What I Did Wrong - Book Marketing Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Confessions From A Speaking Gig (and some things I did right)

Photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash

I was recently invited to speak at a writers group, Brandywine Valley Writers Group, to speak on book marketing fundamentals and to answer book marketing and publishing questions. As you know, I love, love, love helping writers to learn easy, affordable, and effective book marketing techniques. At the same time, I’m an author myself and actively marketing my latest book, Get Your Book Seen and Sold. Because of my newly released book, I’m in a unique position to teach book marketing and practicing book marketing to promote my own book in my recent presentation.

Even an expert like me can make mistakes, though. Learn from me. I forgot some stuff I wanted to share and I missed opportunities to market my own book and services.

What I Did Wrong

One: I forgot to tell the audience of writers an important thing - book marketing can be fun! It’s my number one message to authors and I forgot to share it. When you give a presentation it’s hard to remember everything that you want to impart but for me this was a huge message because as we know, writers hate book marketing, and if there’s a way to inject some joy in the process, then it’ll make it that much easier. Put YOUR number one message somewhere where you won’t forget it. Pare down your most important message to three words to five words and write it at the top of your notes or on your hand!

Two: At the event, I offered a few of my books as giveaways, which is always a nice idea for participants. One “winner” unexpectedly asked me to sign the book at the end of the presentation. I happily started my standard autograph by asking and writing the the person’s first name. And… That’s… All… I… Wrote.. and then I forgot to add MY name. How embarrassing. Writing my own name is “author signing 101” and I blew it, big time. I was so keyed up after the presentation that I wasn’t thinking straight. So, at the end of any presentation when people are wanting to chat with you, take a minute, take a deep breath, take a sip of water, regroup, and focus on what is being asked.

Three: I brought super cool postcards (see below) that display the kick-ass cover of the book on the front and give information about the book on the back. A postcard is one of those marketing tools that is really useful when you speak in person. At a speaking gig you are not there to specifically sell your book, you are there to share your knowledge. However, at the end of the presentation, it’s ok to place the postcards on a table for people to take if they are interested in learning more about you and your book. Here’s where I screwed up. I did hand cards out at the end of the meeting to folks who I talked to directly and I also popped them inside all of the books that I gave away, but I should’ve just left some on the counter of the bar before I left so participants could grab as many as they liked for themselves or for other writers they know.

What Did I Do Right?

One: I said yes to the speaking gig. A friend and colleague, author Geri Donaher (Still), invited me to speak with at her writer’s group meeting and I said yes and promptly spoke to the person in charge of the presentations to accept the invite and set the date. When invited and you can possibly do it, through zoom or in person, say yes!

Two: I was asked by the organizer for information about myself, my headshot, and topic ideas for the talk. I answered and provided the information promptly. Not only is it professional to answer promptly, it also gives the organizer as much time as possible to promote the event. Once they create their promotion materials, you will then have plenty of time to promote the event on your social media.

Three: I provided the information that I promised. It’s always ok to provide more information than was promised but you MUST provide what you detailed when you accepted the speaking engagement.

Four: At the end of the presentation, I let the audience know ONE place to contact me - the easiest-to-remember place. For me, it was my Substack - ClaudineWolk.Substack.com. I thanked the audience for their attendance and attention. I invited them to contact me with any questions. Finally, I followed up the next day and thanked Geri and the organizer of the event.

Here’s More Help

Thanks to the Brandywine Valley Writers Group for having me. If YOU want me to chat with your writers group, I am happy to do it - LIVE if in the SE Philly or NJ area or via ZOOM. Email me at wjcwolk@gmail.com with “SPEAKER REQUEST” in the subject line.

To develop your own plan to market your book, my latest book with Julie Murkette offers the perfect exercises and worksheets to help you to do it right. Get Your Book Seen and Sold (awarding winning, people!) is available for sale today as eBook or paperback.

If you want one-on-one guidance, shoot me an email with “HELP” in the subject line and we can set something up.