I’m often asked what keeps me going while marketing my book. I’ve managed to find my way onto many podcasts as a guest. I’ve been interviewed on radio and television. I’ve done many signing events at bookstores — including one where no one showed up — and presentations about my book(s) for organizations like The Jefferson Educational Society I’ve sold books at conferences and had articles published in online publications like Psychology Today.
All of these efforts have helped my books sell nearly 2,000 copies, which doesn’t feel like a lot. (Until I remember the stats my publisher shared with me that the average books sales for a book published these days is about 200 copies in its lifetime.)
An “approach-avoidance” conflict
In the long ago time when I was in graduate school for my masters degree in clinical psychology, I learned the term an approach-avoidance conflict. These many years later the term comes screaming down the lane when I think of having to market my first book, Flying with Dad, and my second book, Dying With Dad.
An approach-avoidance conflict is one that involves a single goal. In this case, selling the book. The goal, however, has both desirable and undesirable aspects. Opposite characteristics, like black and white or yin and yang. Of course, I want the book to sell, and of course, I know that for the most part, I have to expend energy doing things I don’t always want to do to make that happen. (I will admit when I was writing the book, I was clueless as to having to do the marketing.)
I do want the book to sell, because I would like to make some money. That isn’t the reason I wrote it, but putting money in the bank does sound like a nice thing.
The Origins of My Stories
A little background here is necessary. In 2008 my father told me a funny, quirky, off the wall story about bartering for French champagne with American cigarettes when he and his crew made an emergency landing in freed Belgium near the end of World War II. They had lost an engine and decided it was too risky to cross the English Channel back to the base in England on just three engines.
This story, and all of the others he told me after that first one, became the basis for the first book, Flying With Dad. Here was an opportunity for me to tell the story of an ordinary GI who chose to go to war because he wanted to fly. Much is written elsewhere about the battles, the generals, and the world figures, but I didn’t find much written about the everyday men and women who gambled day in and day out with their lives to win the war.
Flying With Dad is also a story of a father and a daughter, and how the stories he told me about his past changed our relationship in deep and fulfilling ways. It is a love story. I found the father I had always wanted, and he discovered in his daughter something he didn’t know he had.
When I held the author’s proof of Flying With Dad in my hands and read the book in its entirety, I knew I had something really special. It was well written, engaging, insightful, and worthy. That has been and continues to be what underlies the approach part of what keeps me going with my marketing strategy.
Enter Book #2, Dying With Dad
My second book, Dying With Dad, was borne out of one of the last chapters in Flying With Dad where I write about my father and I actually talking about what he wanted at the end of his life. Rather than being morbid, it was an intimate and meaningful connection revolving around The Five Wishes. My publisher convinced me that this experience with my father, coupled with my work as a psychotherapist and in retirement communities, meant I had something of real value to offer readers around connecting with our loved ones on the topic of end of life.
However, as good as I felt both of my books to be, they weren’t going to sell themselves. The undesirable, or avoidance, aspect of my goal was simply this: where in the world does one start?
Knowing What to Expect
I am so much better when I know what to expect and what is entailed. One book gave me just the overall view of what lay ahead that I needed. It was Boni Wagner-Stafford’s, One Million Readers: The Definitive Guide to a Nonfiction Book Marketing Strategy That Saves Time, Money, and Sells More Books. It covered all of the things that I needed to think about about and what I would need to do.
I used the idea of a target audience to research blogs, podcasts, museums, newspapers, news outlets and libraries that might be interested in my book. Little by little I found a way to reach out to those. I sent letters and online queries and even mailed copies of the book. I didn’t keep statistical data, but my guess would be for every twenty attempts, I might have gotten one response. It is and was disheartening. The result was that some days I did nothing.
But then something desirable would happen, the approach half of the approach-avoidance conflict. Someone would reach out, or an opportunity would present itself, or a what I call a little miracle would happen. The little boost that I needed would be there. I would be back at it. I would find an email address, write something and hit send, or I would pick up the phone and make the next call.
What keeps me going while marketing my books?
As hard as it is some days, as hard as it is over a period of time, I come back to this: I believe in the book — in both of my books — and what each of them has to say. I believe they are stories that transcend time and will touch the hearts of those who read them. Whether my books make it into the hands of three readers, 300 readers, 3000, or one million readers, that is essentially what keeps me going.
