Direct Sales: The Extension of Marketing

Direct sales will always be a part of a marketing/sales strategy. Although the revenue may not be a significant part of the total, it plays a significant role. First, it allows publishers to see who really cares. Who is coming to your site, and who is responding to your marketing. If you have the software to track who is visiting your site and if they subscribe to an e-newsletter, or purchase a book, you have an automatic database for follow-up contact, or to try to sell them another title.

Does it matter? I think, yes. I think it's worth the time and energy to set the stage for someone to really respond to your publishing program, writers, and offer an "exclusive" chance for people to know what's to come. It allows fans to feel "more connected" to your publishing/authors/brand.

I'm not sure publishers can expect to see direct impact on their sales, but that isn't the point. Readers have so many ways to connect to writers and publishers with technology these days. If publishers don't have avenues to have some kind of communication with their most loyal of readers, they'll find somewhere else to do so. It seems that if they don't have some way for that dialogue to occur with readers, they'll lose another marketing opportunity. The Amazon Way of "If you like this, you'll surely like this".

The real reason publishers do this, is to keep track of who is responding, and to keep needling away at niche markets. Like this YA vampire novel? Well, next month, we're releasing another YA novel, not vampires, but WITCHES! Keeping people segmented, and pinned to a niche has worked well for many publishers and companies.