Getting the Word Out: The Taylor Swift Equation

A couple months ago, James Franco wrote a fantastic piece for The New York Times on selfies, those self-generated glam shots you can post of, yes, yourself doing whatever and in which you think someone might be interested.  It's only a dyslexic step away from Twitter, come to think of it, only completely visual.  Read Franco's article all the way through; this is one smart guy.  Above all, he's an entertainer and understands the draw of--and our fascination with--celebrity.  If you remember nothing else of what he says (and granted, we're talking about a celebrity who understands image and how to generate the illusion of intimacy), this is your take-home: 

"In this age of too much information at a click of a button, the power to attract viewers amid the sea of things to read and watch is power indeed. It’s what the movie studios want for their products, it’s what professional writers want for their work, it’s what newspapers want — hell, it’s what everyone wants: attention. Attention is power. And if you are someone people are interested in, then the selfie provides something very powerful, from the most privileged perspective possible."  (emphasis mine)

Successful entertainers understand the value of attention and how to grab it.  You want an example of someone who's a master?  Taylor Swift.  I kid you not.  Maybe four months before Franco's piece came out--or it might have been longer--I recall listening to an NPR piece on social media and Twitter, and the reporter singled out Swift as someone who really understood how to use social media effectively.  She specifically mentioned that Swift was excellent at mixing in the private moment to further a public agenda.  The example she gave was Swift tweeting something like, oh, making sugar cookies because I'm so happy my latest single was just released.  (I'm paraphrasing here.)  And Swift is very good at this; take a look at this photo montage of her and Kelly Osborne making chocolate peppermint cookies.  

Now the reporter suggested that Swift is comfortable with this because she grew up with it.  Maybe . . . but in this publicity arms race--and it is an arms race; all of us are constantly upgrading and scrambling after the next best thing, which writers have doing since Dickens single-handedly started the celebrity-author tour and authors before him gave lectures to drum up publicity for their other works--I'd suggest that Swift, like Madonna and other consummate entertainers, understand the value of the attention-grab.  Do these people blog?  Not only your life.  Swift tweets; she knows the people she wants to reach only want/need that much.  What she and other entertainers like her do is trade on image, understanding that their image is what fans want because it furthers the sense of pseudo-intimacy: a carefully scripted, ostensibly "private" moment.

For a while now, I've been talking about marketing, the value of certain venues, etc.  Boil it down to its essentials, and what I've been talking about is grabbing attention for you and your work.  (An important distinction: grabbing attention for you is not necessarily the same as snatching this for your work just as different platforms draw the attention of different audiences.)

In her business blog this past Thursday, Kris Rusch talks about the usefulness of social media; as always, she's spot on.  Although I'd suggest that everything on the Internet is potentially a social media site, and that includes your blog.  The folks who might stroll by are not necessarily the same people who will admire a Sunday cake or pictures of your cats.  So, again, we're talking developing your idea of a target audience and which venue best gets whatever you want your message to be across.  (I also disagree, just a tad, with Rusch's points about teens and Facebook.  Yes, it's true that the majority of American teens don't find you on Facebook, and there's some data to suggest that teens are ditching Facebook for other social media sites, specifically Instagram, Snapchat, and--in my experience--Tumblr.  But that doesn't apply to all teens.  Specifically, all those kids I met overseas a couple years back found and have stuck with me through Facebook, on which we routinely interact.)    

Yet what Rusch describes in terms of publisher expectations has been my experience, too.  Now, neither publisher has ever told me how many times I must blog or tweet or Facebook or whatever, but I was told I had to mount a website, get on Twitter and Facebook, and "join the conversation."  For the longest time, I had zero idea of what that meant.  I thought it meant figuring out key websites--you know, the ones that might have bearing on what I was doing--and then jumping in with comments.  (Remember I mentioned in an earlier post how bloggers look at blogrolls to see who you're following, and (for some of them) if you're following the right people?  So that's what I was doing: trying to follow the "right" people the same way a new kid tries to figure out who's with the popular crowd.  It's actually all rather sophomoric.  Anyway, I did that for a while, but I couldn't see the utility, plus it took a lot of time and, frankly, a ton of those sites catered to books in the wrong age and demographic.  I certainly didn't see that I was adding anything to the conversation, and we all remember high school, right?  The more you wanted to hang with the popular girls, the harder they made it for you.  

Then I wised up and realized: the idea was that I should be the one getting the conversation going, not some random voice chiming in about whom no one else gave a damn.  (People may still not give a damn, but I can live with that.)  I would have to become an entertainer of sorts, someone who could walk into a crowded room, get the ball rolling, and start to turn eyes my way.

Oh . . . is that all?

Look, not everyone can do this.  Most of us don't have the gazillion assistants standing by to take that perfect Taylor Swift glam shot (or Franco's compositional sense).  Some of us are shy.  I, for one, have zero ability to vamp for the camera.

