Your Book is Your Business

"I didn't sign a publishing contract to become a book salesman."
"I just want to write, I don't want to spend my time selling books."
"I wrote the book, now it's up to you to sell it."

You might be surprised at how many times I have heard these comments from authors. It happens quite often. More often than not, they are surprised at my response.

"You entered the book sales business the moment you became a published author."

If you are lucky or you already have a track record of sales success as an author, your publisher might assign marketing and publicity people to your title to help get your book off the ground. If you are a new author just entering the world of publishing and have just released your new book, you are likely going to be doing most of the heavy lifting on your own.

Every author, no matter how successful, has a responsibility to help market and promote their book. If you show me a title written by an author who has no intention of assisting in promoting their book, I'll show you a book that isn't selling. Each time you read an interview with an author, each time you see them on TV talking about their book, each time you see an author at a book signing event, that author is working to promote and sell their book.

Authors who have visions of firing off their manuscript to a publisher who will then turn around and launch a huge publicity campaign around their book, schedule nationwide book tours, call Oprah and every bookstore in the country to get shelf placement for their title are going to be sorely disappointed. Sure, these things happen...AFTER an author has already become a household name, not when they are pushing their first book or have a couple of titles under their belt which may have sold moderately well. For the most part, it just doesn't work that way.

Think of it like this: consider that we are talking about musicians, not authors. A musician may sign a recording contract with a record label and then hit the studio to record a new album. What happens next? Does the musician sit at home and wait for the record label to sell all of their CDs for them? No way. The musician hits the road, goes on tour, plays gigs in small venues, does phone interviews with radio stations large and small...bascially anything to get some attention for their album. They don't get radio airplay, CDs in Wal-Mart or play in arenas until their album actually takes off...if it takes off at all. Not every musician is an American Idol. It is exactly the same for an author.

The bottom line is all authors should want to have a hand in marketing and promoting their book. After all, it is THEIR book. You spent all of that time researching and writing that manuscript to get it just right, now don't you want someone to actually read it? Of course you do.

That is why authors are in the business of selling books.