Marketing
Marketing is the tip of the iceberg for most titles, one of the four main ingredients for book success.
Köehler Books teams with authors to create comprehensive marketing programs that include conventional media, social media, and other ways to build a buzz and raise awareness about your book.
We also train and coach authors on the best methods for reaching out to readers, using low-cost guerilla marketing techniques as well as working with publicists and marketing professionals.
Authors who are willing to work hard to hone their DIY skills to build relationships and sell books, combined with our excellent marketing tools, catalogs and more, can expect success.
GET YOUR FREE MARKETING BOOK
Pocket Guide to Book Marketing: A Road Map to Marketing Your Book
“This guide will help save your life as an author.” “Marketing and promoting a book is a marathon, not a sprint.” “The MOST important thing to do in regards to book marketing is to write a great book.” Ooh, I need this!
What the Publisher Does
“Most authors I know would rather write, and leave the marketing to someone else. However, more and more we are having to lead or support publicity efforts for our work. Truthfully, over time, I have begun to enjoy the process…”
—Jeffrey Blount, author of The Emancipation of Evan Wall
Pocket Guide to Book Marketing
The book shown above has, along with its counterpart (POCKET GUIDE TO PUBLISHING) been read over 200,000 times by readers, writers and authors, and others in the field. Ingram has licensed them from us and uses them on their website as an educational tool, as do we. Ingram is also planning to have both books translated into German, French and Spanish. As to the marketing book shown, feedback from our authors suggest that new authors should read it more than once, throughout the process. These books have proven to be invaluable tools for many authors.
Marketing Calls
After an author signs with us, and completes the Author Questionnaire, we setup two initial Welcome & Creative calls on Zoom to walk through the entire publishing operation in detail, and then optionally follow up with a call to discuss their website, and finally a call when their book is up for pre-order.
Actual Author marketing recordings:
Call 1- We cover the schedule, key dates, precisely how the author will coordinate and collaborate with Koehler Books. We then jump over to our website marketing page and cover part 1, the things we do for the author with regards to marketing, including the following:
• Author Questionnaire Editing
• Author book webpage on KB website
• Lightning Source
• Distribution
• Direct Access
• Social Media templates
• Koehler Books social media
• Working with Bookstores
• Tip Sheets
• Endorsement Quote Assistance
• Digital & Printed ARCs & Author purchases
• Ebook campaigns
• Catalog Inclusion
• Vote the Cover campaigns
• Awards Assistance
Call 2- this call occurs a few weeks after the first. We jump back into marketing and cover the options for the author to consider. Most of this deals with guerilla marketing techniques, but we also discuss whether or not the author wants to work with a professional marketing expert. We end the call with a discussion of the Author Questionnaire, with a primary focus on the cover. Here are some of the thing we cover:
• Author website and social media
• Working with Bookstores
• Podcasts & Blogs
• Book Launch Team
• KB Authors Facebook Forum
• Shepherd for Authors
• Bookshop.org
• Amazon Author Central
• Pubby & Bookbub & Netgalley
• Amazon Author Ad Program
• Working with the media
• Book events
• Hiring a marketing pro
Call 3 (optional)– go over author website and social media with the author 6-8 weeks after call 2.
Call 4– after the book shows up for pre-order. We walk the author through what to expect and what to look out for, and coach them on the marketing activities they have in place. This includes:
• planned events or book talks
• use of digital and printed ARCs
• Acquisition of endorsement quotes and reviews
• Book orders
• Creating ads online
• Tracking rankings and reviews on Amazon and elsewhere
Author Questionnaire Editing
Coordination and editing of the Author Questionnaire to produce data including author bio, back cover description, BISAC codes, marketing plans and others items we place in the tip sheet.
Download our Author Questionnaire
Author Book Webpage on KB website
Each title gets a stand-alone web page on the Köehler Books website. It includes the cover, description, author bio, as well as buying and other optional information. We will also add you to our author’s page.
Example of an Author Book webpage.
Lightning Source
Ingram’s Lightning Source print-on-demand technology and systems help reduce your expenditures and get the books to your readers faster. Ingram’s state-of-the-art printing facilities manufacture the highest-quality digital POD books in the industry.
Ingram’s Distribution
Ingram distributes to over 30,000 print booksellers via Ingram’s Lightning Source, one of the largest print global book distribution networks. This includes the United States & Canada, the U.K. and Europe, Australia, where Lightning Source has seven huge POD printing plants that help get our books to market quickly and with the highest standards in digital printing.
