Any idiot can face a crisis

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.- Anton Chekhov

Assumptions. We all make them – all of the time. The way someone looks, what they wear etc. But people generally create an image of themselves of how they want to be seen. We all know people that are maybe stand-offish, eccentric, fuddy duddy, clever. Whether we create these impressions of ourselves consciously or sub-consciously is in a way irrelevant (unless you really need to know what’s beneath the surface and how people tick- and that’s delving in to the world of psychology)

Taking this fact, and it is a fact- we can turn it on its head and apply it to marketing a book. Most people in Britain know they don’t want to do a ‘Ratners’ we learn about it in business school etc- For hose of you who have escaped this story. It was about Ratners- a well established jewellery store. Basically the CEO came out in an interview and said the Jewellery was rubbish! Stupid but true – it probably haunts him till this day- needless to say that Ratners went bust. So when people ask you how the sales of your book are going do you say really well I sold XXXX number of books in just two months- thus giving credibility to your book and improving the perception of your book?- maybe they will spread the word.  Or do you say – Oh I’ve only sold 5! – What would people think?- Automatically they would think it wasn’t a good book and choose not to buy it- in fact they would probably forget the name of the book. Little do they know that even the best book ever written can fail without the proper marketing- you could be sitting on it right now!

But we don’t all have thousands of pounds to throw at marketing. We all have to do it from our bedrooms, living rooms and Laptops on the cheap. So people out there don’t know about our book and therefore don’t know it is available to buy!

It is a tough one esp if you have self published. But maybe you can project something about your book when you speak to people (I am not talking about close friends and family) but to random people you meet. Maybe, just maybe it will spur them in to buying a copy!

But then it does involve a lie! Fiction writers should be good an conjuring up a lie but to say it about your own book could be a moral dilemma that you face on your own! It is merely a thought- but one to think about after all marketing is about selling yourself- its just how much exactly do you want to sell – certainly not your soul!  Which in a way brings me full circle back to my original blog quote by Doctorow- ‘Writing is like prostitution’