So what this means is that, regardless of which media you choose, you have to understand what's required to get the most out of it.  If you want to do selfies, then you might follow Franco's lead, carefully titrating the personal and non-personal, for example.  (It also helps if you don't hate the way you take pictures; I have a supremely goofy smile.)  In other words, you have to give some serious thought about how to make the media work for you instead of you struggling to figure out what the media's for--or worse, working against it.

Take Twitter.  I forget who said that it's a place where writers can connect with other writers . . . and I've certainly never thought of it that way for myself, but I have noticed that the most popular folks do what Rusch also points out: the best tweets are funny.  Author Maureen Johnson knows how to do this; she also does things I wouldn't dream of because they're just not in my nature.  For example, I remember a tweet a couple years back of her newly painted toenails.  Me, I have ugly feet.  (Frankly, I think that anyone who looks at her own feet and doesn't laugh . . .  I'd never dream of posting a picture of my toenails.  Opossums, sure.  Cats and cakes and orchids?  No sweat.  But my toes?)  It works for Johnson, though, because she knows how to work it--and she's having fun.  Or she's appearing to, which is all that matters.  Appearances are all that matter when it comes to the truly ephemeral nature of most social media.  

Rusch makes this point, too; if you're going to do social media, for God's sake, have some fun while you're at it.  Yes, yes, it's marketing; it's work . . . but it is also your chance to let your hair down a little.  My co-blogger Jordan Dane tweets bon mots as she watches Sleepy Hollow.  Me, I'd miss half the show while trying to keep my tweets pithy and sweet--although, lately, I'm not above getting all snarkazoid about House of Games.  Of course, that show is something I can watch when I've got time, so I don't have to multi-task.   I have a publisher-friend who gathers up all her Facebook buddies to watch American Idol together.  I once had the experience of FBing during a Packer playoff game; it was totally random and thoroughly fun.

Random is the key there, too.  Think about this: a post to Snapchat disappears within ten seconds--and teens love this site.  So you're talking about grabbing teens with the attention span of gnats.  Which means humor works.  The outrageous works, and the shocking.  It also means that snagging anyone's attention is thoroughly random . . . at least in that venue and maybe in them all.

Paying attention to audience is also important.  The teens who adore Snapchat--and given my experience of them, I'd say that would be most--are not going to come to your blog to read what you have to say.  They're just not; they don't care.  For them, your blog/website is the gateway; they will come to find you so they can get a conversation they care about started.

Read that again: teens and most fans will come to your blog in order to talk to you about what they care about.  They are not coming to your blog to talk about what you care about--at least, not initially.  (That can happen.  It certainly has for me.  I've had some wonderful interactions with kids over environmental issues, for example, and after posts on Facebook, I would add.)  But I know these same kids are not spending the time to really read anything I say (especially when they ask questions that I've written whole long blogs about) . . . but that's okay.  I've come to accept that, for teens and most young adult fans, my website is a place for them to find out how to talk to me.  

And that's just fine.  I can live with that.  What I have to decide is something we all must: how many platforms; what content for which; and how much time we really want to give this.  Marketing/grabbing attention/vying for power is time-consuming.  You can trick yourself into thinking that it is work, and as valuable as, say, a finished short story or novel.

But blogging is not work.  Flitting around various social media platforms is not work.  Writing is work.  Producing that book is your work.  Without your books, you're just another person who's always wanted to be a writer.  You could be anybody and everyone.  You have to make people care about your books, and in order for that to happen, you have to write them.  Call it the Taylor Swift equation, if you want, but bear in mind that the only reason a gazillion eyes care about Taylor Swift's cookies is because she's Taylor Swift.  Without her songs, Taylor Swift is nobody but another lady in an apron.

Getting the Word Out: Your Blog and You

After my blog last week about paid reviews in which I looked at Clarion Reviews and San Francisco Book Review, I'd intended to go on to other venues in which you might be able to get your book reviewed.  It's worth looking at the blog from last week, however, because the CEO from San Francisco Book Review weighed in on my post. Take a couple moments to read her comments and my response--and pay attention to what I focused on, i.e., that a consumer wants and needs certain information in order to make a decision about whether to go with a particular service or not.

Her comments got me to thinking, too.  No, not about my job as an investigative journalist: I don't even pretend to that.  But what I am and continue to be, first and foremost, is a customer, and in that case, a potential consumer for the services the SFBR would like to offer.

Readers are consumers/customers, too.  So it stands to reason that when a reader comes to your blog, she's looking for information.  She's coming there as a consumer/customer.  The question is, what kind of information is that reader looking for? 

I'll be honest: I think that books direct readers to blogs, not that blogs direct readers to your books (unless there's a specific post about you as part of a blog tour).  Blogs can help readers find your other books, but the reason that any reader bothers to Google your name is because she's read your book and is interested in knowing more about you. 

