Book Promotion Guru Patricia Fry 78 Percent Of Published Books Fail

“With over 3 million books being published every year, competition in the marketplace is enormously stiff. In fact, over 78% of all published books fail, and the average book, today, sells just 250 copies.” Ouch! A sobering fact from book promotion guru Patricia Fry. What’s an author to do? You’ve got to be a book promotion machine. But you’re not a machine, are you? No, you’re an author. So that’s why I invited Patricia  here today. After reading her book  TALK UP YOUR BOOK, I realized even though I’m doing a lot to promote my book, I could be doing more. I SHOULD be doing more. Patricia, that 78% statistic is scary. Can you tell us what you mean by “fail”, and is there a difference in these stats between traditionally published and self-published titles? By “fail,” they mean the books sell fewer than 100 copies. There are no statistics that I know of that indicates how many self-published authors versus traditionally published authors “fail.” However, I can tell you that around 78 percent of all books published today are produced by pay-to-publish “self-publishing” companies. Why are so many books failing in the marketplace? Because most new authors neglect to study the publishing industry before getting involved. They don’t know the importance of writing the right book for the right audience and they don’t understand that it is up to the author to promote the book. Many new authors who do take the initiative and time to learn something about book promotion, find themselves in over their heads once they are faced with the huge responsibilities involved with marketing their books. They don’t realize how much time, energy and effort it takes. They become overwhelmed and disillusioned and they either never start a marketing program or they quit before they’ve gone very far with it. Competition is another reason why some books fail in the marketplace. There are more books than ever before and statistics show there are actually fewer readers. But even in the face of competition, there are some books that do much better than others and the key is alwaysâ€"write a book that is needed/wanted by a segment of people, know who your audience is and write for that audience, have your book edited by a good book editor and, when it comes time to promote that book, it is vital that you know how to promote to your particular audience. No one will buy a book they don’t know about. It is up to the author to reach his/her audience. Something else authors often lose sight of is that once they stop promoting their book, it will die. OK, so about 22% of all books are with traditional houses. Traditional houses will promote your book (right?), but the author still needs to do as much as they can. What do you say to the authors who think they can just sit back and watch sales roll in? And what do you say to those authors who complain, “But I’m not a natural promoter. I’m an introverted writer!” I don’t know much about the statistics. That isn’t my strength. But I can tell you that in today’s publishing climate, all authors MUST be prepared to and expect to do the majority of the promoting and marketing for their books. There are hundreds of traditional publishers and they each have different ways of working with authors, but most are more interested in the author’s platform and what the author can and will do to spread the word about their books than almost anything else. Most of them want to work with authors who have a following, a reachâ€"a ready-made audience for promoting their particular book and an understanding of book promotion. By way of promotion from the publisher’s sideâ€"generally, a publisher will put the book in their catalog and on their website. They might send out press releases to their list of reviewers, newspapers, etc. They may give an author 3 months with an on-staff publicist. But, yes, the author is expected to be the main marketing agent for his/her book. What do I say to authors who do not want to promote? I would hope to talk to them before they ever write that book. I would ask them to study the publishing industry and to learn what is expected of themâ€"what their responsibilities are as a published author. I would urge them to learn what book promotion entailsâ€"to gain an understanding of this huge responsibility before ever deciding to write a book for publication. If they don’t want to do the promotion, they should seriously reconsider producing a book. For those who have already written and published a book, I would recommend that they engage in the same study asap. There are hundreds of ways to promote a book. An author can find his/her level of expertise and comfort