Marketing any book is hard work and takes more effort than even writing or publishing the book requires. Getting into the major bookstores is extremely difficult and unlikely to happen at all out of the gate for a book not published and pushed hard by a major publisher. Add in the hard cold numbers of publishing. A new book by any publisher, including the major publishers, sells 400 copies on average. Yup, you read that right... 400 copies. Vanity presses and self-publishers average around 100-200 copies for a released book.

A successful book sells 2,000 to 3,000 copies, total. By "successful" I mean the book actually makes money for everyone concerned, including the publisher, the author, and the distributors. Sell 10,000 copies of any book you write, no matter how badly written it is, no matter what the subject matter, and publishers beat down your door to offer you contracts. Out of the nearly 200,000 books published each year, only a small percentage make big money. There is, after all, only one J.K. Rowling in the world. There's only one Stephen King, only one Jackie Collins, only one John Grisham, only one Dan Brown, while Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele pretty much have a corner on the market for romance novels.

Okay, so maybe I exaggerate how bad things are for unknown authors like me, but not by much. The odds are overwhelmingly against me. So why on earth have I set a goal of distributing one million copies of my novel? Am I insane? Yes, certainly. Welcome to the club.

But getting back to my question: why one million copies? The answer is that I have good reason to believe that my novel will be very, very well received by the public. Let me explain.

Marketing Goal — Recruiting For Liberty

I started this project because I want to plant some basic concepts about the financial crisis into the collective conscious minds of average, everyday, non-political people. These are the people the freedom movement almost never reaches. While great things continue to happen with Ron Paul's Audit The Fed bill, the Campaign For Liberty, Downsize DC, Retake Congress, and quite possibly the coming Rand Paul for Senate campaign, most of the population knows nothing about any of this. At most, they've heard on TV about what they've been falsely told are some crazy tea parties and an obscure Congressman from Texas who had a bunch of lunatics online raising ridiculous amounts of money for him. That just about sums up what the press tell people about the liberty movement while ignoring the truth. Counting on the news media to accurately spread our message is counting on too much.

We need to spread the ideas of liberty using the field of entertainment. Entertainment is a field that traditionally has been dominated by the left and criticized by the right, but which true liberty rarely penetrates. Yet who can deny how powerful entertainment messages are? That's why I wrote a novel rather than a non-fiction book.

E-Books

E-Books are the primary focal point of my marketing. I plan to promote the novel online as both an e-book to be shared and as a regular book (once I raise enough money to pay for printing it) to be purchased here, at Amazon, at Barnes & Noble online, etc. E-books are still a small percentage of overall book distribution, but it's a growing percentage. Most publishing people these days estimate that e-book sales represent roughly 10% of the overall billion dollar book-selling market. Further, most book industry insiders agree that the number continues to grow.

I plan to do something that many publishers and authors consider a bit daring. I plan to offer my e-book without Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitations, and I plan to allow copies of my e-book to be freely shared around the Internet. I intend to turn free distribution of the e-book into a marketing boom, passing the word about a novel most people might never discover otherwise. A big risk? Perhaps. If nothing else, at least it will get the book's message out... my original goal in writing the book.

I plan to ask for donations from readers at the end of the e-book, but donations are not required. Most readers will want to do the right thing after they enjoy the novel. Most of the funds raised will be used to pay for printing and/or marketing the book through traditional book distribution channels (described below). I offer an affiliate program to reward people who help spread the e-book by sharing a small percentage of the donated funds with them.

How To Reach 15 Million Potential Book Buyers

After doing a lot of research and analysis, I plan to market my book via the National Enquirer, National Examiner, Sun, and Globe magazines. You know... you see them at the supermarket checkout counter, the ones that talk about some Hollywood starlet's latest boob job or how space aliens landed in a Kansas cornfield. It should surprise no one that 15 million readers read the supermarket tabloids every week.

Suppose we ran a small display ad in those tabloids for four weeks, with a picture of the novel's cover, a very brief message saying that sub-prime mortgages did not cause the mortgage crisis and that it was actually planned a long time ago, a website address and a toll-free phone number.

If just one out of every 50,000 readers of those magazines buys my book each week, I'll sell those 300 copies. That seems reasonable.

Radio & TV Campaign

I plan to acquire a list of all the radio and TV talk show producers and on-air personalities in America, and I plan to call them to appear on their programs. These are 1,206 prime-time talk shows on the top 153 talk stations in America with more than 100,000 listeners.

Why Talk Show Hosts Will Want To Have Me On Their Shows

Talk show hosts care about ratings and keeping their audience tuned in. If a guest can help keep listeners listening, the host and his/her producers are interested. So I will contact them offering to share insights about what really caused the financial crisis. I will concentrate on the main points I make in my novel about legalized fraud and how such fraud lies at the root of every financial crisis in American history, including the current one.

I'm certain the talk show people will want to hear what I have to say because I've been testing my ideas out on average people I meet in my life. They'll also want to learn more about my online e-book file-sharing program, because the concept is new to most people who don't already read e-books.

Online Promotion

There are plenty of places online to promote the book, and I plan to use all of them, from political forums to Internet Radio shows to meetup groups to online book clubs.

