Word of Mouth Advertising for Retirement Books

I know that word-of-mouth advertising is still the best form of promotion for any book and that it has played a big part in my two retirement books The Joy of Not Working and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free having sold almost 375,000 copies for the two.

Here is a great post on the Reader Reviews newsletter by Irene Watson about word-of- mouth advertising for books.

Word-of-Mouth - The Incredible Challenge

Irene knows what she is talking about:

Pay particular attention to her comment:

"According to Publishers Marketplace the average sales for self-published, subsidy, or small publishers is 200 books - total - lifetime of book. And, those are usually purchased by friends and relatives."

Apply the 80/20 rule to these figures, and the average lifetime sales for the bottom 80 percent of these books is probably about 50 copies, if that. And again, purchased by friends and relatives.

So as I approach 100,000 copies sold of the English edition of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and another almost 30,000 copies of the foreign editions of the book, I know that I have a not-too-bad book.

If you would like to make it in the writing and publishing business, then watch this video:

Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!)

Here are a few of my latest retirement resources on my various retirement websites:

The New Retirement

Retirement Speeches on The Retirement Cafe

Retirement T-shirts to Help You Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Include Your Spouse in Your Retirement Plan and Not in My Retirement Plan

Retirement Letters to Announce Your Liberation