Dear InterVarsity Press Author:
Welcome to IVP’s sales and marketing department! While editorial and design are putting their finishing touches on your book, we are beginning to discuss how to best promote and sell your book both before and after its release. The attached marketing questionnaire allows us to draw on your expertise and connections giving us information that is crucial to our work.
You may have covered some of the items listed in the marketing questionnaire in your book proposal and/or editorial process; however, we find that the answers to the initial questions sometimes evolve in the writing process, so it is helpful to revisit them when the manuscript is completed. Still, you do not need to go into the same detail you would in a book proposal.
Please return your marketing questionnaire to your marketing manager as an email attachment by June 30, 2017.
For your reference and assistance, copies of the marketing questionnaire, a template for the influencer list, as well as simple tips you can use to promote your book are available on our author support page.
We look forward to partnering with you to promote your book.
Sincerely,
Christina Gilliland, Marking Coordinator
Marketing Questionnaire
Title:______
Author:______
Due: September 29, 2017
Please respond to any question appearing in blue, to the best of your ability and knowledge.
1) Content Brief
This information may be used to develop marketing copy, create author Q & A’s and position the title to sales representatives, reviewers and influential people in your field.
· What motivated you to write this book? What particular need are you addressing?
· Briefly summarize the central thesis of your book. What is distinctive about this idea and/or your approach?
· What are the two to five main things you want readers to take away from your book?
2) Intended Reader/Audience
We want to be strategic about marketing and promoting your book. IVP uses the information you provide in this section to pitch your book to those with a special interest, in addition to a broadly evangelical audience.
· What kinds of people have the most influence over your audience (pastors, professors, counselors, etc.)?
· What publications, blogs and websites does your audience read? What conferences do they attend? If you have a personal relationship with someone affiliated with one of the publications or organizations you list, please list their contact information and relationship to you (friend, colleague, etc).
3) Publicity
The following questions help our publicists promote your book to the media and provide you with any support you need as you interact with the media.
· Please describe your experience and level of comfort working with the following:
• Print publications such as magazines or newspapers:
• Christian radio:
• General market radio:
• Christian or General market television:
• Podcasts:
· Does your book have an “angle” that may be of interest to the media?
· Please list any strong contacts you have in the media including print (journal, magazine, newspaper), radio, television or online media (include local as well as national contacts). Include the person’s name, title, any contact information you have and their relationship to you.
· Please list five to ten publications and/or websites in which you would like to see your book reviewed.
· Would you like us to send review copies and publicity materials to the alumni magazines at any academic institutions where you attended or currently work? Please name these.
· Do you have a "hometown paper" or other local media outlets, either where you grew up or now live, which we should connect with to promote your authorship? (Even small papers or radio stations are worth mentioning).
5) Social Media
· How comfortable are you using social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.)? Please list your social network handles below:
· What questions do you have on how you can use social networking and/or blogging to promote your book?
· Do you have your own blog? If so, what is the address?
6) Sales Connections
You have a unique network of institutions, professional societies, and personal and professional affiliations that will be interested in your work because of your relationship to them. Our sales team uses the information in this section to make sure these groups know your book is available for purchase.
· Please list any professional societies or denominational groups to which you belong. Do they have annual conferences where we should seek to make your book available?
· Do you speak regularly, or will you be speaking at any conferences where we should attempt to make your book available for purchase? Please include dates and the name of your contact person at the conference. Do you have a speaking itinerary? If so, please include all relevant information below, particularly if the speaking engagements coincide with your book launch.
· Do you have a personal, author website? If so, please attach the URL below.
· Are there local bookstores we should contact when your book is available? If you teach, should we contact your institution’s bookstore?
· Do you anticipate that your book will be used as a textbook? If so, for which course(s) and level(s), i.e., undergraduate, seminary, doctoral?
Campus Ministry Opportunities
IVP is a division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, an evangelical campus ministry reaching more than 38,000 students and faculty on more than 650 college and university campuses. In addition, IVP collaborates with member movements of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. We promote all IVP books to InterVarsity staff, students, alumni, faculty and ministry partners nationally and internationally in a variety of ways, with some books receiving special attention due to topic and timing. Speaking opportunities may arise as campus staff or national training staff sometimes look, from among IVP authors, for speakers for events that range from small to large.
Learn more about InterVarsity’s wide-ranging ministry initiatives athttps://intervarsity.org/about-us/
· Are you comfortable working with this demographic? Please describe any experience you have speaking to or interacting with undergraduate, grad students or secular university faculty.
· If you'd like to be referred as a speaker for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, please list relevant topics that you could speak about to the following audiences:
1) College students
2) General audiences
· Are you willing to travel within a certain driving time radius?
· Are there any other cities where you would be willing to add on a speaking engagement with a local InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter?
Author Influence
We do everything we can to help your book succeed, but nothing gets readers more excited about a book than hearing about it from the author. In preparing for the release of your book please work to build these audience groups and lists as appropriate.
· Do you have an email and/or mailing list that you will use to promote your book? How many addresses?
· Are you thinking of doing a launch team with your book? Are you interested in finding out more information about what a launch team is and how it could be utilized for your specific project?
· Do you have an assistant who will be helping you with book marketing? Please provide an email and any information of his/her expected involvement in the book marketing.
Influencer List*—due in template form (Excel) one month prior to book release
IVP will send up to thirty copies of your book to people who you believe can spread the word about your book. Please provide us with the names and complete addresses of these “influencers” so that we can send out your book once it arrives in our warehouse. Influencers can be personal or professional contacts within the academy, parachurch ministries, denominational organizations, or any other persons you believe to be influential among your audience. Do not include persons who have endorsed your book, or media contacts. Endorsers will automatically receive a copy, and our publicity team will send copies to media.
We only mail to US and Canada mailing addresses. For international influencers, please provide an email address, and we will send them a watermarked PDF. If you are the editor(s) of a book with multiple contributors, you may want to collaborate with your coeditor and/or contributors while compiling this list.
A template for the influencer list is available here.
*This is different from having a launch team, which you may discuss with your marketing manager in the near future.