Marketing, marketing, marketing!

Marketing. Have I mentioned that term before? Publishing a book is a lot like real estate, which has three simple rules: location, location, location. Publishing is no different: marketing, marketing, marketing. I forgot about the content a while ago. What's my book about? I forget. Something about leadership. Let me tell you about myself and who I am. That's the world of publishing. Today, thanks to the many advances in technology over the past several decades, I can be my own marketing agent. All it takes is a computer, a little (very little) technical savvy, my unofficial partner, Google, and the abundance of information available on the Internet (thanks, Al Gore) to become a marketing agent.

When confronted with the idea of becoming my own marketing agent, I considered abandoning my quest to publish my book. It served its purpose as a doctoral project requirement, and I really wanted to get back to writing fiction. I started a novel a lifetime ago, or so it seems, prior to my academic endeavors. I've been yearning to finish it because real writers write fiction (say that three times fast), or so I thought. Real writers write good material, fiction or non. Two hundred pages, 1.5 spaced, was nothing to sneeze at, so why shelf the manuscript prematurely? So far, I was the only one who rejected it, and that I did out of convenience to suit my own needs.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that when I did finish my novel, I was going to go through the same process - marketing. Even if my novel had bestseller written all over it, I was going to need a literary agent or a publisher, who would undoubtedly ask for a marketing plan. So, rather than postpone the inevitable, I decided to pursue publishing my doctoral manuscript. I sought independent reviewers who would comprise my targeted audience, and I learned everything I could about marketing. In fact, I'm still learning. It's a seemingly never-ending rabbit hole. There's always a different approach or outlet for marketing. The key, though, in my amateur opinion, is to create as many venues as possible - blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, Youtube, etc. Much of the information I've read indicates most people don't purchase books in a bookstore because they happened to see it. Most people purchase books due to savvy marketing!