Brian Feinblum publishes www.BookMarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com on a daily basis, presenting ideas, providing information, offering insights, and raising questions regarding the state of book publishing, marketing, promoting, editing, writing, and all facets of the book world. He has been in book publishing for over two decades as a publicist, an editor, an author, and a marketer, and is currently the chief marketing officer for Planned Television Arts, the nation’s largest book promotions firm. You can reach him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com
Articles by this Author
When it comes to
promoting a book there is the obvious metric of sales. But
what’s not obvious is how many book sales the PR campaign
generated. Did the story in the Wall Street Journal move books
or was it something else? Often there is a delay in gathering
complete sales numbers so it’s hard to tell cause and effect.
Further, if one were to build their brand with a PR campaign,
long-term residuals are likely even though they don’t appear in
the immediate balance sheet.
It is difficult to predict too far into the future, given the industry is subject to changes in technology. It didn’t used to be that way. Books are now becoming commoditized products that will depend on technology on all aspects—to research, write, and edit books; to sell them; and to market, promote, and advertise them. So the book publishing industry will sink or sail based on the path technology leads it.
Writers today have many options and choices – self publish or traditional publish; e-book only or printed book only -- or both; what should be available for free and how much should you charge for your content? As authors, you then must decide how you will promote, market and advertise your book. What is your budget, in time and money? Who will you hire, to do what? What will you do on your own?
Many writers write about what they know, what they’re interested in, what they like. Whether it’s a book that is based on a personal or professional experience, a hobby, or a passion, writers will write books that are meaningful to them but then have to find an audience to enjoy the book as much as they enjoyed writing it.
Brian Feinblum, one of
bookpleasures.com's contributors, interviews Publishing Consultant
Karen A. Livecchia. Karen is a Harvard graduate and the former
president of the NYC chapter of The Women’s National Book
Association, is the founder of ESB CONSULTING. She provides her
unique publishing insights in the following interview.