Not convinced?  Want to test this out?  Easy.  Look at the number of entries I've had for the MONSTERS audiobook giveaway, one that has relied solely upon Facebook, Twitter, and traffic to my blog; and then go look at the Goodreads giveaway for WHITE SPACE.  There's no comparison.  I've had a very small number of entries for the MONSTERS Rafflecopter giveaway.  Yet, for WHITE SPACE on Goodreads . . . there are over 2400 entries--and that's because people have a reason to be on Goodreads.  Goodreads is a community.  By contrast, there is no community organized about Ilsa J. Bick.

So it's clear that my blog--just me and my vanilla random thoughts--doesn't generate much traffic.  Yes, I have fans, and yeah, I get a fair number of comments and fan mail.  But it's not me that makes people come to the blog.  What makes them come there, if they come at all, is that I've written a book they like.

So when they come to the blog, what should they find?  What is it that you want your blog to reflect about you and your work?  Is there some hook you can use to keep a random consumer--someone who's read one of your books and decided to look you up--coming back?

Remember, I said that the Internet is nothing but a vast marketing tool.   Blogs and every aspect of social media is/are marketing tools.  In her blog last week, Kris Rusch mentioned a few things the standard blog ought to provide a consumer in terms of basic information about you and your work, past and current.  Take a few minutes to read her blog; it's well worth your time, although I'm not sure that I agree that your blog needs to be genre specific.  For me and most people I know, a blog needs to be clean and easy to navigate.    I used to have a different theme for my blog,  one that I thought was very spooky and kind of cool. But I also found that that particular theme got to be too cluttered, busy  and difficult to read.  At the time, I'd been influenced by other folks' blogs--no, I won't tell you who--that had all kinds of bells and whistles.  I mean, navigating their blogs was like playing a video game.  Roll over this, something would happen; click this, something else would blow up.  All very nifty.  But also very pricey--and not easily transferrable to things like iPads and iPhones, which don't use Flash (and something I discovered to my chagrin after shelling out a fair amount of cash for an animated sequence for ASHES that relied on Flash.  All that money for nothing.).

So, recently, I switched, going for a blog format that I think is clean and easy on the eyes.  Is it as spooky and creepazoid as I would like?  No, but it's easy to navigate; you can find out all you want to find out about me (or, as much as I'll let you find out) and you can also read about my upcoming releases and where to find them. That's really all the information that a blog needs to provide the average consumer. 

But once you've enticed a consumer to your blog--to that bit of advertising about you--do you want to keep them coming back?  If so, what can or do you offer?  Some writers give out free fiction; others just post their opinions about this, that, or the other; some folks talk about what recipe they're trying out that week.

Or . . . are you targeting different consumers?  That is, if someone loved your book, will they keep coming back to your blog if you talk about writing?  Or cats?  Or what cake you baked that week?  Do you capture a different audience on Mondays--when you post a picture of your latest cake, for example (actually, Sundays are when I usually post mine--and on Facebook and Twitter because I don't think people stroll by my blog then, but I know they're on the other platforms)--and yet another on a different day when you offer advice on writing?  Or share your latest needlepoint pattern?  Or your Charger's new paint job?

There are some fans who read a book and then want to know all about you, and so they're the ones who will happily read a post about yak tea on Monday and your car's new paint job on Wednesday.  There are others--and I would say that they form the majority--who only come to find you because something you wrote touched them in some way.  They happen by your site and drop a line . . . but they don't keep coming back.

Except . . . don't we want them to keep coming back?

So that then begs the question, the very same one I had for SFBR's CEO: if I want to use a certain service, I need to understand the target audience.

It's the same for us as writers.  Who's your blog for?  Who's your target audience?  Who do you want to engage--and are those people you engage on, say, Monday, the same folks you engage on Thursday?  My guess is that you can't please everyone, and people cherry-pick.  As I've said before, I happen by a particular blog every week on the day that I know there will be information I think might be useful.  But that's all.  But if I were to offer, say, a free story on a certain day and do it reliably . . . would that increase my traffic?  Chances are good that, eventually, it would--and if a reader's read enough free fiction, he or she just might want to pony up to buy an actual novel.

I'm not suggesting that all we writers need to or can do that, but I think that a writer who provides an array of content--say, a story one day a week, advice another, a recipe a third--is one who understands a diversified market.

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing from other writers out there, and bloggers, too: do you even think of a target audience?  If you do, do you think in terms of different audiences and different platforms for those audiences?

Getting the Word Out: More Thoughts on Guest Posts & Blogger Etiquette/Responsibilities (and a bit on Loss Leaders)

Okay, I’m going to make this short and sweet today because I’m really crunching on a deadline.  In the weeks leading up to the New Year, I was talking about discoverability and how to get the word out about your books.  On a week where I wasn’t set to blog here, I did put up a post about blog tours; you can read about that here.  What I’m going to do today is simply follow up on a few things I mentioned in that post and a little something extra that came up in the interim.

