The Secrets To Marketing Fiction
Report by Penny Sansevieri









When my initial book (The Cliffhanger) was published almost seven years ago, I had high hopes of its success. I mean I am, right after all, a PR person – so how tough could it be to market fiction? Granted, up till that point I hadn’t taken on a lot of fiction — properly, to be sincere I hadn’t taken any fiction. Fiction is tough and everybody knows it. But now I was going to get my likelihood, and what better way to start off than on my own book? When The Cliffhanger hit the #1 spot on Amazon it was no accident, it was a inventive push that got it to #1 and ironically, the pitch that prompted this Amazon soar had absolutely nothing to do with the book. Curious? Then read on.
When I was first pushing The Cliffhanger I did all the factors a great fiction author is supposed to do. I sent out review copies, developed a gorgeous press release, scheduled book events. All of these issues were great, but they didn’t give it the momentum the book truly necessary to be successful. The book signings were great, but a tad boring, the press was interested, but not enough to feature me more than once. I knew I required to do a thing, but let’s face it, when you’re writing romance it is difficult to discover a pitch that has the stickiness to it to, well, stick. When you’re taking a fiction book to market you want to have much more to hang your star on than a groovy story – you need to have some thing the media can sink their teeth into, you need to have grit. That ‘grit’ is the reality piece of your story.
The truth is there’s usually a thread of reality that weaves through each piece of fiction. Discover your reality and own it, if need to have be, craft your pitch around it. Let’s say you wrote a book about a woman overcoming domestic abuse. You have completed your study, you know the stats, in fact, you could even be considered an specialist. Why not then turn a portion of your campaign into a domestic violence pitch? The exact same can be said for just about anything. They important here is to find that grain of reality and see if it’s interesting sufficient to create a new peg. When you’ve identified your hook, personal it. What I mean is grow to be the expert on that hook and familiarize oneself with ever statistic, every single study and every single new trend.
When The Cliffhanger was released I soon realized that advertising and marketing romantic fiction was only going to take me so far, but marketing and advertising the method of printing was far more exclusive. Why? Properly, The Cliffhanger was one particular of the very first books in the San Diego location to be published by way of print-on-demand. Hence, that became my story. Until the Presidential race of 2000. Now that was an entirely various story.
No doubt numerous of you will bear in mind the counts, recounts, chads, and hanging chads, right? Well, one morning I woke up to find our nearby paper with the following headline: “Cliffhanger.” I knew appropriate then that if I could not find a hook to hang my star on that angle, I could as well hang up my marketing and advertising hat forever. It was at 3 a.m. that I woke up with an thought so spectacular, I knew it had to perform. I raced out to the workplace supply retailer the minute it opened to pick up numerous packs of clear labels. I got out the postcards I had printed with the book cover on them and stuck on labels with the following slogan:
Acquiring tired of the Presidential cliffhanger?Try this a single.The Cliffhanger, a novel.No politics involved.
I mailed 500 postcards out that day while praying the election would not get called. I mailed these postcards to everyone in the media I’d ever contacted. Ever!
Days following my mass-mailing, I was walking by way of my living space, when suddenly I spotted my book cover on the screen. I was stunned. The nearby Tv anchor was saying, “This has got to be the very best factor I’ve ever observed. This lady desires you to go purchase her book. I say absolutely everyone ought to rush out and buy it.” And absolutely everyone did. That afternoon my book shot up to the #1 spot on Amazon, where it stayed for three months. It even beat out Harry Potter (which was #four at that time), yet Harry got the film. Go figure.
The point is that locating an “anchor” will support you push your campaign. This functions for book events, also. If you have written a crime book, why not “theme” your occasion with DO NOT CROSS Police line tape (if you can get your hands on it) or some other prop? The important is to be special, carry your theme throughout your advertising and marketing and hang your star on special ways to promote your book.
But the second piece of this, the piece that’s grow to be all the rage recently, is the visual aspect of your book. Now I am not talking about the cover, I’m talking about the movie. Yes, you read proper. Your book, a film. Now I am not talking about a complete-blown two hour motion picture. I’m talking about a movie trailer. Most recently several significant publishers have started using book trailers to promote the fiction books they publish. Why? Simply because we are a really visual society, and if you happen to be trying to distill the core of your book into a thirty-second elevator pitch, why not distill that identical information into a trailer? Studies have shown that book trailers can enhance book sales in excess of 30%. This is why most of the major publishers are jumping on the book trailer bandwagon. Nonetheless not convinced? Check out this book trailer of Candlewood Lake and see if it doesn’t entice you to acquire the book:
http://www.authors-on the internet.com/billboards/drivein/candlewood/index.htmlNow here’s a short list of tricks we’ve employed to promote fiction:
* For a series of detective novels we worked with, we told the author that as an alternative of pitching the book, we had been going to pitch some of the intriguing unsolved mysteries. He became the unsolved mystery expert and when he did a book event, that’s what he talked about. Men and women were enthralled, and it also got him very a bit of radio, as well!
* For a chick lit book final year the author had one particular of her recipes (for Orgasmic cookies) come to life when she partnered with a nearby cookie firm. The outcome? We had men and women writing us for copies of the book just so they could try this fabulous cookie.
* And what greater location for a romance reading than a romantic winery? If you reside close to some wineries, don’t hesitate to quit by there and ask if they’d like to invite you in for a reading.
Have you ever deemed partnering with another author who has a similar title? Last year, I consulted with two authors who’d written books about Paris. I decided they may well want to meet and partner up for events. They did, and the result was magnifique! Absolutely everyone loved the “evening in Paris” they’d designed, and needless to say, they got lots of bookings!
The trick is, with all the fiction out there, you have to find a way to be different. Promoting the story isn’t usually going to sell your book, but entertaining the reader or promoting how the story impacts the reader or how it can benefit them will. Find your anchor, hook, or story – and you have identified an audience.
Becoming a advertising story-teller is not as challenging as some men and women make it out to be, and whoever mentioned fiction can’t be marketed just did not know how to tell a fantastic story.


About the Author
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing and advertising Experts, Inc., is a book advertising and marketing and media relations specialist whose organization has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing and advertising campaigns. Pay a visit to AME










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