Marketing for Today's Publishing Industry

By Karen Whiting
FCWC 2010 Continuing Class Instructor:
Marketing for Today's Publishing Industry

Aloha,

I’m Karen Whiting, an author of ten books, and looking forward to meeting you at FCWC. Besides teaching a continuing class on marketing I’m on the staff behind the scenes working on promoting the conference. Look for my articles on suite 101 that will help you gain the most from the conference (http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/karenwhiting)

I’m a grandmother of six now (youngest is a few weeks old) and a mother of five. My oldest son will leave for Iraq (AF) in mid-January. His wife and two little children will live with us during his deployment (life change coming up). Since my husband is retired Coast Guard and spent months at sea on ice breakers and other vessels I understand a little of the upcoming stress my loved ones will face).

What people probably don’t know about me…

• I actually chased a garbage truck to a dump to retrieve something—and that triggered writing about over-commitment
• My two previous homes were both struck by lightning twice, had a spontaneous combustible fire, and had a major hurricane hit (Andrew severely damaged half of one house). (shh… my current neighbors don’t know)
• My favorite speaking engagement was a three-day creative ministry conference in Malaysia.
• I’m a country girl at heart (grew up in dairy country and learned all those homemaking skills of knitting, sewing, needlework).

Sneak Peek

At FCWC I’ll be teaching a continuing class (6 hours of instruction) called Marketing for Today's Publishing Industry. I want it to be interactive and look at going to the next step in promoting our books. I’ll provide examples of real success stories and we’ll use participants’ books to brainstorm how they can apply the concepts to their books.

Here are two examples of topics we’ll delve into:

1. We’ll look at how we can harness the power of social networking (not how to get on or what social networks are out there). We’ll study having successful network parties (Twitter party or Facebook party) surrounding a book’s topic and the type of comments to make in social networking to engage an audience on issue of your book and to build yourself as an expert.

2. Release and promotion day specials for Amazon that drive up sales will be discussed (works for new and older releases). These work best with a combination of activities: scheduling radio and blog interviews before the release date, offering free downloadable files, tip sheets, or podcasts/audio files, and contests.

Other topics include:

• Using the media to promote
• Timelines on promotion and what can be done ahead of the release
• Choosing strategies that work for your personality and book
• Developing a workable marketing plan