is to:

• Raise awareness of your new book.
• Sell as many signed copies on the day as possible.
• Celebrate your achievement and thank a few people. (Note that the celebratory/thanking people formalities should never exceed ten minutes!)

The event should be structured loosely.

• Welcome people and direct them to the refreshments.
• Ask family and friends to mingle and chat to lone guests.
• Start the brief formalities once you get a feeling that everyone has arrived and is settled with a drink. It’s helpful if you arrange for the bookshop manager or cafe owner etc. to introduce you. You in turn can then thank them for their support for hosting your book launch.
• End your little speech by announcing that books are available for sale and you will happily sign and dedicate any copies bought.
• Acknowledge the press to the crowd if there are any in the room. Light-heartedly suggest that‘if anyone has already read my book, they may give glowing reviews only to the reporter from The Wessex Herald, who is at the back of the room’ (point him or her out and smile nicely!).
• Stage your photo opportunity if you have one arranged, stage your photo opportunity towards the end of your event.

GIVING INTERVIEWS

Whether at your book launch or at dedicated interviews you arrange later, at some point somebody will expect you to answer some questions about your book.

Many authors are terrified by interviews. You needn’t be. It is unlikely you’re going to be grilled Jeremy Paxman style. (Though if you’ve written a book about a controversial topic, you may well face aggressive questioning, so be prepared for it.) Most of us are more likely to face quite harmless questions. If you prepare ahead, you will find them no trouble to answer at all.

Consider what the obvious questions will be. If your book is about planes, you’re bound to be asked‘When did your passion for planes begin?’ ‘What made you want to write a book about planes?’ You will no doubt be asked who you think your target audience is, or, ‘Who did you write this book for?’ You might be asked to select your favourite passage from the book, so have one ready. Be prepared for, ‘Why did you decide to publish your book yourself?’ (And don’t answer, as a friend of mine did, ‘Because no other sod would publish it for me.’!)

Remember that the readers, listeners or viewers will probably know nothing about you or your book. Practise your answers until you feel they’re imparting maximum interest and curiosity, though don’t learn answers to your questions off by heart, as there is the danger you will recite them without passion or personality when you’re distracted by nerves.

ADVERTISING

Advertising involves asking oneself an endless array of questions and making an endless array of decisions. Don’t be put off! Advertising is the most expensive element of a marketing strategy, but if you place your advertising wisely – having done the research and homework necessary to inform your decisions – it can also be the most effective aspect of your marketing strategy. Before you spend a penny on advertising, consider the following questions:

• What do I want to achieve from advertising?
• What key message do I want to put across?
• Where do I want to advertise? (What is the target audience for my advertising?)
• How frequently do I want to advertise?
• Will my advert be time specific?
• How much paid, professional help will I need?
• How much can I spend?

Where should I advertise?

Choosing the right medium for advertising is crucial. But let’s be realistic: most of us will be guided predominantly by our available budget. In an ideal world this wouldn’t be the case (but then again, in an ideal world we would have sold our manuscript to Penguin for £200,000, right?).

Even if your guiding variable will be your available budget, before you decide where to advertise you need to revisit the question‘Who you think will buy your book?’ What is your target market? Is your book relevant to a specific geographic area, or a specific age group only? Is there a professional/trade journal or magazine relevant to your book’s topic?

If your book is aimed at a more general market, can you break this general market into more specific sub-groups?

For example, if your target audience tend to read The Sun, there is no point in advertising in The Financial Times.

A list of all radio stations, newspapers and magazines can be found in The Writer’s Handbook or The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. Once you have selected those pertinent to your marketing plan, ring them and ask for their advertising information. They will provide you with a two important groups of statistics:

• the numbers of readers or listeners
• a breakdown of their average reader/listener’s socio-economic demographics.

Using these statistics you need to decide whether an advertisement is likely to be effective (reach the right people) and deliver good value for money in relation to your overall marketing budget.

Never tell an advertising executive that you a) have never placed an advertisement before, or b) never intend to place another in the future. Bluff. Say you have recently revised your marketing strategy and are currently investigating the budget implications of placing more paid advertising.

Ask what discount you can receive on the ratecard price. If you’re not offered a discount immediately say something like, ‘In that case I’ll move on and ring the next magazine/publication on my list. Thank you very much for your help though; I might get back to you once I’ve received all of the quotes I need to make my decision.’

You might be offered a discount at this point, but only if you sign up to multiple adverts over a given period of time. Hold your ground and ‘say something like,’ Thank you, I’ve made a note of those prices for my files, but for now I’m looking to place just the one add, so we can monitor its effectiveness before committing to a longer-term campaign.’ Don’t make a decision until you’ve gone through this process with every magazine or publication on your list.

Finally, if you strike up a rapport with an advertising executive, always ask if you could send them a copy of your book, so they can pass it to the relevant colleague on their publication’s editorial team.

The Bookseller

Ask The Bookseller for their latest editorial calendar, or download it from their website. If you’re aiming to sell your book commercially, using established industry channels, you should consider advertising in their supplements and buyers guides, if you can afford it. As an example of price, a colour eighth-of-a-page advert (130mm x 46mm) currently costs £450. Current advertising rate cards can be downloaded from their website.

DIY advertising

If you’ve managed the creative and organisational skills to write a book, you should feel confident in your ability to write a piece of advertising copy. The basic advertising rule of thumb is AIDA: attention, interest, desire and action.

