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McFarland's sales and marketing staff is engaged from the moment a manuscript
is officially delivered. While McFarland is responsible for the sale and marketing
of your book, your participation is crucial to the success of our efforts. At several
key milestones during the publication process, McFarland will automatically contact
you with updates or to solicit suggestions. Several common sales and marketing
concerns--online promotion, reviews, signings, conferences, and more--are covered here.
Marketing Questionnaire
Shortly after delivery of your manuscript, you will receive a marketing questionnaire.
It is important that it be completed and returned promptly.
Format, Binding & Price
Within a few weeks of delivery of your manuscript, attention will be given to format,
binding and price. For the print edition, a decision for hardcover or quality softcover
will be made based on our judgment of what format (and price!) will produce the best
sales result. A majority of our new books are produced in softcover; some are originally
offered in hardcover and later in softcover. We do not offer books simultaneously in
both forms. We will also determine if your manuscript is eligible for an ebook edition.
The most common obstacle to ebooks is a permissions snag, so be sure to avoid "print
only" restrictions with your permissions.
Cover Design
Your cover will be an essential marketing tool. You may suggest ideas for the cover.
We may not always be able to accommodate these suggestions (because of size issues,
quality troubles, copyright issues, or other factors), but we will be happy to consider
them. McFarland retains the final say on cover designs (check us out--they're terrific!).
Blurbs
Blurbs are brief pre-publication endorsements from well-known authors or experts
in your field (different from book reviews). You are under no obligation to collect
blurbs; in fact we do not especially encourage them. Although they can lend a degree
of prestige, working as part of an overall effort to influence perception of your
book, in our market they rarely if ever affect sales. If you are interested in blurbs,
before you secure any, consult us for instructions.
How You Can Help Promote Your Book
McFarland promotes its books to all appropriate markets (library, higher ed, retail,
specialty, and direct-to-consumer) through our business relationships with booksellers,
our sophisticated metadata routines, direct mail/online/print advertising, conferences
and trade shows, and course adoptions. Much of our activities promote groups of books,
subject lines and the company brand, though we do undertake some level of single-title
promotion for each individual book, as well.
Here are tips about how authors can help with promoting books:
- Be sure to reply promptly to inquiries and form letters from the sales & marketing
department (e.g., the marketing questionnaire, requests for review copy suggestions).
- Authors are encouraged to mention their books in all of their bylines (for journal
articles, etc.). Consider including in your (auto) email signature a brief mention of
your book and a link to the book within McFarland's online catalog. Likewise, if you
are making posts to discussion forums and blogs, consider an auto signature that
mentions the book.
- Prior to the book's publication, check your book's page in McFarland's online
catalog. Help us make sure that the catalog description is accurate, and that there
are no missing elements (such as a cover image or a forewordist's name). At this
still-early stage of the book, changes should be forwarded to assistant managing
editor Amy Donley.
- Once the book is published, inspect the book's page on the most important online
booksellers and book information providers: Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, IndieBound,
Google Books, and WorldCat.
Ensure that they are accurate (but be aware that changes and/or inaccuracies just
post-publication are fairly routine and often remedy themselves). In some instances,
you may be able to make correction requests directly with the site. Where this is
not an option, contact McFarland database administrator
Virgina Tomlinson.
- Beyond ensuring accuracy, consider enriching the listings on those online sites.
In addition to having a page for the book, sites such as Amazon will also have a page
for the author—consider enriching the author page, as well. Consider taking advantage
of such supplemental features as author pages, tagging and listmania to make the
information presented on these sites as robust as possible.
- After the book is published, encourage your contacts, colleagues and others who
have read and enjoyed your book to post customer reviews on Amazon (and secondarily,
to those other major websites, as well). Customer reviews will have an impact on sales.
- Consider experimenting with Goodreads and
LibraryThing. These are the two major social
media sites focusing exclusively on books and shared recommendations. In addition
to books having pages, there are also “author” pages. These social media sites
offer opportunities for authors to publicize upcoming book talks and signings, as
well as to be interviewed or interact with readers.
- Consider experimenting with Facebook.
Facebook offers intriguing opportunities for "word of mouth" promotion, including
the possibility of fan sites for a book or yourself.
Checking on Sales Figures
McFarland's accounting department will automatically provide you with complete figures
for paid sales (both copies and dollars), usually twice per year. You do not have
to request this information--it will be supplied automatically. Calculating paid
sales is an accounting procedure, and sales & marketing staff is not able to provide
paid sales figures. However, authors may write to the sales & marketing staff for
figures of current shipments and billings. Email your requests to
Janie Sheets. Please help us serve
all of our authors better by keeping these requests infrequent.
Key Topics in Sales & Marketing
Click through to the next page for information about
key topics in sales & marketing, including reviews,
conferences, signings, ebooks, royalties, typos and errors, and author discounts,
among other things.
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