Wednesday’s promoting tip for authors

Most authors I personally know would almost kill to shave weeks, or even months off the time it normally takes to get a new book to market.

So today you’re in luck, I’m going to build upon a previous blog post show you a time-saving secret that most authors would gladly pay “big bucks” to learn.

Two days ago, I described the 8 Pillars of Traditional Design that Russell Versaci used to organize his Creating a New Old House: Yesterday’s Character for Today’s Home.

In my earlier post, I discussed why nonfiction authors should build a book around a system that organizes and simplifies information by providing a context. My point was that a “content system” did a better job of engaging readers while providing a structure that saved the author time writing their book.

Systems also save time marketing books
Having identified the 8 Pillars of Traditional Design, for example, Russell Versaci has also created a simple, narrative framework that he can use to create numerous marketing and promotional projects. This framework simplifies creating content for marketing and promotion project like:

• Blog posts. Each of the 8 Pillars of Traditional Design could be a separate blog post. To build suspense, these could be posted at one week intervals.
• Speeches and presentations. The 8 Pillars of Traditional Design provides the framework for a speech or presentation that can be presented on a moment’s notice. The 8 Pillars structure could be easily expanded or condensed for different purposes.
• Word of mouth. Buzz, i.e., word-of-mouth mentions and referrals, works best when the message is simple. The idea behind “creating a new old house” can be hard to describe in conversation. The 8 Pillars of Traditional Design is far easier to describe and much easier to remember.
• Press Releases and Interviews. The 8 Pillars provides a simple structure for press releases and interviews. Interviewers don’t have to research the topic, and you don’t have to rehearse a script, in order to address the relevance and highlights of the 8 Pillars idea and how it lead to you’re writing your book.
• Newsletter marketing. The 8 Pillars of Traditional Design makes it easy to create a year’s worth of monthly newsletters:
  • Issue Number 1: Introduces the concept of 8 Pillars and contains a brief description of each Pillar.
  • Issues 2-9: Each of the next 8 issues are devoted to a single Pillar.
  • Issue 10: This issue could contain a review of the signifiance of the 8 Pillars along with an announcement for a free, list-building e-book.
  • Issue 11: The eleventh issue could be devoted to a case study or profile of a specific home built according to 8 Pillars principles.
  • Issue 12: The final newsletter could contain a list of books and online resources for building 8 Pillars homes, as well as a list of approved vendors.
• Article marketing. Each of the above newsletter ideas could be expanded into a longer article for placement in online article marketing portals like www.ezinearticles.com which not only attracts search engine traffic, but magazine and newsletter publishers who may want to reprint your article (with links to your website).
• Direct mail and postcards. The 8 Pillars idea could form the basis of an effective postcard marketing program. A series of numbered postcards could be created featuring 1 Pillar per card, and sent to a qualified list at 1-week or 1-month intervals. The postcards could be used to drive traffic to the author’s website, where an e-book describing the 8-Pillars could be downloaded.

Completion versus creation
For many, coming up with an idea is the hard part. Once you come up with your version of the 8 Pillars example described above, you’ll probably find it easy to recycle and re-purpose the basic concept over and over again.

Instead of struggling for a “creative angle” for your articles, blogs, newsletters, press releases, and speeches, all you have to do is adapt the basic idea to the particular media you’re writing for.

And, it doesn’t have to be “you” who does the writing! Once you have identified the basic idea, you might find that you can delegate the “completion” to others, permitting you to move on to your next book!