One comment that a reader made was pretty interesting.  She is a regular blogger, has hosted guest posts, done giveaways, and has published a slew of reviews.  She is, in fact, one of the first bloggers I ever “met” and I hold her responsible, for better or worse, for getting the ball rolling for Draw the Dark.  (She can deny it, but I know people read her blog.)  So when this woman talks, I listen.  Her take on guests posts was fascinating: she felt they really weren’t all that useful for her as a blogger and reviewer; that people headed to her blog because they wanted to hear from and had developed an attachment to her, not because they were all that excited or interested in whomever she might interview.  Which was pretty intriguing. 

Conversely, I also know of a blogger whose readers love when she does interviews—but that’s because her blog’s been set up that way from the get-go.  She’s very clear that this section of her blog is devoted to interviews; this section to reviews; this section to her thoughts about books in general; this section to her own work . . . Getting the picture?  She’s a blogger who’s diversified; the people who read her interviews are not the same who might read her thoughts on the best middle grade horror books (as one example). 

As a reader of a very few blogs—there are only so many hours in my week—I can tell you, for a fact, that I regularly go to one writer’s blog every week for one post only.  She has other posts during the week; she gives away free fiction; but I’m not interested in that.  I’m interested in only one particular area she chooses to blog about, and that’s the day I’ll drop by.

So I’m thinking that both my reader’s comment and my own observations about blog content ring true: people head to a blog for a reason; because it has some identity and/or some content they’re really interested in.  They do not head to a blog because you, a writer they may never have heard from, just happen to be posting . . . unless it’s their practice to do so already. 

See the distinction?

Anyway, all that reinforced to me that guest posts really might not be the most efficient and effective use of your time as a writer to get the word out.  That was hammered home for me just a day or two ago when I happened across a blog where I’d actually been invited to do a guest post—for which I spent time I might have given to my work in progress or, say, feeding my husband—that never appeared.  Mind you, this is a post for which I was invited and my publisher asked that I do.  Come to find that the blogger put up a kind of a blanket apology a week or so ago, talking about getting swamped, not having been able to make the time, and so falling down on putting up the guest posts she’d solicited authors to do.

Now, I’m not an ogre.  I don’t whip my husband (or, if I do, he enjoys it).  I don’t starve my cats.  I’m as human (and humane) as the next person, and I really, really understand about getting behind.  We all do.  I have been working nonstop for months, every single damn day of the week, on the book whose deadline is coming up in . . . hold on, let me check . . . three days.  (Am I done?  Yes.  Have I been done for a week or so?  Yes.  Am I taking a weed-whacker to the thing and checking for inconsistencies even though I know I’ll be seeing this book again at least three more times?  Yes—but I’m a perfectionist this way.)  But I’ve not cooked the best meals from my family; there have been nights of grilled cheese and many Sundays I’ve not baked a cake.  I’ve put off doing a lot of things, like paying bills or seeing a movie, going out to dinner, going on vacation.  I have been under virtual (self-imposed) house arrest for months.  I'm not complaining either.  This is my job.  I have a contract and obligation I take seriously. 

So when somebody puts up a blog and then invites you, the writer, to do a guest post, I think that every blogger has to understand: a writer takes time out from her job to write something for free.  That writer is providing content with the good-faith expectation that those words will see the light of day.  Will that post necessarily generate a lot of hits and more publicity for a book?  Probably not, unless it happens to being an extremely well-traveled, highly influential blog (I talk about this in my earlier post and how you ought to weigh the pros and cons), or one that’s universally recognized: say, something on Horn Book, Kirkus, or Publisher’s Weekly. (HAH!  I wish . . .) 

But is it okay not to honor the obligation to put up the guest post, especially when it really doesn’t take all that much work to cut and paste?  To my mind, the answer is no.  When I give my word that I will do something—for example, this blog—it’s not okay not to.  I’ve taken on the obligation; it’s a promise I’ve made, and promises . . . you gotta keep.  (And, come on . . . we’re all busy.  We all have things to do.  I didn’t  have time is really shorthand for This wasn’t a priority.  Simple as that.  We all the same number of hours in the day.)  Barring something like illness, a death in the family, or some catastrophe, then I must make time/find the hours to honor that obligation. (Just as some of my fellow ADR3NALIN3ers do their blogs weeks in advance.  In other words . . . they plan.  What a concept.)

In the case of a blogger who solicits a guest post and then doesn’t put that up . . . so not cool.  A personal email to the writer who spent the time to generate words for which she’s not getting paid is only polite.  It is not okay to solicit a piece and then never put it up.  That is work and time that I’ll never get back.  That is time I took away from making a more elaborate meal for my husband, or seeing a movie.  Or sleeping.

