Last week, the beta readers gave me remarks and suggestions that were encouraging. After making the final corrections, the manuscript is now ready for publication on 17 September this year (2024).
The text has been adapted for the audio version and submitted to the narrator, and the international versions have been uploaded to Amazon and IngramSpark, which will, for all practical purposes, make the book available worldwide. You can even pre-order the Kindle version on Amazon now.
What remains is the marketing and promotion strategy and activities required to bring the book to the potential reader’s attention.
I admit that marketing and promoting a novel are much more challenging than writing it. While the latter is totally under my control, the former is not.
The challenge is traditional in the sense that I need to define a target audience, craft messages that catch their attention, choose communication channels that provide the lowest possible contact cost and find ways to convert awareness to interest, desire and action. It’s marketing 101.
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The Henrik Bertelsen Saga
Tumult in Mecca is the first book in a series of eight titled The Henrik Bertelsen Saga. The novels tell the story of the protagonist, baby boomer Henrik Bertelsen’s pursuit of adventure and happiness in his professional as well as private life.
The Henrik Bertelsen Saga is about balancing your life with all the things you want and love. Family, career, adventure, hobbies and independence. In a world of rapid change that constantly disrupts your plans and prospects. How to navigate foreign cultures and find the path to personal growth and prosperity.
In Tumult in Mecca, we are in 1979. Henrik, 28 years old, has a great job as an economist with the Ministry of Labour in Copenhagen. Twice a week he gives lectures in macroeconomics at the local university. With his English wife, Sammy, he is establishing a co-housing community in North Zealand while preparing the adoption of a child from Indonesia. Out of the blue he is invited to participate in a business project renovation and managing hospital kitchens in the provisional town Taif just east of Mecca. Working on a business project in the Middle East is very different from his job as a civil servant, but he likes it. So much, that he, at the end of the first book, accepts a job offer from Control Data Corporation, an American computer company.
Book two, Driven by Dollars (working title covering the years 1980 to 1986), is about Henrik’s advancement from sales trainee to sales manager in an industry in rapid disruption. His appetite for international adventure takes him to the USSR just as Mikhail Gorbachev launches glasnost and perestroika and Ronald Reagan finds the recipe for curtailing Soviet ambitions for global ideological expansion. The intensive travel schedule conflicts with his opportunities for playing with his new rock band, a dream since his teenage years, and with the adoption of a second child. This time from Korea. He must find a way to balance his family life, his musical ambitions and his appetite for business venture.
In book three, Starting from Scratch (working title covering 1986 to 1989), Henrik leaves a promising career in the corporate world and joins a start-up. While raising a family with two small kids and playing an increasing number of gigs with his rock band, Henrik is also responsible for getting revenue flowing at his newly minted startup. Getting off in the small Danish market, he then moves to open the international ones. Things go really well for Henrik when external investors, brought in to boost international expansion, suddenly start changing the company’s management and culture. Henrik jumps ship, joins another startup, only to learn that their product is immature. The more he sells, the more problems they get. What now?
In book four, The Vanity Summit (working title covering 1989 to 1997) Henrik Bertelsen submits to the temptations offered by a headhunter looking for a country manager for the subsidiary of a US-based computer company. Blinded by the title and an attractive compensation package with stock options, he fails on his promise to never work for an American corporation again. However, due to issues completely outside his control, his subsidiary exceeds its budgets and performs ways better than his peers. He is celebrated as a hero and showered with bonuses and stock options. When reality kicks in, and he needs to fight for a conservative budget, no one listens. For the first time in his career, he is fired.
In book five, Riding a Tailwind (working title covering 1997 to 2001), the protagonist lands a job with a very successful software company and relocates to Germany to build and run the operations in the German-speaking countries. It’s 1997 and customers are replacing their old software to avoid the risk of the millennium. Preparing for an IPO, his company needs to demonstrate high growth rates abroad, and he is asked to prepare and implement an aggressive revenue generation plan. While busy delivering on his budget, the family has difficulties adapting to their new environment in Southern Germany. He manages to balance the needs of the family and the expectations from his company, when suddenly a merger disrupts all his plans and ambitions.
In book six, On Loan Only (working title covering 2001 to 2004), Henrik Bertelsen is fired again, returns to Denmark and decides to start his own business. No more corporate politics and surprises. But what type of business should he build? While pondering his options, headhunters present him with new opportunities, but he turns them down. He has lost his appetite for monogamous working relationships. When a startup offers him the CEO position, he gives in. However, running startups is a volatile activity, and for the first time in his life he must take a company through liquidation.
In book seven, On His Own Feet (working title covering 2004 to 2013), the protagonist finally succeeds in breaking with monogamy working relationships and launches a consulting company. Although the business takes off nicely, he soon realises that he must get away from selling hours. Increasing his income only by working more hours doesn’t seem attractive, as he wants to spend more time with his family and friends and on his hobbies. His idea of building a consulting franchise get some tracking, but never delivers on his ambitions. He must pursue other paths.
