Julie Broad (Amazon bestselling author; founder of Book Launchers) explains the difference between book marketing and book sales and why authors need both. She defines marketing as creating awareness ("eyeballs") and sales as the direct act of selling ("credit cards"), then gives three examples showing that high-visibility media (TV, major shows, many podcasts) does not reliably produce book-unit sales. She recommends authors who need sales focus on distribution and conversion tactics — retail placement in relevant outlets, selling at speaking engagements, Amazon ads, using email autoresponders, and partner promotions — while still using marketing to build credibility and awareness. The video closes with viewer CTAs (comments contest, subscribe, links to other videos).
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Marketing and sales are not the same thing, but a lot of authors get the two things very confused when it comes to planning their book launch and beyond. If you aren't sure why you need both or what the difference is, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book Broad. I'm an Amazon overall number one bestselling author and founder of a fabulous company called Book Launchers. Our superpower is caring more about you and your book than anyone anybody else as we help you write, publish and sell a nonfiction book that will boost your brand and make you money. One of the mandates at Book Launchers is that we will help you get your book into readers hands. But here's where we've struggled with this just a little bit. Our clients want us to focus our efforts on getting them a specific media outlet's attention. For example, they may want us to focus on getting a certain radio show to have them as a guest or they want to be on XYZ TV show. That's totally fine. Having a wish list, a dream list is great. But if they don't get it, or even sometimes when they do, they often wonder why they aren't seeing a huge lift in book sales. Well, the challenge is that the thing that markets your book is not always the same thing that sells your book and you need both for a successful book launch and beyond. Marketing is about awareness. Sales is about asking for the buy. That's my overly simple definition. But really, marketing is eyeballs and sales is credit cards. Now you might be thinking, okay, I want book sales and my book marketing will get that maybe often the correlation isn't that clear. Now let me explain. Book marketing is that media appearance that looks so good on your social media and maybe even on your bio. But just because something looks amazing and gets eyeballs or ears doesn't mean it's actually selling books. Here are three examples of what I'm talking about. That would be the number three. One, two, three. Here are three examples. Number one, I was on TV many times for my first book. Popular morning shows with a lot of eyeballs in. It was super fun and the pictures were really popular on my social media. But the book sales did not change at all. I got asked back on the show and I'm sure my coaching clients saw me as a bigger, more credible expert as a result. But book sales did not change at all as a result of those TV appearances. Number two, one of the contractors that we hired to help with book marketing and PR for our clients was telling me a story about how she landed one of her author clients on the Dr. Phil Show. She thought this was going to be a make or break moment for her client and she said it had benefits like making it easier easier to get other media attention because her client had the credibility of being on the Dr. Phil Show. There was no difference between the day before Dr. Phil and the day of or the day after. That's not to say that being on Dr. Phil would not sell books for any author. She had other success stories selling lots of books post media appearance. But the thing is, it's not a guarantee. It's not a sure thing. So you can't count on the one thing to move a lot of books. Number three, A colleague of mine did a ton of podcast interviews for his book launch and business promotion. He basically just said yes to every kind of a podcast without regard for what it was or what their audience was. He found that very few move the needle on book sales. But one listener of an actually rather small podcast contacted him three months after the interview and bought 500 copies of his book for a corporate event. So that small podcast was a big success for selling books, but many of the bigger ones maybe didn't sell that many books. My point is this. You need to be clear on your goals and why you're doing what you're doing. Marketing is important because it builds awareness and you create that feeling of you are everywhere. And you need that to be seen and recognized as an expert and to be top of mind when somebody thinks of the problems that you solve. But for some authors, the most important thing is book sales. You need that book in the hands of readers. And if that's the case, focusing your efforts on those marketing things we just talked about doesn't actually move units. You need to focus on distribution in retail outlets. Not just bookstores, but places of business where it makes sense that someone might want to buy your book. Speaking engagements where you can sell books to the organizer at the back of the room or in some other kind of partnership arrangement, Amazon ads and your email newsletter building it and offering your book as part of your autoresponder series. Finally finding partners in promotion Marketing can lead to sales, but it doesn't always. Marketing is important because it builds awareness and the more people that hear you and see you, the more they will trust you. And that eventually builds you up as someone they should pay to learn from. Whether it's your book, your workshop, your service, your product, your talk. But get clear on what is important because those big media outlets talking about you might think feel good, but it might not be where you really should be focusing your time, energy and attention. Have you been surprised by the results or lack of results from some of the marketing you've done for your book? Let's talk about it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some fabulous hashtag no boring books swag. And while you're here, make sure you smash that thumbs up button. Go ahead, try it. It feels so good. And make sure you've subscribed to the channel and turned those notifications on so we can hang out in the comments and after the next video is released. And speaking of the next video, have you seen this brilliant piece of advice if I say so myself? If you haven't, check it out. Or if you're not feeling the vibe from that one today, well, this one on book award scams to watch out for is sure to help you as an author. Go ahead, click one of them. I'm waiting for you.
