How We Will Promote Your Book
You’re not alone when it comes to selling your book. We’ll use your suggestions and our own existing account base and experience to promote your book to all appropriate sales channels, such as book and gift retailers, specialty stores (such as hardware stores or pharmacies), direct-to-consumer marketing, library sales, and even higher sales opportunities. We do this by utilizing our decades-long business relationships with booksellers and national retailers, sophisticated metadata routines, direct mail/online, appearances at conferences and trade shows, and more. In addition, your dedicated publicist will create promotional material for your title (posters, flyers, postcards and flyers); will help you organize and set up book signings; and work with the local media to earn press coverage for you book. Because the majority of our titles are locally or regionally focused, we will concentrate our efforts on community stores and local events. Because most of the audience for your book is located in a certain geographic area, our marketing and sales efforts will target specific regions and markets.
Other things to keep in mind:
- Be sure to reply promptly to inquiries and letters from the sales & marketing department (e.g., marketing questionnaires, requests for review copy suggestions).
- Prior to the book’s publication, check your book’s page in our online catalog at www.arcadiapublishing.com. Help us make sure that the catalog description is accurate.
- After the book is published, encourage your contacts, colleagues and others who have read and enjoyed your book to post customer reviews on Amazon and the other key sites. Customer reviews will have an impact on sales, and your book may very well look naked without them.
- We have a media database, but please make sure to list all personal/professional contacts you have so that we can utilize those in our campaign.
- If you have been interviewed before, please make sure to make a note of this when reviewing your marketing questionnaire.
- We will provide you with a press release and digital cover image in case you want to send this to professional contacts, friends, and family.
- Posters and other publicity materials will be mailed directly to event sites
- We will typically supply books to venues that are equipped to have a retail transaction. However, if you are bringing books to a library event or festival, let us know. It is always a good idea to have a few copies in your car as backup.
- If you schedule events on your own, please email your marketing specialist so the events can be added to our master calendar and we can arrange for the venues to have books.
- Most books in our catalog are available as ebooks. If you’re unsure if yours will be offered in electronic form, consult your contract or contact your marketing specialist.
- We’ll make our largest marketing effort in the first few months following your publication date. Experience has taught us that this is the most effective time to market a new title. After this time, marketing specialists will continue to handle specific requests from the media and event sites but will not actively seek out new markets for your book. Any retail account that has placed orders will continue to be contacted for reorder. (Please let your sales specialist know if you see any local retailer that is low on stock.) Everyone at Arcadia Publishing and the History Press is ready to assist with continued efforts in any way that we can.
Your Bottom Line
Throughout this process, we will send you updates or ask for information that will help our marketing efforts. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us as well. The ways to promote your book are as limitless as your imagination, so if you need assistance or marketing advice for any reason, please contact your marketing specialist right away. We hope that marketing your book will be both enjoyable and rewarding. Let’s get started!