In book eight, Independence (working title covering 2013 to today), Henrik starts blogging and writing “how-to” books on international business development. His core area of expertise. The fourth book becomes an international bestseller, and his phone starts ringing more frequently. He can increase his prices and repackage his consulting, breaking the relationship with the hours. Almost. He wants to spend more time writing books, and especially deliver on an old dream of writing fiction. Again, he reworks his business model and find the time and money required for writing his first novel, which he titles “Tumult in Mecca“.
Target audience
The books in my Henrik Bertelsen series appeal to a broad business-oriented audience of both genders, but how do I identify the segment that is particularly interested in my stories, the dilemmas I present and the time portrait that I paint? Which demographic segmentation criteria must I use?
Age
Young Adults (18-29 years): This age group reads a significant amount, particularly fiction. Genres like fantasy, science fiction, and young adult (YA) fiction are particularly popular. In the first book of the Henrik Bertelsen Saga, the protagonist is 28 years old and faces all the challenges of building the foundation for his life.
Adults (30-49 years): This group is generally the most active in terms of purchasing books. They read across a wide range of genres, including non-fiction, self-help, and literary fiction. Many in this age group are struggling to balance work and family, so The Henrik Bertelsen Saga may appear relevant.
Older Adults (50+ years): This demographic segment tends to favour non-fiction, history, biographies, and classical literature.The Henrik Bertelsen Saga is contemporary history.
When there is something for everyone, then age doesn’t seem to be a significant segmentation criteria for my books. Nevertheless, where I can segment on age, I will choose 25+. These are the years when you realise that your choices have consequences.
Gender
Globally, women read more books than men.
Women are more likely to read fiction, particularly genres such as romance, literary fiction, and historical fiction. Women are also significant consumers of non-fiction, especially in categories like self-help and biography.
Men tend to prefer non-fiction genres, such as history, science, technology, and business. When it comes to fiction, they are more likely to read genres like science fiction, fantasy, and thrillers.
Although the protagonist, Henrik Bertelsen, is male, I don’t think gender is a significant segmentation criteria.
Education
Individuals with a college degree or higher are more likely to be frequent readers. This group is also more likely to purchase books and engage with diverse genres, including academic texts, non-fiction, and literary fiction. As Henrik Bertelsen starts off with on academic background which helps him as he recovers from failures and search for new opportunities, my books may appeal more to an audience with a higher education.
Geographic Location
The books are specifically appealing to an audience with an interest in languages, cultural diversity, international affairs and business development. They will also appeal to the majority of people who struggle to balance their love for family, hobbies and career with a heavy travelling schedule.
Profession
In Tumult in Mecca, Henrik Bertelsen starts off as an economist and civil servant. By the end of the book and in the remaining seven, he is engaged in international business development, sales, marketing and management. I therefore assume that potential readers in these job positions can identify with the narrative.
Industry
The Henrik Bertelsen Saga takes place in the IT-industry. Compared to many other industries, it is extraordinarily tumultuous, which also affects Henrik Bertelsen’s situation and options. Although changes occur in all industries, I assume that potential readers that work in the IT-industry can identify with challenges that my books present.
Demographic Summary
Through paid and organic promotion, I will target an audience aged 25 and up, with or enrolled in a higher education, working in business development, marketing, sales and management in the IT-industry.
Interest and Behavioural Criteria
Certain marketing channels such as Facebook offer interest and behavioural targeting criteria. I have used such criteria with great success (very effective contact prices) in previous campaigns, however the conversion rates so far are not good. I will keep experimenting with these criteria.
Communication Channels
When knowing with whom I want to communicate (raise awareness of my message) I must identify those channels that can offer the most attractive contact price. I do not really have a budget constraint, so any channel could be considered. However, I am a business person and want to mitigate the risk. Running a full-page ad in the New York Times’ book section on a Sunday will take me down $250.000 plus production. Selling 50,000 books will get me to break even. Will that happen?
Probably not.
Until someone convincingly teaches me otherwise, I have decided to focus on LinkedIn, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook and SEO.
I have close to 34,000 followers and connections on LinkedIn. However, I don’t know how many of them read fiction. Over the next six months, I will ask each of them individually. Thereafter, I will run campaigns targeting 2nd and 3rd level connections that match the target audience demographics.
I will also continue to post content daily, but do not expect significant traffic from this activity.
Youtube
YouTube and Vimeo host my videos and the content is therefore indexed by the search engines, which again drives traffic to my web sites and social media profiles.
Amazon
Advertising on Amazon is potentially effective because you can combine segmentation criteria with messages directed at an audience of book readers.
I have successfully used Amazon advertisement for my non-fiction books and will invest time and money in the novels that have a much wider audience but also much tougher competition.
Facebook advertisement (including boosting) is an effective way to reach a receptive audience. You can combine demographics with interest and behaviour, which is yields a very attractive contact price. Conversion, however, is a challenge. I need to do more experimentation to find ways to convert interest to action.
SEO
Organic search is the main source of traffic to my websites. Therefore, I keep creating new content. Also, here is conversion the big challenge.
