What Jesus Can Teach Us About Marketing

One of the things I simply detest about being an author is marketing. There is nothing more embarrassing than to have to explain to someone why they should buy my book. "Because I wrote it and it's about Jesus and I think it's really cool," does not really pique anyone's interest, much less my own.

I prefer to hand out a bookmark, or postcard and let that do all the explaining. Better yet, read the back of the cover - that will save me from having to explain what it's all about. Sadly, this technique will not sell many books. There are of course many other options for marketing your book like newspaper ads, book signings, radio interviews, etc.,... But if you are someone who doesn't have a lot of money, perhaps you could rely on Jesus' marketing techniques.

Jesus had marketing techniques? Well, not in the sense of what we have today, but he did use a few principles we could learn from and incorporate into our own marketing plans. 

The first thing the Lord did when he began His ministry was to observe his cousin John the Baptist at work. He listened to him preach, then when the moment was right, He had John baptize Him. That moment was marked and etched on everyone's mind who saw Him get baptized too. Why? Because when Jesus came up out of the water the Holy Spirit rested on him in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven called out, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." After that, Jesus was lead by the Holy Spirit out into the desert for 40 days and nights. No one had contact with him.

Marketing Tip #1 - Create a buzz about your book before it comes out. Before you are finished writing it, talk about it with your friends, family, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc. Drop hints about it's subject matter. Share just enough to get them interested and do this months in advance of its release.

When Jesus came back from his sojourn in the desert he began to preach nine powerful words, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Marketing Tip #2 - Get your elevator pitch ready. Think Twitter. Tell me about your book in 10 seconds or less. Your elevator pitch will address what your book is about (repenting) and explain why it's important (the kingdom of heaven is at hand). Your opening line should intrigue your listener so much that they say, "That sounds interesting. Tell me more." 

Once Jesus began preaching he then gathered around him people who believed in Him and His message.

Marketing Tip #3 - Gather together at least 12 family members and friends (try to include other writers) who can support you in various ways. First and most importantly, you will need a prayer team. These precious people will cover you and your book in prayer as you begin final edits and get ready to submit it to a publisher. These will be the people who give you honest feedback on your book. They will critique it and not be afraid to tell you what they like or dislike. By the time you submit your manuscript to an editor, your book should appeal to more than one type of person and should have most of the kinks out of it. In addition to being your prayer support and critique group, these people will believe in you so much, that they will talk about your book to others - even before it's in print. Word of mouth spreads fast.

Jesus had one big advantage on spreading his message - he could heal people, he could even raise them from the dead. Once this news got out, people were clamouring to hear him and touch him. And those in authority wanted him dead because of his teachings.

Marketing Tip #4 - Create a stir. Dan Brown created a stir with The DaVinci Code - he got Christians so riled up that when the movie version of the book came out, they boycotted it and any companies who sponsored it. That made everyone else who wasn't a Christian, want to see it all the more. Am I suggesting you do something offensive? Of course not! However, we all know that almost everything Jesus said was controversial for His time. He angered quite a few people. When my book first came out, I was lambasted by Catholics because I did not venerate Mary and leave her as a perpetual virgin. One Catholic reviewer said Come to Me was "Just as bad as The DaVinci Code - highly offensive." Ouch! I was horrified! And wondered what to do to "fix my book". But my wise father said, "This is not a bad thing. People like controversy. Wait and see what happens." And he was right. Anyone who wasn't Catholic wanted to buy it and some who were Catholic and heard about it from their Protestant friends, decided to give it a chance anyway. I was relieved to receive a few emails of praise from them because I had made the Holy Family seem "real". Come to Me has been a consistent Amazon bestseller since its release.

These are just a few of the things I learned on marketing from looking at Jesus' life and ministry. In the end you will have to do what is best for you and your book. Personally, I prefer the old-fashioned way - Word of Mouth.

Until Next Time,

Marketing Prayer — Lawrence

The marketing process is perhaps more difficult to go through than the writing of the book. There is a lot of advice about marketing on the internet today so it should be a cinch to get one’s book out there and onto the shelves of the many users of the net. However, because there is so much information if I was to follow it all I think my brain would either explode from over- excitement or permanently go to sleep from exhaustion.

I would like to follow much of the information that I have read but I know that I cannot follow every good suggestion for lack of time, energy, or desire. After reading a lot of good suggestions I have prayed for God’s leading and chosen those that I feel are suitable for my situation.

It is important, I think, to do things that are a little different from the crowd, something that is within one’s budget, and something that arises out of one’s prayer to God.

As my latest book came close to being published, I wanted to have a Book Trailer. I looked into having it done professionally and found it to be way more expensive than I could handle. Many writers, especially seniors, have this problem. I am quite artistically inclined so, instead of searching for someone to do it for me I searched for a program that would provide me with the means to do one for myself.