Think about it. 

Something that has nothing to do with blogs: I think we all know that giveaways are one venue for getting the word out about a book.  In a post about discoverability, Kris Rusch mentioned the idea of loss leaders: that is, something sold at a loss to lead consumers to other products (as, for example, forgoing a profit on the first book in a series sold for a deep discount).  In many ways, this is one reason why writers participate in communities like Wattpad, where authors make out-of-prints books available for free or post free chapters pf a work in progress (or finished work).  Until a few weeks ago, I had zero stats on this because I’m traditionally published and so  have no access to sales numbers (better for my mental health, trust me on this).  But, a few weeks ago, Audible decided to make ASHES available as a daily deal.  (Tickled me to pieces.)  A week later, they followed up to let me know how that had gone. 

Let’s put it this way: with the discount, the sales for ASHES went up two-hundredfold in a single day from what it had been for an entire week prior.  In addition, the bump in sales continued for the week after the deal, with sales of the first book, even back up at full price, going up twenty-fold.

Wow.  That . . . that makes you sit up and pay attention.

What this also suggests—actually, screams—is that you need a very efficient marketing arm to get the word out.  I’m still not sure how an individual would do that in a way that’s comparable to a company like Audible, unless it’s someone who’s built up a following over a lot of years.  I suspect that going through venues such as Goodreads or Amazon—I’m talking about people going the indie route now—might generate the same bump in sales, provided that the sale (or giveaway) remains in effect long enough.  Audible was able to achieve for ASHES what it did because it has the resources for an email blast that reached a ton of customers.  Their reach is huge. 

By contrast, my reach, as an individual, is teeny-tiny.  For example, when I do a giveaway on Goodreads, I’ve learned that you have to let it go about a month in order to generate hits (I count a goodly amount of hits as upwards of a thousand).  Is there a bump in sales afterward?  Beats me.  I don’t know because I’m not the publisher and don’t have access to those numbers.  If and when I go indie, though—say, release WHITE SPACE as an e-book for overseas distribution through Kobo and Amazon—then I’ll have some numbers . . . sort of.  That is, I might be able to track whether or not my sales improve because of a giveaway or price reduction.

Okay, that’s all I have time for today.  That deadline just hasn’t disappeared, so it’s time to pet the cat, feed the husband (or vice versa) and get back to work. 

Getting the Word Out, Continued

Last week, I took my cue from Kris Rusch’s business blog on discoverability to talk about the task of getting the word out about your book, especially in an era when traditional publishers may be doing less and relying much more on you, the writer, to market yourself. (That imperative is, by the way, why most of us writers have blogs and do social media.) Certainly, marketing yourself is nothing new. Talk to any writer who’s been around a while or her agent, and one of the things publishing houses used to want to know was whether you’d go on tour—and, by extension, if you were the kind of writer a publisher could send out there. Not all writers could/can. Some folks are excruciatingly shy; others are boors; some pick the worst times to get drunk; a couple may be hygienically challenged . . . you get the picture. But the idea was that giving folks a chance to connect with a writer—especially those all-important booksellers—would really help readers discover a book. 

That personal connection was important, and still is because what we’re really talking about is word of mouth. In the olden days—like a couple years ago when Borders and Waldens and indies were going strong—that word of mouth was frequently a real live person at a real live story pressing a real book into a customer’s hands. Booksellers got to know their clientele. Conversely, writers formed relationships with booksellers and, if they were very savvy, with their readers that they then maintained. Nowadays, people have blogs, right? Well, way back then, many writers sent out newsletters. Some still do in lieu of or addition to blogs; I know of at least a few because I’ve received them. (Why? Simple: I wrote these writers fan letters a while back, and they responded with newsletters. I’ve been on their mailing lists ever since. Now…have I read the newsletters? No. Why? I wasn’t interested. I know: terrible but true. I didn’t care about pictures of a writer’s dogs or where an author went on vacation. In fact, I rarely pay attention to personal stuff like that, but I don’t think I’m typical that way. Many readers do care about that kind of thing, and I certainly understand it. It’s the same kind of curiosity that I might have about, oh, an actor I like.)

These days, of course, those kinds of very personal connections—where someone presses a book into your hands—are much rarer. In the case of teens, especially, I’m thinking that librarians are the folks who have always fit that job description. They’re the people who know what’s out there and they know their kids; there is, in fact, no greater gift a librarian can give than to hand a kid a book (and this is something I’ve written about, too). Having hung around a bunch of librarians, I’ve discovered that word of mouth is what it’s all about. Librarians bring in speakers; they do book talks; they point teachers to new books; they place books on display that they think are worthwhile. Come right down to it, libraries are the bookstores of tomorrow, and probably one of the few venues where kids will actually continue to be able to come into contact with physical books.

