“I’ve spent a lot of money on my website, marketing, and PR campaigns, but my book sales aren’t budging,” the author complained during our consulting call. “I’ve won awards and gotten tons of positive reviews, but it’s not helping anything.”

She’d reached out to Path To Publishing on the recommendation of another client of ours, and she hoped we could help her where other companies had failed to deliver. We promised we’d take a look at what she had and let her know what it would take to get her books' sales to start growing.

Conducting a Marketing Analysis

Our work began with a thorough analysis of her website, the books themselves, the marketing done, and the PR campaign to date. We were looking for clues as to what was causing the problem.

We began with her reviews, especially those with 1, 2, or 3 stars. As painful as those can be to read or receive, the people who take the time to leave them are the ones telling the author what they need to hear and not what they want to hear.

The Second Client Meeting

Once the website analysis was completed, we arranged a second meeting with the client to let her know our findings and her options for moving forward. We understood that she might not want to hear what we had to say, but integrity demanded our honesty.

We stood with our slide deck and addressed the 5 key points of attack.

1) Not what the reader expected–and not in a good way

What flashed on the screen were the reviews we’d gathered, along with key points highlighted:

• Too much telling and not enough showing

• Hard to relate to the character

• Story not detailed enough

• Story didn’t belong in the selected genre

• Character actions a bit unbelievable

• Main character was only “moderately likable”

• Much shorter than other books in the genre

• Sluggish pacing in parts of the story

  
  

“When you write in a genre, readers expect certain things from the book. When you don’t deliver, they will be less likely to read the next book or to promote and share the book with others,” our team explained.

2) Website isn’t reader focused

The next slide in our deck highlighted the positives–the reviews that provided trust signals to readers, the updated look and inviting color pallet. Then, we got down to the problems.

“A good author website is a lot like a romance novel. It’s designed to make the reader fall in love with the books on it to the point where they can’t leave without it,” we explained.

“That means making the website visitor the hero of the story. It needs to speak to them, to their needs, to their deepest desires, and their greatest fears. Show them how the book you’re showcasing is their sidekick–the embodiment of their deepest desires–if they just step up and buy it. Walking away from that book abandons that sidekick and says good-bye to their deepest desires,” we continued.

“Any website that doesn’t speak to the heart of the reader isn’t going to grab their attention and motivate them to click that buy button. It’s not until they fall in love with the work you’ve created and see it as the only possible path to fulfilling the desires of their heart that buying becomes a no-brainer,” we finished.

She sat back taking notes. “Should everything be written toward that reader? Even my author bio?” she asked.

“Even that,” we affirmed.

3) Not enough attention paid to the analytics of marketing/ad campaigns

We moved onto the next slide.

“Numbers tell a story as surely as words do. This is especially true when it comes to marketing campaign analytics,” we explained to her. “Those numbers can tell you:

• how effective the ad was at drawing people’s attention to it

• how many of those people found the images and copy compelling enough to take the desired action of going ahead and visiting the website or the link to learn more about the book

• how much time they spent on the website or learning more about the book and/or author

• of those who viewed the website or visited the link to learn more about the book and/or author, how many took that next step and purchased the book

“We haven’t seen your analytics yet,” we reminded her, “but it’s important to pay close attention to those numbers as the campaign is running. It’s easy to spend hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars without realizing it if you’re not paying attention and get nowhere.”

Her eyes widened at this. “When should we begin looking at the numbers?”

Our award-winning copywriter, the one who helped Silicon Valley startups turn profits on their advertising campaigns, spoke up, “After the first twenty-four hours. If your campaigns don’t start making you money within the first seventy-two hours of running them, something is wrong. It can take time to get the campaigns dialed in and targeted correctly, but once that happens, they should be making you money, not costing you money.”

4) Not preparing enough for PR campaigns before launching them

She’d brought her PR campaign materials with her for us to review.

“The headshots look nice. They’re professional. The wardrobe’s appropriate for media, and the hair and makeup are styled,” our PR specialist told her.

“Your website’s completed and updated, although we’d recommend fixing the problems with it before considering a relaunch of the PR campaign,” our web designer added.

“I see one author/speaker one-sheet for you and sales one-sheet for your book. So, that’s a good thing, but I didn’t receive a speaker sizzle reel, your book promo, or your media pitch deck. Are those ready?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know what to put in them.”

Our PR specialist frowned. “We’ll definitely need to get those taken care of before the relaunch of your campaign.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

The PR specialist nodded. “These email pitches and press releases you provided us are too long. We’ll need to work with our copywriter to tighten them up. And they don’t seem targeted. They’re quite generic. That’s likely to be one reason you’ve gotten so few interview requests despite six months of work.”

She winced. “Do you think that’s why it didn’t work the first time?”

Our PR specialist nodded. “I do. But, it’s a simple fix. We’ll spend the next three months getting you ready while preparing your new launch, if that plan works for you.”

5) Unable to identify who the ideal audience was for her campaigns

Having discussed the four other aspects of a successful marketing, PR, and website promotion campaign, we landed on slide 5: The Ideal Audience.

“Imagine that you’re at a book signing and there’s a person at the front of the line who’s been there ALL NIGHT waiting for the doors to open and to be the very first to get your autograph,” we prompted her.

“They step forward to grab the copy and request your autograph, and tell you, 'Your book changed everything for me. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll never forget you.'”

She smiled as she heard those words. “That would be amazing.”

We agreed. “What is the life-saving, history-shaping, world-changing message that ONLY you can tell that’s hidden in those pages and who did you write it to serve?”

She sat back in the chair and stared at us. Bewilderment crossed her face. “I don’t know. I honestly have never thought about it.”

Our team smiled. “That’s where our work truly begins. Because until we have an answer to that question, we won’t know who needs that message and we won’t know why they need it right now–so badly they’ll be willing to stand in line all night just so they can be the first to get it.”

The Truth Revealed

We hope you found this short story both informative and engaging. While it’s a narrative that is fictional, it’s grounded in real work and real experiences. All the problems we spoke about in this article are real things that keep authors–especially fiction authors–from finding literary and financial literary success with their books.

If you’d like our help putting together your author websites, marketing ad, and PR campaigns, or getting an in-depth marketing analysis, Path to Publishing’s team is here to help. Simply email info@pathtopublishing.com with [PR & MARKETING HELP] in the subject line.