Marketing ideas...Is there anybody out there?

Marketing… Advertising to a “Target Audience.”  What is that?

No, I’m not going to bore you to death on how to market or advertise your writing.  This is mainly because I’m no expert on these topics.  However, these topics affect everyone at some point regardless if it’s publishing a book or buying a book. 

From my view, this topic is everything in today’s consumer world.  Marketing drives culture, and in turn, culture drives marketing.  They go hand in hand, one seems to out do the other in some strange psychosomatic way…Again, I’m no expert.  This is how my brain works.

With the possibility of starting a publishing company, I have to ask some questions.  What does marketing and advertising look like for a publishing company?  After all, one of the purposes for a publishing company is to market and advertise a writer’s work.  So how does a start-up publishing company gain recognition to do its job?

I have had some great discussion about marketing and advertising with Heather and Randy over the last few weeks.  My takeaways from our discussions have been dime.  Mainly, because I don’t care for the modern culture that we live in.

Let’s be honest.  Reading a book for pleasure doesn’t happen very often for most people.  In today’s world everyone is busy.  Everyone is on the go.  Reading a book takes time.  It takes effort.  People want to be rewarded by reading a book or else they feel like they have wasted their time and money.     

To help people justify purchasing a non-necessity item—such as a book—people will “look it up” to read reviews.  Everyone relays on some kind of a device that is plugged into the Internet 24/7 to give him or her information and reviews on a product or book.  The funny part to this is most people will admit that they don’t take reviews too seriously.  Most people will treat a review as “one person’s opinion.”  However, they still need to read whatever reviews they can find, to justify their purchase.  But people in today’s busy culture don’t want to spend too much time reading reviews or doing a lot of research on items/books they may or may not buy or read.   This is not because they don’t care, it has more to do with they have short attention spans… squirrel.

For almost forever, advertisers and marketers have provided some kind of test samples to help sell their product. 

An example of this sampling method of advertising can be seen through iTunes.  iTunes lets you listen to 90-second samples of a song to help sway you into buying the song or album.  Very cool.  I use it all the time.   It’s also a great example of the “Drive By” culture that we live in today.  Quick, short snippets of information (in this case music) tossed out to represent a larger body of work.  Sometimes, it’s hard to get the full effect of an artist with only a 90-second porthole into his/her work. 

The same applies to iBooks.  iBooks is great; it lets you read the first 30 or so pages of a book to help with your decisions on purchasing a book through iBooks.  The same can be found on Amazon. However, the consumer has to take the time to read those 30 or so sample pages. And reading takes time.    

In talking with Heather and Randy about starting a publishing company, we discussed doing something like iTunes.  Samples of the book, read by the author.  Or doing theatrical audio performances from a section of the book.  Something to give quick insight into the content of the book, outside of a typical description found on the back of books.  Even though it would only be a short snippet of the book and only a taste of the bigger picture, it may have an effect to potential buyers.  

With culture having short attention spans and having a high demand of needing information instantly, the book world needs to get creative and adapt to the cultural trends.  And no.  Our idea is not original or unique. And yes, I’m sure that it’s been implemented already somewhere.

It’s just an idea that we have been throwing around.

Ok I’m going to end this…

My last post, I ended it asking for comments, hoping to get discussions started.

Not one.  Not one comment, and I know with in the last month, 48 of you viewed my last post.  Yes, not many view for sure, but I had hoped someone would have left at least one comment.  It seems to be the trend with our viewers.  Very few of you leave comments on our posts. 

Something, anything would be fine for me.  Tell me to write about something else.  Tell me to just stop writing.  Something.  Show some life, is all I’m asking. 

Maybe I’ll just ask direct questions to hopefully get a response.

Have you published anything?

How did you publish? Self publish or Traditional publishing company?

Based on your publishing experience would you want to change anything the next time you publish?

How do you like you eggs?

Coffee or Tea?

Coke, Pepsi, or no Soft drinks, or do you call it Soda, or pop…?

Is there anybody out there? (To quote Roger Waters)