Attention

Your advert must get the attention of newspaper and magazine readers. Use strong headlines and bold, simple graphics. Good design is essential. Here is some useful information I gleaned from a friend who worked in advertising:

• People look at pictures in adverts first – so put them at the top of your layout.
• Next they read, the headline. 20 per cent of us will read only the headline before skipping to the next advert. So ensure your headline works.
• Bottom right-hand corner. Don’t ask me why, but apparently this is a good place for names and slogans.
• General text gets read last.
• Use colour if you can afford it.
• Put line spaces between short blocks of text – it’s easier on the eye. Try to keep blocks of text to one or two sentences only.
• Putting a heavy dashed border around small adverts tricks people into thinking it’s a useful coupon.

Interest

Having got the attention of the reader, next you must maintain their interest. They need to become intrigued about your book. This is where your headline needs to get to work. Here are some more basic tips:

• ?Use key words in a headline that make us think: Why? How? Do? Why is this book...? How to... Do you...?
• ?Use‘signposts’ to identify with your intended audience. This is especially relevant when advertising non-fiction books. CHOCOLATE LOVERS – you will love this new book on ... (chocolate, obviously) FED UP WITH...? WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT...? PARENTS – Help at last! 100s OF WAYS TO...

Desire

Successful advertising makes people desire the produce or service being advertised, leading to...

Action

How can your advert prompt people to act upon their desire and buy your book? Use standard industry tricks:

• ’free postage and packaging’
• ’special reduced price’
• provide a response coupon and give a deadline -‘to take advantage of this offer please respond by 10 May’.

Advertising‘power words’

If you bothered to analyse the copy of all the adverts in a Sunday newspaper you would find a core group of words that are used again and again in advertising. Here is a selection, and a suggestion of how you might use each word in a phrase relevant to a book advertisement:

Now	Now available!
New	Exciting new author!
Save	Save money by buying direct from the publisher!
Discount	Quote Code SP123 for your £2 discount
Hurry	Special launch offer valid until xx/xx/xx
Amazing	An amazing new talent
Free	Free postage and packaging
Special offer	£1 off RRP when using this reply coupon
The best	The best beach read this summer!
Secrets	Secrets of a xxxxxxxxx revealed!
How to	How to xxxxxxxxxxx. Everything you need to know in one book.
Easy	Ten easy steps to xxxxxxxxx
Why	Why did he kill his own brother? Only one woman knows the answer...
Don’t	Don’t miss out on the hottest new novel in [your local town]!

Advertising standards

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is responsible for ensuring that advertisements meet agreed standards. They have the power to investigate complaints about advertisements. Many complaints are about small businesses, and many complaints originate not from members of the public, but other businesses. Your competitors – especially those who have the resources to monitor other people’s adverts – will quickly report any misleading or inaccurate aspect of your advertisement.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) produces a very useful guide to the British codes of advertising and sales, which is free of charge. Some main points are:

• Advertisers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims capable of objective substantiation.
• Adverts should be honest and socially responsible.
• Adverts should not use shocking claims or tactics just to get noticed.
• Any‘informed opinion’ should not be portrayed as being universally agreed.

If you use your common sense it’s unlikely that your book advert is going to get you in trouble. However, it’s advisable to take the time to have a look at the advertising codes in full. They can be found on www.cap.org.uk.

Advertising Standards Authority

Mid City Place

71 HighHolborn
London
WC1V6QT
Tel: 020 7492 2222
www.asa.org.uk

TALKS AND WORKSHOPS

If you’re a confident public speaker you should consider promoting yourself as an author and publisher who is available to give talks and hold workshops. Schools, libraries, businesses, and organisations such as the Women’s Institute welcome confident and interesting speakers.

Register your interest with your local library, if they keep a list. Approach your local education authority and ask if they keep a list of people willing to visit schools. The Reading & Language Information Centre keeps a national database (visit www.ralic. reading.ac.uk).

It’s reasonable to expect payment for giving talks and holding workshops. Some rule-of-thumb fees to expect are:

• full-day workshop £250
• single session £150
• hourly rate (use adult tutor rate for guidance) £18
• school whole day £150
• school half day £100
• corporate talks – no upper limit; it depends on the company.

Other organisations, such as Rotary or your local Chamber of Commerce for example, will welcome you as a speaker but probably won’t expect to pay you anything. You can still gain from the exposure, and there is always the chance of selling a few books after dinner.

The Arts Council sponsors a personal liability scheme aimed at writers who give talks and hold workshops. This is advisable especially if you visit schools. Contact the Arts Council’s literature department (Tel: 020 7333 0100). Also contact your local education authority to check whether you need to complete a disclosure form (a system of checking people who come into contact with school children, run by the Criminal Records Bureau).

WRITING YOUR MARKETING PLAN

Now that you’ve jotted down some general ideas, you need to expand on these and write your marketing plan. Don’t be alarmed by the jargon: your marketing plan need comprise only one A4 page. It will do just as the name suggests; help you to plan your marketing in advance. It will also help you to plan your budget and cash flow. Finally, it will help you to monitor your progress and assess the effectiveness of your marketing.

Try writing your marketing plan in three consecutive stages:

• 1.Pre-publication marketing.
• 2.Launch date marketing.
• 3.On-going marketing.