So word of mouth is key, and I was reminded of this just the other day. I was at some party, and we were talking about books we’d read recently. A couple titles came up, and more often than not, the response from folks who hadn’t read a particular work was something like, oh yeah, I’ve heard good things about that. Press just a tad more, and you come to find that, say, a friend mentioned a book, or a friend of a friend, a librarian, a work colleague. Not one person mentioned that she’d seen an ad or book trailer; that he’d read a blog or seen a post on Facebook or gotten into a Twitter conversation. One or two said they’d read a review (none of these were blog reviews). The overwhelming majority of responses revolved around word of mouth—and only rarely was this online word of mouth.

On the other hand, I wonder if this isn’t a problem with the target demographic. Remember, it was a party of adults not teens, and I know for a fact that, other than I, none of these other adults uses social media at all. 

So it’s more than likely that teens, who have the fastest thumbs in the known universe, might have a different answer about how they get or transmit their information—pass on a recommendation via word of mouth—online. In fact, a very recent Harris Poll suggests that many people do use social media with the express purpose of influencing others. I know I do; I regularly put up tweets and Facebook about environmental causes because I want to bring these things to people’s attention. Hang around Facebook or Twitter long enough, and you realize that trying to get people to come around to your point of view is frequently what a lot of posters are after. 

A cursory search—and I do mean, bare-bones fast and dirty reading of a couple abstracts—regarding the importance of online word of mouth gives contradictory data. One study suggests it has zilch impact (which I find very hard to believe) while another, looking specifically at sales and the impact of reviews on sites such as Amazon.com, concludes that the more reviews there are, the better and that negative reviews have a far greater impact on sales than overwhelmingly positive reviews. I had to step back from that one for a second, too, and think about it, especially that bit about the impact of negative reviews . . . and you know, I think that’s right. I know that if I see an even split in reviews, I tend to go to the three- and two-stars. Now maybe that’s because I’m a Freudian and the glass is always half-full . . . but I don’t believe that any book is flawless, mine included. So I pay attention to the less-than-rapturous reviews. 

That actually reminded me of a ploy one author, who shall remain nameless, tried a couple years back. Through Goodreads, the writer offered the full text of a new ebook to anyone who wanted it prior to its date of sale with the proviso that you, the reader, would agree to leave a review (good or bad) on Amazon. I admit; I was intrigued, so I asked for a copy. Well, I hated the book. I hated the book so much I couldn’t, in all conscience, leave that kind of review because, being an author, I just couldn’t do that to another writer. So I wrote to the author, explained my reasoning, and that was that. 
On the other hand, I now understand that author’s strategy. Is it a good one? Well, that writer sure thinks so, and Amazon sales of that author’s titles would certainly support that.

If the goal, then, is to generate word of mouth, how can I, Mere Mortal Writer, help that along? Sure, trade reviews can be gold (or killers, if no one likes the book). But it seems to me that, taking into account that writer’s Amazon ploy, we’re after volume here. We want to do things that will increase visibility. Now, for some writers, that may mean offering the book up for a read and review. I’ve seen writers offer the first x-number of pages or chapters for free while others might give away the first book in a series. (In 2008, Neil Gaiman tried a variation of that ploy with American Gods by getting his publisher to give away the ebook for a month—and, yeah, the book still did well once the giveaway was over and people had to pay again.) 

But we still come around to the same problem: as any decent businessman will tell you, consumers rely on the opinions of people they trust. In the olden days, this meant they trusted friends . . . i.e., real live flesh-and-blood people they actually knew. But these days--with all these different platforms and social media available--what constitutes a friend? What are the parameters of trust? Think about it. The trust I have in friends--people I actually see and know--is very different than the trust I might have in people I know only through an online presence. I would, for example, never give out personal information--my birthdate or address or the names of my kids--on the Internet. So what kinds of "friends" are we talking about anyway, and how far do we let them influence us? (Do people even realize or stop to think that many, many of the tweets they see are generated by Twitter bots? That a computer program can generate the illusion of popularity?)

Conversely, how do you decide which platform(s) to use? Because, let's face it, no one platform fits all needs or hits the right audiences. Yes, I use Twitter and Facebook (and the latter more than the former), but I've yet to figure out how to best make use of Tumblr or, for that matter, Instagram. 

And there is also the issue of time: every moment I'm using social media or writing this blog is time I take away from writing a book, and you have the problem of diversifying your message. For example, what you post to Twitter might not be what you post to Facebook or Tumblr; or if you do cross-post, is what you're posting of interest to the people most likely to be using that particular medium?

These are all intriguing questions, and I'll be the first to admit that I have no definitive answers. Over the next couple of weeks, though, I'd love to hear what other people think has worked for them, or influenced their decision-making, just as I'll be thinking about what direction I might want to take for upcoming releases.      

To Skype, or . . .