Direct relationships and access to:
• Online stores
• Independent and chain brick and mortar stores
• Ebook retailers
• Libraries
• Universities and Colleges
Social Media templates
Our designers have created 15 social media templates for our authors to use. These templates were made on Canva and are customizable, meaning if you want to add your cover and make edits to the text, you can easily do so with your own Canva account. See examples and learn more here.
“Once you know the demographics of your reader avatar, you’ve crossed off the first critical step in reverse-engineering a marketing plan. Whether it is a website, an author Facebook page, an Instagram account dedicated to your author brand, a blog, or any other channel that suits both you and your audience, choose a platform to grow and be consistent. As you carry out other marketing initiatives, and news of your book grows, this “community” will be the place where you can authentically engage your buyers, even after they’ve read your book, and keep them interested in your brand.”
— Corinne Moulder, VP of Business Development, Smith Publicity
Koehler Books Social Media
Our social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, supports our authors and titles by featuring monthly new releases, vote the cover campaigns, pre-sale book information, book covers and descriptions, author headshots and bios, best sellers, and more.
Working with Bookstores
We will help you develop ways to work with your local or regional bookstores (https://www.koehlerbooks.com/author-center/kb-authors/working-with-bookstores/) These include our making your book returnable and attractively priced to the stores you will line up for a book tour.
Tip Sheet (sell sheet)
Tip sheets are comprehensive single-page sheets that originate from the author’s questionnaire and are produced by Koehler Books for the author’s use. Tip sheets are invaluable for authors to send along with Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) for endorsement quotes and reviews and also useful when visiting booksellers. They include ALL sales information, ISBN, pub date, etc. about your book and also include Ingram’s logo. Ingram is a known distributor and adds weight to your presentation. Always include a tip sheet! They are priceless and extremely useful. Download a sample tip sheet
Endorsement Quote Assistance
Coordination of endorsement quotes from up to 8 Koehler Books authors. The author provides the list of authors and their digital ARC, and we email the ARC and request a quote from our authors.
Digital Advanced Review Copy (ARCs)
The author will receive a digital ARC, which is the entire text of the book including covers, saved as a .pdf file with the front and back covers added. These are extremely useful for our authors and are accepted by many reviewers and endorsers. This typically occurs 2-3 months prior to the pub date. Download a Digital ARC sample
Printed Advance Review Copies & Author Purchases
Köehler Books authors may purchase additional copies of their books at or below the wholesale price. Authors may sell those books for profit and also use them for promotional purposes. Author orders do not count toward royalties. Below market prices for authors to purchase copies of your softcover and hardcover. This gives you more profit at your own events or individual sales.
Most authors buy books directly from us below or near wholesale at a 50-60% discount. We also sell books to organizations, schools and groups affiliated with the author at 30% discount.
Visit our author book order page
Visit our wholesale book order page
E-book Campaigns
We work with our authors who have signed on with a legitimate e-book promotion such as BookBub or wish to do a guerilla marketing Ebook campaign on their own. Typically, we lower the price prior to the event and then bring it back up to an agreed level afterwards. We recommend an Ebook sale on the pub date, or 4-6 months after the pub date.
Catalog Inclusion
Inclusion in 4 Catalogs used by online and physical bookstores
• Ingram iPage- one of the biggest
• Edelweiss- this is the big guns in the industry
• Overdrive- sells our Ebooks to libraries
• Dropcap – our foreign rights agency
Vote the Cover Campaigns
We collaborate and brainstorm with the author to narrow down the 3-4 cover designs we present, to the top two covers. We then take the top two choices and post a VOTE THE COVER poll on our website to get the pulse on two opposing cover designs for the book, with votes coming mainly through the author sending it out to their followers. This has become one of the best prelaunch publicity campaigns for our authors.
Visit our Cover Poll page
Awards Assistance
We will send 10 softcovers to the author when they send proof of signing up for a book awards program. We advise and coach the author on which awards program to submit to, starting with the awards our authors have won here: https://www.koehlerbooks.com/author-center/kb-authors/awards/
“Don’t get overwhelmed! Just like setting that word count or writing-time goal each day, you can divide your marketing tasks into equally manageable bite-sized pieces. To do this, set a number in your mind. Let’s say TEN: You commit to making sure at least ten new people know your name and the name of your book by the end of each day. Whatever your number is (there’s no wrong answer; this has to work for you and your schedule), commit to hitting that number EVERY day.”
—Shari Stauch, owner of the marketing firm Where Writers Win
Here’s our gift to you.
GET YOUR FREE EBOOK
Pocket Guide to Publishing: 100 Things Authors Should Know
“A clever and candid look under the hood of today’s publishing vehicle.” “I wish Pocket Guide had been available when I started out.” “A real no nonsense guide for authors that cuts to the chase about publishing.” Ooh, I need this!