Political and Financial Forums

There are a number of such forums on the 'net, both within the freedom movement and for other political viewpoints as well. Additionally, there are many financial forums. I plan to offer the e-book on as many of them as I can. Obviously, as the creator of the Nolan Chart website, I plan to use the site to promote the beginning of Nolan Chart books, of which this book will be the first offering

E-Book Forums

I plan to spread the e-book via MobileRead Forums, the Kindle Forums, Kindle Boards, the BookSummit Kindle Forum, Kindle Community on Amazon, and many others.

Internet Radio Shows

An awful lot of Internet-based radio shows have sprouted up all over the country. Some of the many shows and stations I plan to contact include: Revolution Broadcasting, GCN, Free Talk Live, Liberty Radio Network, and other shows. They may have small audiences, but they are a good place to begin. I also plan to reach outside the immediate freedom movement to VoiceAmerica, wsRadio, Blog Talk Radio, All Talk Radio, LA Talk Radio, W3W3, Global Talk Radio, and many others.

Meetup Clubs

It's amazing how many of the Ron Paul meetup groups stayed together after the 2008 campaign around the country. I plan to contact as many as I can about the book. There are also lots of libertarian and other freedom meetup groups as well to contact.

Online Book Clubs

You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be contacting every online book club I can find in hopes of getting them to review my book. Wherever possible, I also plan to offer to “speak” at their meetings. A lot of them have a presence via meetup.com, over 250 in just my regional area alone! I also plan to contact some of the major online book clubs, including salon.com, Utne Reader's Book Club, SeniorNet, Reader's Paradise Forum, Constant Reader Message Forum, BookWire, Bookworms, Book a Month, Literary Fiction Lovers, The Bookies, BookTalk, and many others.

Online Advertising

I plan to advertise online using Google Adwords, and I'll also be looking at buying some targeted advertising on some of the freedom-oriented websites on the web with significant visitorship records.

Bookstores

While my initial push won't be to bookstores themselves, ultimately that's where I hope to end up. My book will be listed with Ingram's Book Group, which markets over 2.6 million titles to bookstores around the world. So if anyone visits their local bookstore and asks for my book, they'll be able to order it for the customer via Ingram's.

When you're an unknown, first-time author, the secret to getting into the bookstores is to have a popular book outside the bookstores first. Once you can prove to the bookstores that you have a hot product, they'll carry it! All of the above marketing will have the ultimate, long-term aim of getting my book into the bookstores.

I also plan to contact the chain bookstores and the independent bookstores in my region to arrange book signings and promotions.

What I Tell People About My Book

I explain that all our money is debt-based. You'd be surprised how many people don't know that. I'd estimate around 50-75% of the population do not know all our money was issued by the Fed making loans of various kinds. To bring the point home, I ask them a question: if all the dollar-based debts in the world were suddenly paid off on the same day, how much money would be left? Some just puzzle over this, unsure how to answer. Others guess correctly, that all of the money would disappear. No matter whether they guess correctly or not, their reactions tell me for sure: I've got them hooked.

Then I tell them that all financial crises are caused by legalized fraud. I mention that we all know about these forms of fraud and take them for granted every day, not giving a thought about how they connect to the financial crisis. I can see their minds working, trying to imagine what I'm talking about. I don't leave them hanging; I explain it to them.

I tell them there are three forms of legalized fraud.

1. Banks lending money that does not belong to them
2. Banks lending money long-term using short-term money
3. Banks or governments issuing paper and electronic money in greater quantities than they possess in commodity money (such as gold or silver)

Reactions of Every Day People

After I explain each of the above talking points in a little more detail, a lot of people get very upset about what I told them. They want to know what can be done about it. Rather than give them a long spiel about political activism, etc., I just say, "All we have to do is make legalized fraud illegal." The hope that appears in their eyes speaks volumes.

By this point, they're completely and permanently hooked. Literally 100% of the people I've told in person about these concepts say they'd like to read my novel. I estimate I've probably told 100-150 people so far about it, not counting the readers of my column on the Nolan Chart website. I'm not exaggerating! 100% have responded positively and with eyebrow raising interest. I'm not talking about polite interest, either. No one I've talked with in person to whom I've explained the book's premise has shown me the slightest indication of being bored or disinterested.

Let me share one such story with you. My UPS guy delivered a package to the house one day this past July. Normally, he just leaves it outside the door, knocks or rings the bell, then leaves before I get to the door. This time, he decided to wait until I answered because he noticed my wife's garden and wanted to ask me a question about it. (My wife is a very skilled and avid gardener). I took the opportunity to work my novel into the conversation, saying that I was writing it to explain the real root causes of the financial crisis. He started asking me all kinds of questions. So I invited him in to sit down while we talked. He looked quickly at his delivery truck, hesitated, and said, "Sure, I've got five minutes." He came inside and sat down. I gave him the full explanation about legalized bank fraud, and he kept getting more and more excited about it. Since that day, he has been telling other people on his delivery route about it, trying to drum up more interest for me!

There's also the guy who dropped by my home because he wanted to talk with me about my website hosting services (a small business that I run). He's a psychotherapist who runs a multi-office counseling service for people with drug and alcohol dependencies. I ended up signing him up to be a customer, and I also told him about the novel I was writing. Once I explained the concepts to him, he said, "You've got to finish that book! People have got to hear this!" Since then, any time we've corresponded during the process of transferring his website over to my server or about some changes he asked me to make to his site, he always asks me, "So how's the novel coming? Is it finished yet?"