Book Marketing Flyer for Dummies

/5 Comments/in /by

Our Romantic Getaway Book Flyer Ad Final
Anyone with Word can create this easy do-it-yourself sell sheet.

As a member of the National Association of Book Entrepreneurs (NABE), my novel Our Romantic Getaway was recently included in their marketing efforts at the 2015 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Show in Portland, Oregon.

As a follow-up, I wanted to send a marketing flyer to all of the potential buyers who visited their booth and/or had expressed interest in my book.

I went online and researched how to put together an effective sell sheet, but was unable to find anything that I could tailor for my personal use. I am a fan of Vistaprint.com for printing postcards, business cards, and other marketing materials, but they had no templates available that appropriately fit my book selling sheet needs.

So I did a little cut and paste job in Word and voila, I came up with an attractive, cogent marketing tool.

I purchased white 8.5 x 11 card stock (65 lb) and fed the paper through my printer feeder—the front page first, and then placed the completed front page back into the feeder for the back section.

You can download this PDF to see the final product. Our Romantic Getaway Book Flyer

If you need assistance putting a sell sheet together, contact me and I would be happy to quote you an extremely reasonable price to do it for you!

Below is a quick and easy guide to a DIY marketing flyer:

Keep your sell sheet clean and simple. It’s better to include detailed information about a couple of things than to have bits of partial information about a lot of things.

Include a quote, excerpt of a review, blurb, or endorsement from a well-known person or well-respected authority. Including any awards your book has received will give you credibility as an author.

Flyers with color will almost always stand out from plain black and white flyers. You don’t have to spend a lot of money for the flyer, and if you have a color printer you can print them yourself. If you don’t have a color printer and don’t want to spend the money to have your flyer professionally printed, you can use brightly colored printing paper with bold black text to make sure your flyer stands out.

You don’t want to risk producing a flyer with sub-standard print quality, so while it may be cost effective to use your own printer, Kinkos, Staples, Office Max, or any similar retail
printing establishment can provide affordable flyer printing services. You want your final product to look as professional as possible, so make sure your printer can provide the quality you need.

And don’t forget to make sure your contact information is easy to locate. Offer clear instructions on how to reach you or how to take advantage of your promotion.

If you set up your flyer in Word, your first side should highlight your book cover only. That’s what you’re trying to sell right? The second side of the flyer will include all the other information.

Here is what I included on my flyer:

    • A photo of the book cover (I copied a jpg of my cover and pasted it into Word)
    • Title of the book (I also placed an award sticker on my front page)
    • Author name
    • Brief description (See my article Write the Perfect Book Blurb for tips)
    • Publisher
    • Category
    • Format
    • ISBN#
    • Pages
    • Retail Price 
    • Contact Information (Mailing address, e-mail, website, blog, telephone)
    • Author Photo (I printed out a photo, using double-sided tape to add it to flyer)
    • About the Author
    • If you are available for book signing events, add a line saying so
    • A quote, excerpt of a review, blurb, or endorsement from a well-known person or well-respected authority.
    • Relevant PR or marketing plans) (only if you have room)

If you are mailing the flyer, try to call ahead and get the name of the manager. If you don’t know the name of the manager you can address it as “Attention: Book Buyer.”

If you are visiting the local bookstores in your surrounding area, ask to speak to the manager of the store. If the manager is not available, leave the flyer anyway. But make sure to ask for the manager’s name so you can contact or mail them at a later date.

Introduce yourself as a local author, and encourage them to order your book and stock it in their store. Emphasize the fact that you plan on promoting your book extensively in the area and would like to tell people where they can find it for purchase, i.e. recommending their store. You may also decide to leave a copy of your book for their review.

If the bookstore enjoys lots of traffic, etc. and you wish to conduct a book signing there, ask the manager if he or she is interested in hosting a book signing. Most bookstore managers love hosting events, particularly with a local author that will encourage patrons to buy books from their store.

If your flyer is more of a marketing tool for readers, let them know where to purchase your book. If the book is carried by only one or two wholesalers, list them. If handled by a distributor, include the distributor’s name and 800#.

Sometimes it takes more than one mailing to interest a potential buyer so don’t give up too quickly.  And don’t expect miracles. Marketing is a process. It takes time. Look how long it took you to write your book!

Baa Baa Black Sheep

/1 Comment/in /by

Black Sheep
Out to dinner with a friend a few weeks ago, she gloomily confided in me that she was the “black sheep” of her family. Her sorrowful declaration raised the hair on my arms and gave me the chilly willies for two reasons:

1. She is beautiful, successful, generous, compassionate, considerate, well-grounded, strong, selfless, and a loving and nurturing mother and wife. The type of woman that anyone would aspire to be.

2. Over the years, I’ve heard this expression more often than I would like to admit. And worse, I’ve heard it used to refer to me. Many times. So many times, that I developed “Black Sheep Syndrome,” if there is such a thing.

So the two of us bitterly asked each other what I have been asking myself for close to fifty years:

Why and how does a child become the black sheep of their family?

When I got home from dinner that night, I looked up the Baa Baa Black Sheep nursery rhyme. Baa Baa Black Sheep is an English poem, dating back to sometime around 1731. But very little is actually known about its origins. While I found several interpretations of the words, there was little to no evidence to support any of them.

I also found several variations of the rhyme, although the one that I prefer is the Mother Goose Melody published sometime in 1765. This version is usually sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and the “Alphabet Song.” The last couplet is printed as “But none for the little boy who cries in the lane,” as opposed to “One for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

Mother Goose’s version:

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, marry, have I,
Three bags full;
One for my master,
One for my dame,
But none for the little boy
Who cries in the lane.

A common interpretation is that the rhyme was against Medieval English taxes on the wool industry.

But I don’t really understand the black sheep part. It doesn’t take a genius to know that white wool is more desirable in the commercial marketplace because it can be dyed any color. Black sheep in a flock, are useless in terms of wool production as it is impossible to dye its fleece. A fleece with even a few black fibers is considered less than desirable.

So if the wool from a black sheep is impossible to dye, rendering it useless, and undesirable, it would be unsaleable, thus no need to tax it at all.

Whatever the reason the rhyme depicts black instead of white, it’s obvious that the undesirable and uselessness of the black sheep is what gives us the term “the black sheep of the family.”

And okay, I can see a sheep farmer who makes a living from wool, considering the black sheep a wastrel. But a family?

Black sheep is a phrase used to describe a pariah, a reject, and a ne’er-do-well, especially within a family unit. Someone who is ostracized and treated differently from the rest. A distasteful outcast, who just doesn’t belong.

Nothing for the little boy who cries in the lane.

Yes, I’m called the black sheep in my family. And I’m finally proud of it.

There I said it. And the best realization and revelation for me is that I actually do feel pride.

And here is my take on the whole “black sheep” defamation:

The family black sheep don’t get picked randomly or by accident. The black sheep are sensitive, unhappy, vulnerable, and usually the outspoken child. The one who refuses to stay silent and just can’t and won’t pretend to be one big happy family.

The designated black sheep is made to carry the hidden blame and shame of relatives who refuse to acknowledge their own flaws and weaknesses.

Toxic and dysfunctional family members tend to project their own jealousies and sense of inferiority onto the shunned and disfavored black sheep.

And even if the black sheep eventually leaves (or is thrown out of) the familial flock, it doesn’t end there. The hated black sheep is more than likely still considered the cause and reason for the family’s difficulties and unhappiness, no matter how much time has passed.

Because the family’s need to place blame and project shame onto the black sheep is the only way, they can live with themselves.
Black Sheep Nursery Photo Cropped