Marketing Your Book

We are pleased to offer the option of a full marketing service to Matador authors. If you decide to sign up for our marketing, our Marketing Department will work with you to market and publicise your book. Matador carries out all activities under its Marketing Contract for a fee of £375 plus postage (generally not more than £60). There are no other marketing costs incurred by our authors, unless they have specifically requested us to carry out some other activity on their behalf, in which case a fee would be agreed in advance.

Our marketing package includes:

• The production of a book trade Advanced Information (AI) sheet – for both local bookshops and national book buyers. The AI is sent to wholesalers, library suppliers, relevant chain store book buyers and specialist outlets, as well as local and online bookshops. We’ll create lists drawn from our extensive databases, but also work closely with you to create the best targeted lists possible.
  
  
• Making your book available through online bookstores, including Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones.co.uk and WHSmith.co.uk, via our distributor Orca Book Services. In addition, your book will become available through any bookshop in the UK, either from stock or to order. We have excellent relationships with the main wholesalers and library suppliers.
  
  
• For Matador authors whose book we are marketing and who print 500+ copies, we now offer full retail sales representation through Star Book Sales. Star's team of sales reps visit bookshops and retailers' head offices to hand sell our books into the retail trade. (This option is not available if fewer than 500 copies are printed or if a book is printed 'on demand'.)
  
  
• If you are using a Matador supplied ISBN, we notify all relevant bibliographical data to the key data suppliers – Nielsen and Bowker, ensuring that any bookshop can access information about your book.
  
  
• We produce different versions of a Press Release (PR) to target the media organisations suited to your book. The PR is targeted at the relevant national and specialist press, as well as your local media, and is accompanied by review copies of the book where relevant. We work with you to ensure the best possible bespoke marketing lists are drawn up. Matador also, where possible, sends your PR to press release distribution services. We keep you informed of any response to our marketing activities, either from the books trade or the media and will forward copies of any reviews received on to you. To view some recent media coverage for Matador self published titles, click here.
  
  
• For Matador supplied ISBNs we automatically submit your book to the Google Book Search and Amazon Search Inside programmes (unless you choose to opt out). We use Google Preview to allow potential readers to read samples of your book in our web shop and to extend the buying options available.
  
  
• Your book will be given an attractive entry on our website, with a unique web address, from which browsers will be able to buy your book through our secure web shop, or download copies of the AI and PR. They’ll also be able to link through to view any press coverage your book has received.
  
  
• Via our Author Centre, we make an author web page available. You can update your web page yourself at any time to any reflect news or reviews on your book. The author page can contain photos, a biography and any other information about your writing, including a link to your own website if applicable. The Author Centre allows you to access your Matador web page, royalty statements and link up with other authors (via the Forum).
  
  
• Matador has a secure web shop which sells Matador books direct to customers wanting to buy over the internet. (We often run ‘3 for 2’ offers on Matador books, and offer the facility for you to make your book available at a discount if, for example, you want to run a pre-publication promotion or offer a special rate to a selected group.)
  
  
• We make available a comprehensive marketing section on our web pages, available only to Matador authors. These pages are crammed full of ideas and suggestions that you can carry out if you wish for the marketing and promotion of your book. It also includes a series of factsheets on many aspects of the marketing process. These pages are constantly being updated.
  
  
• We send out a quarterly email news bulletin to Matador authors to keep you abreast of the latest company and book trade news.
• Your book may be featured in the twice-yearly printed catalogue that we publish and distribute, and we display as many Matador titles as possible on our stand at the annual London Book Fair. To view previous catalogues online, click here.
  
  
• Matador also has a comprehensive opt-in email database that we use to promote Matador books direct to our customers. Our book sales e-newsletters drive traffic to our web shop and to the web pages of any books that we feature.
  
  
• We are on hand to talk through marketing ideas and to support you, in whatever ways possible, during the marketing of your book.

We also offer a range of optional add-on marketing services to our authors, at special discounted rates:

• The creation, hosting and maintenance of a bespoke author website for two years for just £295.00
  More information   
  
  
• The production, hosting and distribution of an author podcast from just £150.00
  More information
  
  
• Advertising opportunities in trade and retail catalogues.
  
  
• Ebook creation and international distribution. We can turn your physical book into an ebook and make it available via all the leading ebook distribution services.
  
  
• An extended public relations services that can be taken in addition to our existing marketing.
  
  
• Promotion and marketing in the United States. Please contact us for more information about this option.

In addition to the services covered by the marketing contract, we also make additional marketing opportunities available to authors as they occur. For example, we offer the chance to advertise in wholesaler catalogues and to have your book included in adverts placed by us in The Bookseller magazine.
We can also supply a range of professionally designed attractive marketing materials such as posters, postcards, bookmarks and leaflets.

Finally, Matador has recently teamed up with Lovereading.co.uk in the launch of Lovewriting.co.uk, where any self-publishing author can promote their book – and where a tried and tested book-buying public can discover them. As part of our collaboration, Matador authors get a special discounted rate for listing their books with Lovewriting site. Matador is Lovewriting’s only recommended self-publishing partner.

Marketing your book is probably the hardest part of successfully publishing a book. We will be realistic about the chances of your book reaching a wider market before we agree to undertake marketing. We (or anyone else) can’t guarantee sales of your book, and make no promises for the number of copies that will sell as a result of marketing activities, but by the same measure, without any marketing at all – either by you or us – sales of your book will be minimal through the book trade.