If you're any kind of writer these days, chances are you've been asked to Skype into a classroom or book club or festival.  Sometimes the invitation comes from teachers, organizers, or club members; other times--and, probably, more frequently--your publisher.  If you're like me, you want to a) connect with your audience, potential or otherwise and b) please people, whether that's your editor, your publicist, a friend of a friend, etc.  No one likes to say no, and the invitation to speak--the idea that people might find what you have to say interesting or want to learn more about you--is very appealing, especially when you spend SO many hours slogging over a hot keyboard with only your cat for company who, let's face it, loves you only so long as you're holding the can opener.

So, the question isn't only should you Skype, but is Skyping in your best interest?  Forget being nice or pleasing people.  Forget flattery.  Will Skyping really help you?

Because, let's be frank here: any appearance is a marketing tool, pure and simple.  That's it.  You are showing up to market your product.  In part, you're marketing yourself, so it pays to learn how to perform in front of an audience.  That's what an author appearance is: a performance.  You are attempting to persuade people to buy YOU and, only secondarily, your book.  Really, it's true.  If an author is just filthy or drunk or a complete boor or obnoxious or so introverted that watching paint peel is more interesting . . . you're not going to buy the book, or even glance through it.  An author appearance is your way of inviting people to crack the spine and take a peek.  You are marketing yourself and your work, that book you've worked so hard to produce.  So your performance may make or break a sale. It's really that simple.

Now, this isn't a tutorial on performance, although--yes--I used to do a lot of stage work; I've presented tons of academic papers at various conferences well before any book festivals.  I'm a physician, and a shrink; being with people--learning how to engage and keep them that way--was part of my training and vital to my job.  Because when you're trying to help people change things that aren't doing them a whit of good, you are also selling them a different approach.  It's all about marketing: how you present your product.  For a shrink, it's selling your patient the idea of, say, refraining from swallowing that bottle of pills and, instead, giving you a call or finding their mother or getting to an emergency room.  To do that, a patient needs to have faith.  A patient needs to buy your approach.  A patient must believe that the product you're peddling is better than that nasty cola she's been drinking for years.

If you think about Skyping in that way--as a marketing opportunity to engage with a target audience--then you need to decide if this particular gimmick (and it is a gimmick) works in your favor.  Yes, yes, I know that Skype is the new darling because people think it will save them money; they won't have to put authors on tour; etc., etc.  But I'll bet none of them have thought of Skype as COSTING them sales, which I believe it can, and perhaps more frequently than they think.

I will be frank.  For me, is Skype a great marketing tool?  Most of the time, for me . . . no.  And let me tell you why.

In some ways, it's very simple and no mystery.  It's hard to engage anyone through the filter of a medium like a teeny, tiny computer screen (or a big one, for that matter; I've had it both ways).  Not only can I NOT see everyone in the room, I can't read visual cues (other than complete boredom, but we'll get to that).  I don't know about you, but every performer--or at least, I--always try to home in on people who will make eye contact or have just the most exquisite facial expressions that let you know how you're doing.  You look for changes in expression; you may make quick jokes or smile or single someone out for prolonged attention.  It's all part of reading the audience.

Doing that is nearly impossible with Skype. It just is.  In much the same way that I would never dream of Skyping with a patient because I might miss something I would otherwise catch if I'm in the same room, you tend to miss things when you're confined to a single view through a camera.  I can't see everybody; sometimes I'm only looking at pieces of people. Frequently, we won't even be making eye contact because cameras on laptops or mounted on computers don't often catch people full-on.  People are usually looking down, up, sideways.  There's no human engagement whatsoever, and so ability to read people well.

Another huge problem with Skype or any similar tech is. . . the tech.  There are glitches; you get booted out; sometimes the picture sucks, or the sound quality, or (frequently) both.  And no one knows how to fix these things.  If you're Skyping into a school, you can be pretty certain that their tech isn't all that current.  If it's some poor hapless teacher who's really not that skilled with this stuff, then he gets  flustered or she has to find the AV person . . . blah, blah.  Like that.  The tech that is supposed to be so freeing and facilitate all this great communication ends up being a pain in the ass.

And try Skyping into a setting where people have accents with which you're not familiar.  If you think it's hard to parse the words in person, magnify that about a thousandfold over Skype through crappy mikes or around bizarre echoes.  What's worse is when you can't understand the helpful teacher with an accent that's just as thick.

An even bigger problem--and I think this is the one that most people don't think about--is this: kids don't have the same relationship with a screen that they do with a person.  Think about people in movie theaters these days.  Think about yourself during a television show.  And how often have you seen kids multitasking? (Which is really just a silly word that means doing many things not very well, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise; there are plenty of studies on diminished efficiency and attention span when a person pursues multiple activities simultaneously.)  That's right; all the time.  Those kids are, maybe, doing homework while they are also texting, tweeting, Facebooking, maybe on the phone (but, heaven forbid, they actually use the phone to make a call), with music on and a minimized computer game they hope their moms won't notice.  (And those social media themselves FOSTER limited attention span and contact, too.  Think about it.  Do you REALLY engage in long, deep, soulful and altogether life-affirmingly meaningful discussions over Twitter?  Or Facebook?  Uh . . . no.  Twitter is a cocktail party; you drop in for a quick chat; you leave.  Facebook is the same.)

