Marketing by Wandering Around

Have fun selling your book - and sell your book while you’re having fun.

by Steve Carter

My wife and I have a very well-organized marketing plan for our book, No Fret Cooking.  Here is our video: Organizing a Marketing Plan:

We've discovered that "Marketing By Wandering Around" can also be effective.  In business management, "management by wandering around" refers to an approach that encourages managers to get out into the workplace and interact with workers, more or less an random, rather than sitting in their offices and waiting for status reports. For writers, it means getting out there and taking advantage of every opportunity to promote our books, and not just sitting home waiting for our books sales reports to roll in.

To better understand how our approach works, it will help if you know a little about us and our book. Marilynn is the author of the cookbook, No Fret Cooking; she’s also a holistic health practitioner, as well as a health and environmental awareness guide. I’m a musician — I composed and performed the music on the two CDs, “Music to Cook By,” and “Music to Dine By,” that are bundled with No Fret Cooking .

We are both self-employed; when we travel for our work, we travel together. While Marilynn is teaching or attending a class, or working with a client, I might be writing or composing in a coffee shop or a bar. While I'm on a gig or in a business meeting, Marilynn might be reading in a coffee shop, or browsing in the local stores. We often find opportunities in these situations to tell people about our book.

Here's an example. Shortly after our book was published, I had a business meeting in a town about an hour south of our home. Marilynn came along with me. I dropped her off downtown, and while I was in my meeting she had tea in a coffee shop and then went browsing in the stores. In one store she struck up a conversation with the owner, and the conversation turned to the subject of our book. The owner said she'd like to see the book. Marilynn did not have one with her, but she said she was meeting me later, that we have some in the trunk of our car, and she would stop back later with the book. After my meeting I met Marilynn at the coffee shop and she told me about the store owner's interest. We grabbed a book from the trunk and went back to the store. The owner liked the book so much that she said she'd take some on consignment. I went out to the car and grabbed a half dozen copies, and so we got our first consignment agreement. After this, Marilynn made it a point to have a copy of our book with her whenever she visited a new town or went wandering around a familiar town.

Sometimes my wife and I wander around together looking for venues for music gigs, as well as venues where we can present our No Fret Cooking events - a combination of book signing, food samples and live music and more. Recently we visited a brew pub near our home to check it out. The pub was in a business complex that included a conference center where Marilynn had previously presented at holistic conferences. We grabbed a book from the trunk of the car and headed for the pub, but Marilynn suggested we drop in to the conference center first. Walking in, we noticed a poster about an upcoming event, "Cocktails and Crafts."  We peeked in to the business office and a young woman there said, "Can I help you? " We told her that we were headed for the pub to inquire about a possible book and music event, and on the spur of the moment we'd decided to drop in to inquire about events at the conference center. Marilynn showed the woman the cookbook, explained about how we combine food and music, and the woman took quite an interest. She told us about the upcoming "Cocktails and Crafts" events and I asked her if she had live music for the event. She said she hadn't booked the music yet. To make a long story short, it turned out that she was also the marketing manager for the pub, and not only did she arrange for us to present the cookbook and music at the conference center "Cocktail and Crafts" event, she helped me get a solo gig at the pub. Wondering around paid off big time that day!

So my advice is this: when you go into a coffee shop, restaurant, bar, shopping mall, or just wandering around. take along a copy of your book. It has an eye-catching cover and a title that stirs curiosity, doesn't it? Let it spark a conversation with people you meet and you too can do some marketing while wandering around!

Marilynn & Steve Carter (Author)
ISBN: 0-7414-7449-2 ©2012
Price: $29.95
Book Size: 8.5" x 11" , 298 pages
Category/Subject: COOKING / General