In need of ideas on how to reach a target audience

[Linnea]

Hello everyone. On this cold morning, I’m looking for inspiration on how to market my recently self-published non-fiction book. The target reader of the book, as I see it, is a teacher of politics or philosophy at an upper secondary school in the UK who would use it as a teaching resource. My question is, how on earth do I reach this targeted readership through a marketing campaign? I would be extremely grateful for any ideas you might have. Thank you!

[Anna]

Hi Linnea,

I can't help you too much with targeting teachers. I imagine they source their books by recommendations from some national organization. That is what I think you need to target. But I don't really know.

I've looked at your profile but I can't find your books on your profile page and I think you are missing a trick by not having them there.

They look very, very interesting.

[Linnea]

Hi Anna. Thank you very much for your comment! I have added my book to my profile and will look into what the relevant national organizations are. All the best/Linnea

[Jude]

Find out names of head of depts of politics / philosophy etc at schools and colleges and contact them directly and personally.

[Linnea]

Thank you, Jude. I'll try that. Best regards/Linnea

[David]

My first book has a the great writer and airship builder, Nevil Shute, as a main character. I managed to get hold of a list of people who are members of his foundation and sent each one an email telling them about the book. I had dozens of replies from people pleased to hear from me and many of them bought the book. I also contacted hundreds of folks interested in airships, the backdrop of the book. Consequently, I had people from all over the globe dropping me a line - many of them airship pilots from WW2. This maybe a way for you to get started in marketing your book. Get of hold of lists of teachers and contact them by email. There maybe lists and websites on facebook or organizations for teachers. It maybe grueling, but it paid off for me and got my book off the ground. My second book, surrounds historical aviation but has paranormal themes. I am contemplating trying something similar, finding groups interested in life after death and the paranormal. Best David

[Linnea]

Great comment- thank you, David. Best wishes/Linnea

[Linnea]

Hi Anna,
Thank you very much for following up. I've applied to the Goodreads author programme/claim my profile page. It said that it could take 2 working days before the page is updated. I'll follow up tomorrow if my book doesn't show up on my page by then.
Have a great day and thank you again! Linnea

[Linnea]

Thank you very much for these suggestions- they are excellent! All the best/Linnea

[Amie]

Oh shoot! I was going to suggest targeting other books on Amazon of a similar nature for teachers, but then I remembered that AMS ads aren't available yet in the UK, right? Sorry :(

[Anna]

Yes, that's right. I contacted Amazon UK and asked about this and the answer was a straight no, whereas I was hoping for a 'soon'. They did say that if I became a (forgotten the term they used) something like 'trader' at £25 a month (if I read their reply correctly) I could place adverts. This means that large publishers who 'trade' on Zon can place ads, Indies can't. There is a way round it by forming a trading entity (perhaps a co-operative) and then you can place ads. My feeling is that I'd need to sell quite a lot just to cover the monthly fee, even if shared with several others.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

From Amazon's pov, we Indies probably smother the trad publishers' ads and we don't sell as many as they do.

One thing I'd like to encourage though is for all Indies to contact Amazon UK and ask to have the system changed to the US system. There is power in numbers. I hope! Please... contact them.