I found a program called Smilebox, a program that had many uses as well as being very reasonably priced. For a year’s membership, which included a free month’s trial, it cost $39.00, and I could use it as much or as little as I wished without any extra charge.

Everyone said that Social media was the way to go to market one’s work. I did give it a try for a while but I found it was not for me. I found it took up a lot of my time and gave me very little reward. Besides, everybody was doing it. I wanted to find God’s special place for me and follow that. I composed a prayer to say daily and, by keeping my ears and eyes open to God’s leading, I have found some special marketing things just for me.

At the time of the publishing of my second spiritual book, Glorious Autumn Days: Meditations for the Wisdom Years, I began a website, www.judithlawrence.ca  Now, with the launch of my new book I revamped my website giving it a new look for the new publication, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey. I have focused the home page on my latest book, added an internet Press Kit in PDF format so that anyone who needed information about me could download any or all of it without a lot of extra work for them.

Last but not least, I composed my prayer for marketing and am diligent in praying it daily and listening to God’s answers to my prayer. If you do nothing else in the marketing arena, I would advise you to do this—to pray and be open to God’s guidance.

Here is the prayer that I wrote and pray daily. You’re welcome to use this as a basis for your own prayer. May God bless each one of us in our writing and marketing efforts.

Marketing Prayer:       Heavenly Father, you have chosen special marketing spots for my newest spiritual book, Highway of Holiness: SoulJourney. Open my eyes that I may clearly see them; cleanse me from fear that I may boldly claim them; assist me to be generous that I may put this book into people’s hands so that they may follow their own soul journey and find their unique relationship with you. This I ask in the name of Jesus, your Son, our Lord, Amen.

Marked or Marketing?- CARLETON

The other day I noticed a tweet from Christine Caine that read “It is far better to be MARKED by God than to try & MARKET yourself...marketing makes you known...being marked makes you anointed & effective.”

That tweet has been going through my thoughts repeatedly.  Since my book came out I have felt the pressure to play the marketing game.  I must admit that I have dabbled in this game, even though I felt extremely uncomfortable.  I admit that I did receive some degree of publicity and a sense of being “known” while playing the game.

As I look back over the time since my book was published I would have to conclude that the time I spent developing and growing my relationship with Christ rather than my marketing campaign I have seen God sized works.  I have witnessed things much greater than I could ever dare to ask or hope for.

I am going to hang that tweet right beside my computer screen and when I am tempted to the play the marketing game I will do an about-face and invest in what holds lasting value-- my relationship with my Lord and Saviour.  His marketing plan is always better.

Cj Carleton is the 2008 Canadian Christian Writing Award winner for her first book “What Makes You Unique? Discover the Truth or Believe the lie”.  Learn more about Cj by visiting www.cjcarleton.com You can also connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

Marketing – Lawrence

Since compiling and self-publishing my latest book, Welsh Cakes: Book of Short Stories, I have done more marketing than with any of my previous books—not that I have sold any more books this time around than I did with any of my other books. My marketing efforts have, however, drawn a lot of visitors to my web site, particularly to my monthly meditations, which I now have in text and audio.

Visits to my website are important to me and, though I would like to sell more books, I am writing a lot through my website with more immediate results than I have ever done with my books. I have been getting around 1,000 visits to my site each month for several months now; this is up from 100 when I first started in 2007. This is attributable to my presence on the internet on other sites.

Most of my marketing has been done on-line and there are a lot of opportunities available to an author. I got quite involved with on-line marketing a few months ago when one of The Word Guild members told us about a site called Marketing Tips for Authors. http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com From reading this blog by Tony Eldridge, I have linked up with a number of helpful ways to market my work and website.

One cannot take advantage of all the suggestions that are given—if one did there would be no time for writing—but one can search through and pick out some that would be helpful to one’s own situation. The following are examples of ideas that I have chosen to pursue.

1. I joined Authors Den, www.authorsden.com which is a site where authors and readers meet together. Here I have an opportunity to put all my information in one place. I blog there once a week; I show my poetry, short stories, and published books; I have links to my other blogs, my website, and where to buy my books; I can keep track of visits by others to these areas by viewing my stats page.
2. When I started my blog on my book of short stories, I decided to follow a suggestion I found on Marketing Tips, to use my new blog to tell the story behind each of the short stories in the book and the reason that led me to write it.
3. The most recent idea that got my attention was putting up my book in readable form on my website, blogs, and anywhere else I so desired. I joined a website called fReado www.freado.com from where I was directed to BookBuzzr. www.bookbuzzr.com Here I was able to put sample pages of my book for people to read and could put a widget of this in various places on the internet so that people could have access to it.

These are new times and we have to be able to change our method of bringing God’s message to the people with the times if that is what God is leading us to do. I was never much of a computer techie but I have been willing to try and now enjoy the challenge of learning new marketing tips and techniques in order to make God’s word available to the ever growing internet population.

To God be the glory in all we do.