Your Guide to the Guide: Part 14 A Unique Service

Here’s something unique to Clarendon House, developed over several years of experience and experiment in the field of marketing books: the Audience Locator Service.

You’re probably familiar by now with the argument that ‘shouting from the rooftops’ doesn’t work in marketing. You may have already experienced for yourself the wastefulness of using paid advertising to try to reach your readers; you may have spent hundreds of hours ‘spamming’ the internet, desperately trying to get more booksales, only to be profoundly disappointed by the results. When you’ve poured so much effort into something and gotten so little response it’s tempting to conclude that your work itself is worthless, rather than evaluating to find the correct error.

So what is it that you’ve been doing wrong?

It’s a tautology to say that you haven’t reached your readers because you haven’t reached your readers, but that’s what it amounts to. Bulk marketing — shouting from the rooftops — is like standing in a crowded street and yelling ‘Look at me! I’ve written a book!’ and expecting people to stop and buy one. Shout loud enough for long enough and someone may stop, but by then you’ll be exhausted and so will your bank account. And then you’ll have to do the whole thing again to get someone else to stop. It’s counter-productive when you could be using the same time and energy to write more books.

What would happen if you located a street full of people looking for a book like yours? You probably wouldn’t have to raise your voice: people would stop and at least look of their own accord.

Back in the 18th century, as modern day commercial systems were developing — and even before that, back in mediaeval times — townships had particular streets set aside for particular shops: ‘Leathermakers’ Lane’, ‘Cordwainers' Lane’, Butchers’ Row’ and so on. If you wanted a piece of leather, you headed for the right street and sampled some wares. As a leathermaker, all you had to do was set up a stall in the right place and interested prospects would wander by, not on their way to somewhere else but actively looking to buy the kind of thing you were producing.

Your task as an author is not to shout louder or longer than anyone else but to find your street.

The Audience Locator Service sets out to do just that.

How does it do it?

Interestingly, it’s not really about demographics — at least, not in the usual way. Once you grasp a certain set of principles, the demographics follow. Then it becomes a case of setting up a stall, which is another thing entirely. But if you think about it, the cheapest and simplest stall is going to attract some attention if you’re in the right street in the first place.

Contact me to find out more about this special service.