Guest post by Jennifer Devlin

This was previously published on the CAN blog. Good advice!

Last week’s question asked: How can my marketing help my reader become more passionate about Christ, as well as my book? Did you think it thru?

Notice the question is two-fold. We have the primary goal of helping the reader become more passionate about Christ. They need to know how God has transformed us. We have written testimonies tucked in our book’s pages that will help readers understand the God we serve. We have a message worth reading.

But we also want to be good stewards of talent, time, and effort, and pray that our customers will read and share our book. We need to commit to doing everything we can do to make our effort successful. After all, no publisher is going to have the time or money to do all the marketing for us, so we’ve got to get out there and share the news about our new book release!

The most basic way we instill enthusiasm in others is to have zeal ourselves. We’ve got to focus on being our own best salesperson. Though we enlist many helpers, we’ve got to take the lead.

We are our best salespeople because:
We know our material better than anyone else.

We know why God pressed us to write the thing in the first place, and we know the core message we were trying to convey.

We understand our target audience, and even wrote a proposal that told an editor why it needed to be written, and who we wanted as our reader base.
We spent hours in front of a computer unraveling our heart’s message on a monitor’s screen one keystroke at a time.

We believe in our idea and book.

Let’s face it – our name is on the cover, and our reputation is on the line.

So, as we promote and share our marketing materials, we’ve got to convey our passion for Christ and our project. Sadly, this can be a tough thing to do. Why? Maybe we don’t want to be pushy. Or, perhaps we don’t want to get rejected by those who aren’t interested in the project we’ve invested so much of our lives into. Possibly we're already discouraged because our “baby” didn’t get the end cap placement in every book superstore like we’d dreamed. Whatever the case, if we don't seem thrilled about the book we wrote, why on earth should anyone else be excited to buy it?

What marketing goals do you have for your upcoming book release? Are you excited about the project and the possibilities?