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Promoting a book - Q & A

James calls in to ask John and the Sloans how to promote his new book.

Rich Sloan:  James, you've got a question for our guest, John Jantsch?

James:  I do, yeah.  Thanks for taking the call.

Rich Sloan:   Sure.

James:   I read an article recently on your site, on Jeff and Rich's site, about the importance of writing a book.

Rich Sloan:  Right.

James:  I have a book that should be published in the second quarter sometime of 2007.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.

James:  And what I have learned is if you know your trade, the writing of the book is actually the easy part of the job.  And what I discovered as I'm wrapping it up, is the very difficult part, for me at least, is understanding what to do with it once I have it done.

Rich Sloan:   Okay.                     

James:  And so my question is quite simple, how do you go about starting to promote your book?

Rich Sloan:   Oh, that's a good question for John Jantsch; 'cause I'm sure you're in the middle of that right now, John.

John Jantsch:  Yeah.

Rich Sloan:    When we come back from this break --

John Jantsch:  Yes.

Rich Sloan:    -- why don't we let John wield his expertise on marketing a book.  Stick with us.  This is StartupNation Radio.

Rich Sloan:    All right.  We're talking with John Jantsch, the author of the recently published Duct Tape Marketing, and the founder of the consulting business by the same name.  And John, I know you help entrepreneurs with their marketing objectives.  And we had a call right before we went out to the break, and it had to do with how do you market a book if you have a book.  That's one very specific kind of marketing objective.  What's your strategy on that?

John Jantsch:  Well, there's a couple things.  Very first, and this is true of any marketing campaign, you know:  What are you goals?  I mean, I agree wholeheartedly.  The book is a great tool for anybody, particularly service business consultants.  But is the goal to, you know, use this is as a calling card to get enough exposure to maybe get invited to give workshops?  I mean, you know, or is the goal to, Hey, I want this to be a bestseller and, you know, make my retirement money.

Rich Sloan:   Right, right.

John Jantsch:  I mean, so clearly set goals for what you want to do with the book, 'cause that will create your strategy, which will then dictate some of the tactics.  But just some very general tactics that I would tell anybody no matter what if, you know, they want to sell 500 books.  You know, create some buzz around what you're doing.  I mean, absolutely every author should have a blog.  And I'm sure you guys have information on blogging on your site.

Rich Sloan:   Yes, we do.

John Jantsch:  I know you guys blog.  I mean, that's a great way to start getting some information out.  But probably the key or the thing that I think will make the launch the most successful, or the book the most successful, is to just network like crazy.  You know?  Find other bloggers.  Find other people in your industry, other, you know, potential strategic partners and start, you know, letting them know about the book.  Start letting them use some of the content that's in the book for, you know, any publishing that they may do. 

Rich Sloan:   Right.  Give people a little hors d'oeuvre.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, exactly.  Exactly.  And really, just this whole idea of networking would be that, you know, in my case, a significant portion of my, kind of, pre-launch campaign, has to been to work with some sponsors who like the idea of the book, that wanted to get behind it,  you know, people -- software companies, you know, a hardware company.  I mean, people that have a small business audience, certainly other marketers.

That's another great thing.  A lot of times people will think, Well, gosh, this is a marketing book.  I can't ask another marketer to help me promote it.  Like, heck.  I mean, other people that are in your industry, you know, will have probably figured out this is a great big world out there.  And, you know, if you can help each other in one of those ways that, you know, what you might consider competitors can be some of your best allies.

Rich Sloan:   Yeah.

John Jantsch:  Because they're going to come back to you someday and need some help, too.

Jeff Sloan:    Well, not only that, they lend credibility.

Rich Sloan:   Yeah.

John Jantsch:  You bet.

Jeff Sloan:    If another marketing person recognizes your book or quotes what you've had to say, that just adds credibility.  It's interesting you mentioned that.  I just read a thing the other day about one Web statistics guy talking about another guy's book, and how pertinent it was and how valuable it was to the subject that he's working in.  It was very influential.

Rich Sloan:   (Unintelligible) that?

Jeff Sloan:     It did.  It added credibility to the work.

John Jantsch:  Just from a practical standpoint, you know, the biggest buyers of marketing books are people that have bought somebody else's marketing book.

Rich Sloan:   Sure.

John Jantsch:  You know?  They're gonnna buy a library.

Rich Sloan:   Sure.  All right.