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Maximizing Your Book’s Earning Potential

by: Penny C. Sansevieri

Everything in life is worth writing about if you have the guts to do it and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
- Sylvia Plath

If you're going to put out tons of effort writing a book, you should also invest the extra time and energy into creating some strategic components that can really help leverage your promotional options. Building marketing into your book is one way to help maximize your book's earning potential. If done correctly, you could shave hundreds, if not thousands of dollars off of your marketing and publicity budget.
So, how do you get started? Well, it’s easier than you might think. First you'll want to do a little brainstorming and really begin to focus on your reader. A good analysis of who will be reading your book will help you determine which components need to be included in this book to enhance its marketability. Through this, you can add those things you might have not otherwise considered. Let’s say, for example, you are writing a book on relationships or great places to meet your significant other. You might decide to include those places to assist your readers in their search and in so doing have now opened the door to the possibility of offering this book to those sites or singles programs. When it works for your topic, incorporating companies, websites, or other helpful resources is a great way to extend the growth of your book beyond the initial reader, turning it into a "one-stop-shop" and thereby enhancing your marketing avenues. If you're a fiction writer, consider the setting for your book and if possible, why not set it in a real place? This could potentially lead to signings and events where the book is set.
Does your book have a handy resource guide? If it doesn't you should consider adding one. Then you can also offer this same resource guide (and the updates) on your website as well. From this, you can also consider offering special reports that readers can subscribe to; or even a newsletter or mailing list with periodic updates works well. The key here is: you don't want your relationship to end after the reader puts the book down. You want to continue to stay on their radar screen as long as you can.

As you begin to focus on your reader, take a moment to consider what they'd really love to see in your book – as opposed to what you'd like to see in it. There is a big difference. When I was putting together my most recent book: From Book to Bestseller (due out this fall), I realized that timelines and check-off lists were big deals to my readers, so I incorporated them. These lists now can also be offered on my website as a downloadable product.
In an ideal marketing world, your book should be its own marketing machine, offering not only the potential for spin-off products (as discussed in our last issue) but also a means to market, market, market and maximize its earning potential. Ideally, you want to capitalize on your book for as long as you can, and turning it into a marketing machine will go a long way toward extending the life and reach of your book, increasing your bottom line and getting you that Chateau in France you always dreamed of.

About the author:
Penny C. Sansevieri
The Cliffhanger was published in June of 2000. After a strategic marketing campaign it quickly climbed
the ranks at Amazon.com to the ##1 best selling book in San Diego. Her most recent book: From Book to Bestseller was released in 2005 to rave reviews and is being called the “roadmap to publishing success.” Penny is a book marketing and media relations specialist. She also coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com
Copyright ã 2005 Penny C. Sansevieri