The Four P's You Should Know About

Elsha Fornefeld

All I can say to you is research, research, research! This word is such a powerful tool that if you were a scientist and tried to print a theory on any study without showing where your work or hypothesis came from, your name and work would be shambles. This is also a number one rule in selling your book and even writing it.

Today I’ll give you a little Marketing 101 that any person selling a product or service should know the four P’s of marketing. They are called Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. If you have all of these covered then you should automatically have some sort of plan using these four words. There is a lot more than just the use of these words such as how, when and where you utilize them.

Product - The product is of course your book. Let’s take a look at the basics. It is finished? Is your book properly edited? Do you have your cover done? If you took the book to a publisher now would he/she be able to put it on the shelf? You need to get the book as polished as possible, because you only have that one chance for someone to get that first impression right about your book.

Pricing - Now let’s look at how your book is priced. Let’s say that you have your book published on Kindle - is it evenly priced? The best way to look at this is to ask yourself if your book is priced at a fair market value. Although that is real estate comparison in a buyer’s market, the best priced home in a neighborhood is usually the first one to sell. So, check your genre and other books like yours that Kindle might be recommending and perhaps make a little bit of a price cut to your book price so you have an edge on competing authors.

Placement -This is such an important area for anything in sales and sadly this where many of my clients seem to fail because they are unwilling to see their product or company from a different perspective. This can be a real challenge for us ­­­­­­as authors because we put a lot of time and ourselves into our writing. This isn’t what the reader cares about. They just care about knowing if it’s a good read that is worth their money?

Where to place your book would start with knowing your demographic. Is it fiction or nonfiction? What other books are similar to yours? The people that liked Twighlight, were all into facebook and they all had the latest android phones rather than iphones. Also over forty five percent of their fan base were women between the ages of 30-55. The people that prefer your writing may surprise you.  Just because it may not be what you like, think about what the average person who likes your style of books may prefer.

Promotion - Demographic places a large part in this. Now that you’ve determined your demographics, you are ready. Consider the people that like your books; where do they live, how much do they read, what do they buy, and how much are they likely to spend on a book? This will determine how you will promote your book.

If you have an older demographic of people it may be worth investing into printing your book. If your generation is anyone younger than 50 and has adapted to Kindle, then publishing in an e-book form is a good idea. Npw, where do you announce your book? Twitter is used more by adults in more of a business sense, however facebook is used a lot more widely by everyone (especially for socializing and spreading the word of a book).

Keep researching for all the information you can get on your subject. Use these steps to help you launch your book. The more knowledge you have on your subject, the more power you have to help launch your book.