{"id":460,"date":"2010-02-08T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=460"},"modified":"2010-02-04T12:50:57","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T07:20:57","slug":"the-eighth-and-biggest-book-marketing-mistake-assuming-everyone-likes-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/the-eighth-and-biggest-book-marketing-mistake-assuming-everyone-likes-to-read\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eighth (and Biggest) Book Marketing Mistake: Assuming Everyone Likes to Read"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following post is by Chetan Dhruve <\/a>– Author of Why Your Boss is Programmed to be a Dictator<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
\n

If book-marketing mistakes were destructive bombs, this mistake would be the nuclear bomb. Yet, this mistake is so obvious in retrospect that it makes me want to scream.<\/p>\n

When my book first came out, I was as excited as a new parent. I told absolutely everyone \u2013 friends, family, colleagues and so on – about the book. Of course, I did want people to buy my book but more importantly, I wanted them to read it. Further, from a marketing standpoint, it\u2019s only when you read and enjoy a book that you tell others about it – in short, word-of-mouth marketing.<\/p>\n

Even before I wrote my book, I would frequently recommend books to others. On occasion, when someone had borrowed a book, I would ask, “So, what do you think of the book?<\/em>” . The answer would be quite sheepish: \u201cI haven’t started reading it yet, but I\u2019ll definitely read it when I get the chance.<\/em>\u201d After some time, I would follow up \u2013 \u201cSo, did you read the book?<\/em>\u201d Again, the same sheepish answer: \u201cI haven\u2019t yet had the time.<\/em>\u201d It wasn’t that I was worried about getting my book back – I just couldn’t figure out why someone would not read it. And the answers were always sheepish. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s only when I began marketing my own book that I got a rude shock. People would buy my book, and a couple of weeks later, I would ask, \u201cSo, did you like it?<\/em>\u201d I\u2019d be surprised to hear, \u201cOh sorry, I just haven\u2019t had the time to read it.<\/em>\u201d I\u2019d be surprised because I couldn\u2019t fathom how someone could buy a book and not read it. It would be like buying a Ferrari and keeping it in the garage \u2013 actually, I could forgive an unused Ferrari, but not an unread book.<\/p>\n

Of course, there was the possibility that my book was boring. Hence I would ask, \u201cDid my book put you to sleep, did you give up a few pages after starting?<\/em>\u201d The answer would be, \u201cNo, honestly, I just haven\u2019t started.<\/em>\u201d This was getting me nowhere. Were they lying to protect my feelings, or were they telling me an underlying truth, a truth I couldn\u2019t comprehend?<\/p>\n

I started pushing deeper: \u201cCome on, tell me. I can handle it. What\u2019s the real problem?<\/em>\u201d I would probe. After a few of these awkward conversations, I finally had the truth: \u201cActually, it\u2019s not just your book in particular, but um, ah, honestly speaking, I just don\u2019t like reading books.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

To say I was stunned would be an understatement. Reading books to me is like breathing. I take it for granted, something you do all the time, without effort. In fact, it\u2019s much better than breathing because it\u2019s so enjoyable.<\/p>\n

And here I was, listening to people saying they didn\u2019t like to read. My head was spinning. It was incredible. That\u2019s when I realized that the biggest mistake we as authors make is this: just because we absolutely love reading, we assume that everyone else does too.<\/p>\n

Of course, if it\u2019s a non-fiction book, you can always tell people about the ideas in your book, and get them excited about the ideas. But saying, \u201cI have some ideas<\/em>\u201d (everyone has ideas!) is very different from saying, \u201cI\u2019ve written a book.<\/em>\u201d Even if people don\u2019t like reading, they tend to respect your ideas a lot more if they know you\u2019ve written a book.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s what I\u2019ve concluded. There are actually two different strands of a \u201cmarketing\u201d conversation related to your book: first, the book itself and I stress again, the act of reading. Second, the ideas in the book. You can talk about the book and the ideas in it, but at some point you must ask your potential \u2018customer\u2019 this fundamental question: \u201cDo you like reading?<\/strong>\u201d If the answer is no, you\u2019ll be spared a lot of ego-killing deflation, frustration and annoyance when you realize that either your book isn\u2019t going to be bought, or if bought, it isn\u2019t going to be read.<\/p>\n

As authors, we\u2019ve all had to write proposals that include descriptions of our target market. But I\u2019m completely sure that even in your winning book proposal (you won the book deal after all), you never wrote, \u201cI assume my target audience likes to read books.<\/em>\u201d You didn\u2019t put that line into your proposal because it seems absurdly redundant. Of course your target market likes to read, who doesn\u2019t?! But it is precisely that assumption that can come back and bite you, and bite you hard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following post is by Chetan Dhruve – Author of Why Your Boss is Programmed to be a Dictator If book-marketing mistakes were destructive bombs, this mistake would be the nuclear bomb. Yet, this mistake is so obvious in retrospect that it makes me want to scream. When my book first came out, I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,17,3,18],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-marketing","tag-author-marketing","tag-author-promotion","tag-book-marketing","tag-book-promotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}