By Brian Feinblum, Senior Vice President and Marketing Officer
To promote your book you need time, money, ideas, a good book, a market and support. Who will help you become a book marketing machine?
There are several types of people out there:
- Leaders/Mentors
- Peers
- Go-getters
- Assistants
Leaders are those who are wiser, more experienced, more connected and even smarter than us. Peers are fellow authors or those in our field of expertise. Go-getters are people who will do what you say, likely for a fee or because they are connected to us—friends and family—or someone who owes us a favor or wants us to owe them. Lastly, assistants are junior people who perform basic but time-consuming tasks such as researching, inputting data or typing, telemarketing, packing things or running errands.
How do you find and utilize each of these four types? Your answer will impact your ability to be successful.
Each type of person should possess certain qualities and abilities. The more you can learn from others—and the more others can do things for you—the more likely you’ll be freed up to use your strongest skills, connections and resources to promote and market your book.
Ideally, you’d want a diverse staff to draw from – a mixture of youth and elder, man and woman, a range of ethnicities—but most importantly you want people who will help for free or at little cost —and you want help from bright, energized, successful people.
Some help may come in the form of reading a book, blog or newspaper article. Or it may come from email exchanges, short phone calls, and social media communications. But in the end, the most valuable assistance comes from meeting with and talking to those who can do something for you. Think of what you need and want and filter what you can’t get on your own. Knowing what to ask for—and from the right people—is important.
The key to getting help is admitting you need it and asking for it. Throughout each significant stage of life you have had help – from teachers, parents, friends, co-workers, and other groups. Finding various people to help you make your book a success is not always easy but help is out there.
One way to get help is to join groups, whether online or in the physical world. There are groups, associations and non-profits for every possible interest or cause out there. At the very least, there are supportive and inspiring people out there, some in the same boat as you, who are more than happy to assist you.
Be prepared to one day reverse roles and be the helper to another, perhaps as a peer or a leader/mentor. That’s how the world works—it’s a big cycle of sharing that keeps on going and growing.
Related: 27 Tips to Help You Pitch the Media
