Book marketing means nothing if you are invisible
While we like to think our marketing efforts are having a real effect, often that is not the case. The greatest website in the world means nothing if no one ever sees it. You can post on social media sites all day, but it will do nothing if no one ever reads the posts. And a book will never sell if no one knows it exists.
While WE always know where we are and what we are doing, we hate to think that our efforts are invisible to the buying public. However the opposite is often true. We want people to listen to what we have to say, but are they? Here are some tests.
Website
Nearly everyone comes up first on a search engine for their own name or book title. However, the buying public is not yet aware of that name or book title, so they will not search using those phrases.
No one searches by author or book title unless they have heard about that author or book from some other source. They will most often search by TYPE of book (children’s book, romantic fiction novel, etc).
Furthermore, if the studies can be believed hardly anyone goes beyond page 3 of search engine results. That’s 30 listings So here is:
Test 1
Go to any search engine.
Search on the genre of your book (as most book buyers will do).
See if you come up on one of the first three pages of search engine results.
If not, you are likely invisible to a very large percentage of book buyers.
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Test 2
Go to Amazon’s main page.
Search on the same search term.
See how many listings you must look through before you find your book.
If it takes more than a minute or two, you are most likely invisible.
Test 3
Everyone has an opinion and a gazillion studies have been done, but most marketing professionals believe that the average return on an outbound message is under .5% (1/2 of 1%). In other words if you get a message to 1000 people, about 5 people will respond.
a.
How many people have you directly told about your book?
How many books did you sell as a result of those outbound messages?
or
b.
Take the total number of visitors you get to your website monthly.
Take that number times .005 (1/2 of 1%).
Test 4
Finally, how many people are talking about you or your book? Search Twitter for your name or book title. Search Google blogs for the same terms. Try Tweetreach, using the same terms. This will give you a feel for how many people are talking about you.
Again it is likely that you are NOT doing anything wrong. It is more likely that you are invisible to the buying public.
The primary reason why people fail in today’s book marketing model is that they are simply invisible to those searchers who are actively looking to buy books. Those people use the search engines. If you are not coming up as the result of THEIR SEARCH METHODS, you are invisible to them.
And they are the ones that really count.
All the marketing efforts in the world mean nothing if you are invisible.
