Customer Reviews

1001 Ways to Market Your Books

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John Kremer's book on marketing for writers covers a critical subject: what do you do after publication to market your book. Only a handful of available titles address this critical issue. Most publishers do little publicity; instead, they edit (maybe), print, and ship. Marketing is mostly up to the author. But most writers are clueless. This book is a wonderful resource. Use it. Borrow from it. Most publishers refer their writers to this book for a good reason. Highly recommended.

This review is for the fifth edition of this book, though I suspect that the fifth and sixth editions are virtually the same save for a bit of info here or there.

Writing a book is easy. Getting it out there is hard. It's a challenge for both the big, small and self-publisher alike. 10% of your time and energy goes into creating your masterpiece, 90% goes into bringing it to the masses.

In 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, author and publisher John Kremer walks you through step-by-step 1001 effective methods to market your book.

This doesn't read like a manual or some textbook. Kremer's professional yet personable writing style keeps you interested and forces you to pay attention to everything he has to say.

This book is so dense that you can't just read it once then call it good. It's a resource, which means it's meant to be visited each time you publish a book so you can pull out some of the 1001 marketing methods offered.

Don't try doing all 1001 things suggested in this book all for one title. It won't work. Kremer even says so in the opening pages. The idea is to cater to your particular book's needs and find the marketing methods that work for that specific title.

Kremer backs up his info with industry stats, gives examples of what's worked for some publishers and what's failed for others.

Take notes while you read it. Even jot down in separate columns on a loose sheet of paper what ideas would work for the titles in your company's catalogue and mark down the page number in Kremer's book for each.

This is a book every serious publisher needs to have on their shelf. More importantly, it's a book they need to use.

There are hundreds of books on book marketing and promotion but 1001 Ways to Market Your Books is the original. This book spans just over 700 pages. It is filled with information about the realities of the publishing world (including shockingly honest facts how the New York Bestseller's list is crafted) helpful hints, and very specific ways to increase book sales.

Much of the material in this book is written specifically for publishers. However, usually at the end of sections, the author will include little tip boxes to show the author how to modify this wisdom for his or her own part in the process. For the self-publishing author, this book is doubly valuable.

I wrote notes as I read through this book and came up with tons of potential marketing ideas. About the only critique I would offer is that I would have liked to see more low cost ideas. Most authors just don't have the budget to take advantage of a lot of these tips.

Can you imagine a book entitled 1001 Ways to Market Your Books? At first I was doubtful that any author would be able to realistically provide a guide that would contain 1001 ways to help you market your book. However, after reading John Kremer's extensive guidebook, 1001 Ways To Market Your Book-5th Edition, my doubts were tossed aside and in fact I would have to admit that the book would qualify as recommended reading for a college level course.

As the author mentions in the introduction, "this book is not intended to be a textbook on how to market books. Rather, it is designed to be an organized potpourri of useful ideas, examples, tips, and suggestions to stimulate your creativity and encourage you to explore new ways to market your books." In other words, one of the keys is that both the author and the publisher must take a pro-active role in the marketing of the book.

Kremer, who is an acknowledged expert on book publishing, addresses his book to both the publisher and the author. It is partitioned into 21 chapters analyzing such topics as effective marketing, designing your books, sales aids, promotion, publicity and advertising, internet selling of your book, distribution, working with bookstores, school and library selling, subsidiary rights, overseas selling, special opportunities, and leveraging your skills. Within each of these segments the author in straight-talking language explains in detail the basic principles of effective marketing as well as the "nuts and bolts" of the book publishing industry. Although many sections of the book seem to be addressed primarily to the publisher, Kremer does try to include the authors in imparting his vast knowledge. This is accomplished by cleverly placing a little summary box at the end of most sections addressed uniquely to the author.

Moreover, several individuals and companies were invited as sponsors by the author to write one-page articles that provide good marketing tips to book publishers and authors. For example, Marilyn and Tom Ross, the co-authors of the best-selling <I>Complete Guide to Self-Publishing</I>, contributed a very short piece on the four success principles. As an added feature the author has included many reference sources with web site addresses, telephone numbers, addresses and their descriptions.

Kremer emphasizes the principle that you cannot neglect the reality that selling a book is no different than selling any other item and effective business practices are essential if you hope to succeed. One such important principle is to remember the 80/20 rule wherein 80% of your business comes only from 20% of your customers. Consequently, it is necessary to keep yourself focused. Knowing if you have a market for your book and who comprises the market can never be omitted from your plan of action. How often do we encounter someone who tells us that we should write a book about our personal experiences? Frankly we have to ask ourselves, who cares?

Considering the monumental scope of the subject matter, Kremer has written a masterly book that should be required reading for all publishers and authors.

This review first appeared on reviewer's own site:

John Kremer is a gift! The information in 1001 Ways is worth hundreds of times more than the cover price. Like many self-published authors, I am challenged daily about how to market my books. Finding time to market is only a small portion of the marketing challenge. Where to market, with whom to market, and the steps to take are all covered in this book. The bottom line is to sell more books, and John has shown me how! Thanks!

Okay, so maybe you wouldn't try all 1001 ways, but this book IS the resource to inform you about all the different ways to market and promote your book. Chocked full of detailed information, you wouldn't want to be without this book if you are serious about being a successful author. It's a reference tool that you will go back to again and again and again...

Quick fix marketing tips never last. 10 minute a day marketing is like telling a fat women to workout 10 minutes a day and look like Cheryl Tiegs in the 1980s. It is a farse and you shouldn't buy into such objectivism. The cold reality of the situation is that over 30,000+ books are produced a week in publishing. Of course, only about 5% are actually quality books, but still the numbers are staggering. There are no quick fix lottos. The successful author is realistic and makes contacts, networks, and his tool is the grindstone. Some doors may open, most will close. This is nothing but a car salesman's handbook and I highly recommend looking elsewhere.

This book, along with The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross, should be in every author's library (I have them on the corner of my desk) and need to be referred to often. If an author will do what Kremer suggests (do something everyday to promote their book), they will sell books. And Kremer has enough suggestions in this volume to keep an author busy for years.

Also recommended: The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross

Outstanding John! Keep up the good work!

Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

After the writing of it, the marketing of a book is the author's
most important concern. Kremer's encyclopaedic work is
usually cited as the standard work in this category. Indeed it is huge and filled with useful ideas. It is a bit dated however.
Book marketing is a fast-changing subject area. He should update it.

And originally it was too long according to his presale marketing tests (Kremer practices what he preaches.) But Kremer cleverly found a way to have his cake and eat it too. Two chapters exist only in skeletion form. The full texts are available on-line for those who purchase his book.

I had to buy this work. Kremer's book and Horowitz' _Grassroots Marketing_ are the two quality books to have on this subject.

John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters