Tell Your Business Book’s Story To Everyone . . . But Spend Little
Topics: writing, business books, business communication, publicity, speaking, interviews, promotion
Everything comes to him who waits — among other things, death.
–Francis Herbert Bradley
Most of what people will tell you about promoting a new business book is a lot of nonsense. How do I know that? I spent a lot of time, money, and effort following what turned out to be bad advice.
Here’s what you should do instead:
1. Put up brief excerpts where people who like to read business books will find them (snippets located at online book sellers are especially effective).
2. Send excerpts by e-mail to anyone who wants them.
3. Offer to convert parts of your book into materials that others want to promote for their purposes both online and off.
4. Let anyone who reviews business books and wants a copy have one or a PDF.
5. Write lots of online articles that include key concepts from your book.
Here’s how I know that’s good advice: I learned it gradually after many business books for which I tried to follow the traditional advice. In fact, most of your readers will come from these methods rather than direct promotions or word of mouth.
Now don’t get me wrong: If you are a famous CEO, you can follow the traditional advice. If you merely have good ideas that will help people, you’ll need to follow the advice that I’ve given you.
As a new author, I received a lot of advice about how to successfully launch a business book. I spent time discussing the subject with friends who had written business best sellers.
I also read interviews with best-selling business authors about what they felt had contributed to their success. Members of the 400 Year Project steering committee also had ideas about how to get the word out.
Clearly, everyone had an idea for how to get someone else interested . . . but no one seemed to want to take the exponential solution process into his or her own organizations or personal life. That reaction should have told me something.
But I was so caught up with the advice for attracting others that was so enthusiastically given that I didn’t notice that the well of enthusiasm for our work wasn’t very deep.
A common piece of advice was to get advance copies out to as many decision leaders and influencers, such as CEOs of major companies, authors, media figures, reviewers, and social leaders, as possible. Having heard that advice very often, I took the direction seriously.
Thousands of advance copies and autographed versions of the first printing poured out of our office like a hundred year flood. Federal Express probably had a record year based on our heavy air freight volume.
I waited. I waited some more. Then I waited a little longer.
Then I got the first clue that hit home: A friend who worked in Harvard Square reported that the copy we had sent to the Harvard alumni magazine where I had labored as a youngster was being offered at a local used book shop for $1.00.
I later learned that the people I had sent the materials to often received as many as 100 books or advance reader copies a day. Some local charity, library, or used book seller was the inevitable recipient of this unsought largesse.
I should have remembered our own surveys of CEO reading habits: CEOs are busy people and usually don’t read many books until after they retire. Even then, business books are low on the list of preferred reading.
We finally realized that the advice to distribute advance copies was only good for those who could command attention because of who they were, something that didn’t apply to me.
Fortunately, our publisher prided itself on doing a great job of attracting book reviews, and I soon found that some of our review copies found their way to people who were writing favorable reviews. Unlike Broadway where you find out whether or not you’ve got a hit by reading the reviews just a few hours after the curtain goes down on opening night, book reviews trickle in.
But within four months, I learned that people who read the book almost always liked it even if they didn’t seem to apply it. That was some good news.
Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist and The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution about business model innovation. Read about creating breakthroughs and receive tips by e-mail by registering for free at
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