Let’s call it Web 3.0 — The Cure-All For Book Sales Horror Stories

How do publishers and authors beat the odds—that terrifying Nielsen Bookscan report that nearly 80% of books in the market sell less than 99 copies in total?

One of the key reasons authors bury Kunati Books in submissions—8,500 submissions per year is pretty much a “drowning in manuscripts” scenario—is our “marketing-first” approach to publishing. Quill and Quire profiled Kunati Books as “what a publisher looks like if the marketing department runs things.”

A How-To: Web 3.0 from the Experts

Step-by-step I’ll cover the top-line tactics that we’ve proven work, starting this week with our own killer applications: book/novel trailers and the author marketing group. Next week, I’ll reveal our Web 3.0 Social Marketing Program.

Bear in mind these are methods we’ve proven to work, beating the odds with all of our released titles—by a good margin. It’s not Quantum mechanics, and anyone can do it, but I’ll warn you—these methods require talent, hard work, long hours, commitment, discipline, planning and heart. Heart, because that’s what keeps you going seven days a week during launch phase. If that sounds like too much, stop reading now. You’ll get nothing from this how-to.

The Author-Publisher Partnership—Your Online Marketing Group

The most important anchoring strategy I can offer, fundamental to that all-important author-publisher partnership, is the Author Marketing Group. Every publisher who works with more than one author should have one. We set ours up as a free private Yahoo Group, inviting all our authors to participate by email.

Everything from author ideas to tips to events are discussed, topic by topic in this private “forum.” Our authors get to know each other. They buzz each other’s books and events. They tell everyone about their friends. They link their blogs to each other.

Big news is conveyed seamlessly to authors. As long as the group remains dynamic and interesting, every post is read by authors. Our Kunati Authors Group now has an archive of 6,500 past posts, fully searchable by new authors who join and want to “catch up” on how-to manage a book signing, how-to approach a bookseller CRM or manager/owner, how-to set up a Facebook page, how-to use Widgetbox. It’s all there. Priceless.

The Author Brand—Everyone’s Secret Weapon

I write this without fear that our authors’ egos will suddenly inflate to unmanageable levels. I also write this as a publisher who virtually specializes in debut authors with no brand awareness. Ultimately, this is the “secret weapon” we wield, the key to beating the odds. Even a debut author must become a “name brand.”

Treat Every Author as a Celebrity and a Friend

Celebrities can be friends, too. We hope to make our authors celebrities. And we hope they’ll stay friends forever. It requires hard work, a true partnership between author and publisher. Starting, of course, with the Online Marketing Group.

Step two is an innovation of our creative director Kam Wai Yu. Kam invented the book trailer back in the dark ages when 1 megabyte of Ram was too expensive for most designers—back before anyone even know what QuickTime was in the distant 1990. His innovation, an innocent one, would change everything online. Now, no one in publishing would think of launching a book without one, right?

Book Trailers—If Done Right, the Most Important Tactic of All

Pretty much everyone does them now, but hardly anyone does them well. Why? Because they’re too rushed, not thought out; they try to do too much.

To do a trailer that works requires time and talent. The trailer should be as good as the book. Remember, we’re building the author brand. The trailer is the 30 second stand-in for a book that someone is going to invest days in reading: reviewers, librarians, booksellers, readers.

It must build the author’s brand in two minutes. At Kunati, Kam spends weeks on each trailer, not days, carefully scripting, adding sound F/X, building it in proper animation software. And it shows. Each one is a priceless work of art. Each one is memorable. Each one is distinctly the author’s brand.

A Good Trailer Results in Reviews

With Kam’s trailers, every single one of our debut authors has received big trade and newspaper reviews that sold books. The credibility alone, of an apparently big budget trailer, overcomes the “debut author” stigma. I remember one magazine editor (it might even have been someone at ForeWord), commenting on how the “trailer DVD” sent with the galley made such a difference, especially since they’d never heard of either Kunati or the author.

The book trailer alone for The Last Troubadour directly sold thousands of books, and helped build my own author brand. If we had done nothing else, the trailer would have made the book a success and built a fan base. You can view it here: http://www.kunati.com/the-last-troubadour-historical/

Burn it to a DVD for Reviewers, Load it On Your Web, Watch the Sales Come In

Each prospective reviewer should receive your trailer with an author sell sheet, the galley and a nice presentation. The trailer should be right on top on the book web page—the first thing a visitor sees. They sell books! Every time.

Quick Trailer Tips

• Take your time and do it right. Hire the best if you can’t render the best. If you can’t afford to do either, skip the trailer altogether and find another way to impress reviewers, readers, librarians and booksellers (next week’s topics)
• Burn a DVD for reviewers. It can make a difference when a reviewer is deciding where to spend his or her valuable time. A typical reviewer or editor must choose which of the thousands of books in the pile to review. Stand out from the pile.
• Use YouTube to host your videos. Not only do you build a social network at YouTube, you can embed their code on your website, in your emails and in your blogs without uploading the video countless times.
• Do not use voices or actors. It’s doubtful you can afford a good actor. A bad actor can cheapen the author’s brand, turn away reviewers and readers. Even a good actor weakens a book video because readers want to visualize their characters for themselves.
• Use images, appropriate music and sound effects and—one long, run-on sentence, just a few words per screen sequence. Skip the punctuation and paragraphs. It’s just a teaser!
• Do it right, or don’t do it.

Three Examples of Correctly Rendered Trailers that Sell Books
I’ll share three we launched recently for three spring titles, two for debut authors. Almost immediately after the trailer launch, advance orders doubled. The only other tactic proven to hit advance sales so hard are good reviews. And trailers help there as well. It’s win, win.

Try these links out, and see if you don’t agree. These not only sell books, they sell author brands to reviewers, librarians, booksellers and readers. Take them for a spin. You’ll love them:

• The wild and wacky world of Alban Bane in MADicine: http://www.kunati.com/madicine/
• The DaVinci Code killer Hunting the King from Peter Clenott:
http://www.kunati.com/hunting-the-king-peter-clenott/
• The gripping and too-real “ripped from the headlines” story of Karen Harrington’s http://www.kunati.com/karen-harrington/
• Check out last season’s blockbusters here:
http://www.kunati.com/kunatis-famous-novel-trailers/?currentPage=2


Social Marketing for Books Taken to the Next Level

Almost every publisher and author these days claims to have a MySpace page, and if done properly, they have a few thousand friends, post a blog daily and update their friends with bulletins. This is Web Marketing 2.0, and it’s important. But to really make a difference, go Web Marketing 3.0.  Next week, I’ll cover how to do this.

Meanwhile, get busy with your author marketing group and your book videos and novel trailers. Post your trailer links here in comments. We’d love to see them!

Posted by: Derek Armstrong