How Business Executives Use AI to Sell Non-Fiction Books

Writing non-fiction books is an effective way for corporate executives to become thought leaders and build personal brands. Thanks to AI, marketing these books is easier than ever. With today’s fifth book, “The Crisis Casebook: The World’s Most Famous Brands of Lassons in Crisis Management in The World,” I thought it was a good time to see how business leaders and others use AI to promote books.

According to the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organizations, given the number of books published each year, it is a challenge to make the authors aware of their books. The new book river is becoming flooded as AI allows authors to research, edit, edit and publish books faster and easier. According to BookBub, about 45% of authors surveyed recently use some form of generation AI to help them work.

Book a publishing reality check

There are challenges and problems when writing books using the Generator AI. Some publishers may restrict or prohibit authors from using rapidly evolving technologies, or may place conditions on their use.

For example, Amazon says on its website that the authors need to disclose their use of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when publishing new books, or edit and republish existing books via KDP. The author is responsible for ensuring that all content guidelines that are generated and/or AI-assisted to AI comply with all content guidelines that Amazon’s policies make it clear that they “comply with all applicable intellectual property rights.”

Whether AI is used while writing a book or not, authors who self-publish books and authors published by major commercial publishers are usually their own when it comes to book marketing. Authors with traditional publishers receive marketing support. So, depending on when the book is released, the best time to start a marketing effort is usually several months before the book is published. It takes a long lead time to raise interest in the book, encourage sales and pre-orders, and perhaps to generate buzz among readers. This allows for additional burdens and pressure on writers who think their work will be done when they complete the manuscript. On the contrary, the author’s journey continues long after writing and editing.

AI-generated book marketing strategies

I wanted to see how AI book marketing guidance was measured against my own experiences and best practices for promoting the book. So I started by asking ChatGpt what the best way to market my new Crisis Management Book. We listed several recommended strategies, including developing an online presence, marketing content across a variety of social media platforms, leveraging email marketing, participating in events and workshops, investing in advertising, distributing news releases, and gathering reviews and voices.

It lined up well with my experience, but it has not been effective in generating book sales in the past, except to recommend advertising. Advertising is an expensive way to reach your target audience. Ad campaigns may also be over budget, depending on the resources the new author has. By comparison, generating publicity for my book helped me achieve better results and strengthen my brand as a crisis management expert. In short, ChatGpt advice is general and didn’t add anything more than I already know. I had to dig deeper.

Target audiences and tactics

For a second opinion, I asked Canva Pro to design a marketing campaign for the book. I provided detailed guidance tailored to my latest writing projects. Among other things, we identified five target audiences, proposed four important marketing messages, provided time slots for running the campaign, and listed four hashtags.

Much of this advice was in sync with how I sell past books. However, recommendations for distributing pre-copies to reviewers and media four weeks before release missed the mark. Depending on when the book is published, it is best practice to send copies of them at least three months in advance to ensure coverage of testimony, reviews and early coverage. So far, AI tools have been helpful compared to nothing at all, but have not come to what human experts recommend.

The suggestion generated by another AI that people should pre-order books in a few weeks was also not true. For example, if your book is listed on Amazon, you can start pre-orders at least 4 months in advance based on my own experience. Canva Pro did not recommend including books on goodreads.com and netgalley.com. This is two popular websites where readers rate and post book reviews, which helps to promote interest and sales. All of these suggest whether a new author can afford it, and the value of working with an experienced author or publisher.

So I contacted other authors as an example of how AI was used to help implement a book marketing strategy. When entrepreneur Randy Charakle published his business strategy book, Client Centric, he told me he turned to AI to sell the book more efficiently.

“I drafted a personalized outreach email, Surferseo, using ChatGpt, to guide blog posts tied to the book’s themes, and tested different ad copies on LinkedIn and Facebook along with adcreative.ai,” Charach said in an email. “For social media, Ocoya made it easy to create variations of posts so promotions didn’t feel repeated. These tools saved me time, but I always added my own story and personality, so the message in the book came in real life.”

How to become a bestseller author using AI

While she was there, Zarna Garg wrote a book called “This American Woman: A Billion Memoir of 100 Million People,” about her experiences growing up in India and her life in the United States. She asked her daughter Zoya to work on the six-month marketing campaign that led to the book being published in April last year with Zoya, who was then a senior at Stanford University. The ambitious goal was to generate 10,000 pre-orders and get the book to The New York Times bestseller list.

She designed and implemented different aspects of her marketing campaign using a variety of AI-powered tools. Tools include ChatGPT (to organize your campaigns and identify marketing leads), Claude (for data tracking and analytics), ManyChat (to create direct messaging links), and Grok (to create diagrams that help motivate members of your marketing team). But that didn’t end there.

“Using ChatGpt Voice, I practiced sales suggestions for small businesses that may be interested in bulk ordering 100 books,” Zoya Garg told me in an email interview. “I talk to the model and ask, I didn’t use ChatGpt during the sales call.

AI helped reduce some of the burdensome work, and the marketing campaign paid off, reaching 14,000 pre-orders and landing the book on the New York Times bestseller list. Zarna Garg said her daughter’s memoir “we didn’t have to run out of the pillars to post traditional book tours because it was efficient and impactful,” and Zoya said in a statement that “we use all the AI ​​tools available to help with sales, marketing, organizing, and more (and create new ones if necessary), which gives you power.”

7 AI Best Practices

To get the most out of AI Book Marketing Tools, there are some best practices authors should keep in mind.

Know what you want to achieve with technology. Ask AI to prepare the best strategy to achieve your goals. When asking AI for help or guidance, be as specific as possible and include how and when the book will be published. Ask AI to recommend deadlines and priorities to complete the proposed marketing tactics in time for the book to be published. If you use Generated AI, edit the marketing and press materials you create to ensure accuracy and reflect your voice and style. Please consult your publisher for any conditions or restrictions imposed on your use of technology. Narrow your queries as needed to ensure that recommendations are appropriate for your book project. Don’t wait until you start working with AI until the book is published. Try out different models and platforms to see which models are best for your purpose. Seek for a second wing.

Executives who cannot afford to hire others, or who don’t want to sell books, can use AI as an affordable safety net to help them carry out marketing campaigns, as a recommendation on effective strategies, tactics and techniques. As long as the author knows the quality of advice he receives, it is better than giving advice than without advice.