Borrowing from What Already Works

I was made aware of two promotional strategies recently and it popped into my head that they have two things in common: the methods have already been proven to work, people already respond. The groups using them just put a little twist on them to better suit their purposes. As they say, "there's nothing new under the sun", and in marketing that's often the case. There are so many successful strategies out there, re-inventing the wheel is really not necessary, especially not when you're first starting out unless that's an area you excel in.

The first one is called The Amazing Book Race and is obviously based on the CBS show, the Amazing Race (which my husband and I happen to enjoy). It was highlighted this week on Sarah Bolme's marketing blog. The show itself has won best reality Emmy for a few years now. The basic concept has proven itself to be popular, why not start there?

The second is called The Spirit of Christmas Catalog and was brought to my attention by Carolyn Howard Johnson (frugal book marketing guru :-) ) Depending on how old you are, you might remember getting department store catalogs before Christmas and pawing through, dog-earing the gifts you wanted. Or maybe like me, some of you used to do a lot of shopping by mail order catalogs. Before the Internet, I did a lot of that. Still get a few now but not as many. Again, a concept that is known to have worked in the past in paper; this one just has a 21st century digital spin. BTW, if you're an author, this one is open for your participation at the moment.

So if you're trying to figure out some new fancy schmancy way to market your books and coming up empty, it might be time to figure out what you know works, put your own style to it, and see what happens.

Have you done this? Let us know.

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett