Too many self-publishers waste advertising money with direct (snail) mail pitches. The economics are simple and grim: Mailings cost over 40 cents per piece, and the response rate is typically lower than 3 percent. That’s a great formula for losing money.
It’s possible to sell an expensive title costing over $100 via direct mail if it’s sent to a highly targeted list of prospects. Another possibility is if you have three or four closely related titles that you can advertise in a single mail piece and perhaps get multiple sales.
A much more likely avenue to direct sales in self-publishing is via e-mail advertising. Find a reputable list broker to rent the names. One broker, Worldata, rents several lists that contain e-mail addresses of book buyers in several different categories.
Costs of e-mail marketing are so low compared to snail-mail that self-publishers can turn a nice profit with a response rate under 1 percent. Be sure to maintain a “house” list of your buyers so you can advertise future titles. Since they bought from you before, they’re excellent prospects to buy again.
Self-publishers who begin to rely on e-mail marketing can benefit from specialized software and service providers for bulk mailings. You’ll want to educate yourself about the territory and not be accused of sending spam. One highly rated book on the topic is Internet Direct Mail by Robert W. Bly.
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One Comment
Selling self published books using direct mail would not be very cost effective. Direct mail is better for getting customers into stores and maybe selling higher end products and services that more than make up for the high cost of sending out mailings.