Richard H. Frishman President of Planned TV Arts Public Relations in New York City.

The battle begins before your book even hits the shelves.  As a writer, you are an entrepreneur. Every book you write is a separate enterprise with its own fate and its own reckoning that balances income against expenditures. For guerrillas, the only business criterion that counts is profits.

Seven of the Fifteen Most Important Marketing Secrets

You must create your books with the understanding that your promotional efforts can only be as effective as the content of your books enables them to be.

1.      Content: Publishers waste millions of dollars a year buying and promoting books that fail.

2.      Commitment: You must make a commitment to your marketing program.

3.      Investment: You must think of marketing as an investment in your future.

4.      Consistent: Your marketing must be consistent.

5.      Confident: you must make potential readers confident in you.

6.      Patient: you must be patient with your marketing.

7.      Assortment: You must use an assortment of weapons to ensure the success of your marketing.

The Different Between Gorillas and Guerrillas

What are the characteristics of guerrilla marketing as opposed to traditional marketing? Guerrilla marketing differs in twelve ways.

  1.  Traditional marketing uses as big a budget as possible; guerrilla marketing substitutes time, energy and imagination for money.

  2. Traditional marketing is geared to big businesses; guerrilla marketing, to owners of small business with a big dream but not a big bankroll.

  3. Traditional marketing measures effectiveness with sales; guerrilla marketing, with profits.

  4. Traditional marketing is based on experience and then judgment that involves guesswork. Guerrilla marketing is based on psychology--the laws of human behavior that determine buying patterns.

  5. Traditional marketing recommends that business increase their production and then diversify by offering allied products and services. Guerrilla marketing recommends that you can maintain your standard of excellence by focusing on writing your books, and diversify only if you can create synergy that helps sell your books without lowering their quality.

  6. Traditional marketing encourages linear growth by adding new customers. Guerrilla marketing also encourages attracting new customers but recommends that you grow your business exponentially by using service and follow-up to create more transactions, larger transactions and referrals from your present customers.

  7. Traditional marketing advocates destroying competition; guerrilla marketing urges you to cooperate with competitors and create win-win opportunities with other authors.

  8. Traditional marketing believes that one marketing weapon alone can work; guerrilla marketing believes in the synergy created by a combination of weapons.

  9. Traditional marketing urges businesses to count their monthly receipts to see how many sales they've made; guerrilla marketing recommends that you count how many relationships you make each month because each relationship can generate many receipts.

 10. In the past, traditional marketing didn't encourage using technology because it was too complicated, expensive and limited; guerrilla marketing has always embraced technology because it's simple to use, reasonably priced and limitless in its potential.

  11. Traditional marketing identifies a handful of marketing weapons that are relatively costly; guerrilla marketing begins with a base of one hundred weapons, more than half of which are free, and urges you to create others.

  12. Traditional marketing intimidates small business owners because it is enshrouded in mystique and complexity; guerrilla marketing removes the mystique and puts you in control.