My point is that kids are used to not paying attention to a screen.  A screen is practically an invitation to do something else.  In the case of a computer screen and a talking head, a gnat with ADHD still has better attention--and yet, here you are, trying to demand that a kid pay attention in a setting and with the stimuli that foster inattentiveness.  I've been in settings where dogs wander in and out of the room; kids wander in and out; adults hold private conversations; people deliver food because, all of a sudden, people have forgotten, you know, manners . . .  Really, it's a losing proposition.

If you're getting the idea that I think Skype is a terrible idea in terms of a marketing tool, you're right.  Think of it this way: are you more likely to buy something from someone with whom you have a personal connection--who, you know, actually spoke to you, or on the basis of a commercial?  Because that really is what Skyping boils down to: you are trying to overcome the limitations of a television commercial, albeit with a more flexible script and crummy graphics.  If the medium doesn't help you--if you run the risk of being boring because you can not engage a real human being--then why ever should you do it?  (And, seriously, on a more academic level, do we really want to encourage children not to be with real people in the same bloody room?  Do we really believe that a computer screen fosters better human connectedness and interaction and socialization than a person?  Get real.  If that were true, we'd have all infants cuddle inflatable dolls instead of mothers with arms and facial expressions and voices.  Remember: a child sees herself as she is reflected in her parents' eyes.  Think about it.)

You might think you're being cooperative and nice and accommodating your publisher or editor or teacher or what have you . . . but if you shoot yourself in the foot and cost yourself sales because the medium does not help you market effectively, what good did you just do for yourself or your publisher?

Can Skype be made to work for you?  Yes--but only under very tight and limited circumstances (and even then, it's Murphy's Law all the way; anything that can go wrong will)--and for me, they are:

a) A small group (no more than ten) of interested people.  Notice I said interested.  For me, that translates to kids or adults who've either read my work or been sufficiently prepped that they have questions and want to engage in a conversation.  Have I most often gone in cold, to an audience that's never heard of me?  Oh, sure.  I don't mind that either; remember, it's all about performance.  But in that situation--when I'm there--I can read the audience; I know how to engage people; I can use humor and make people laugh; and humor is often infectious.  When you're on a roll--when you've got people hooked and interested in the story of how the last third of a novel is like the time that Palomino rode away with you, bareback--it's great and it doesn't matter if they've never heard of you before.  But it is nearly impossible to do the same through the barrier of a computer screen.  At least, it is for me.

b) A visit that is very short.  Remember what I said about attention spans and screens?  Keep it brief.  A half hour is plenty of time.  Always leave an audience wanting more (and that's a good rule of thumb all the way around).

c) A small setting.  In other words, a small room or a table where everyone is gathered and you can pretty much see everybody.  Easier to play to people; easier to see how people are reacting; easier to gauge how you're doing all the way around.

d) A test run.  Insist on it.  You want to make sure your tech works.  Life is hard enough already.

e) A discussion with the teacher/book club leader/festival host, etc., about expectations.  What do they want their kids to get out of seeing you?  Have they done this before?  What works best?  Hey, how about they do a bit of work and draft some questions or what they're interested in?  Make them your partners in this process, and believe me, things will go much more smoothly.

I'm sure you can come up with other caveats, but for me, these are the basics.  As I've said, I've had some good Skype experiences, but they are the exceptions and conform to most of the above.

All things being equal, though, I prefer up close and personal.  It plays to my strengths and what I'm good at and enjoy: being with people.  If I want a meaningful interaction via a machine, I'll go hug my Siri.

Do Book Trailers Work?

by Michelle Gagnon

Last week, Harper Teen unveiled the book trailer for my upcoming release, DON'T TURN AROUND. Pretty cool, because they managed to snag a spot on the Entertainment Weekly website, so for a (very) brief few minutes there I almost felt famous.
And I have to say, all bias aside, I think it's a killer trailer.

But that being said, does a book trailer drive sales the same way that a film trailer does? A lot of authors spend considerable time and money having trailers produced. I did myself, a few years back, when my second adult thriller BONEYARD was released. I was pretty pleased with the result, and that remains my bestselling novel. But I have to confess, I think that has more to do with the amazing cover it had, as opposed to the trailer.

There are some trailers that, frankly, I've loved. My friend Daniel Handler has a fantastic one for his latest YA release WHY WE BROKE UP. It's laugh out loud funny; my daughter in particular loves to watch it over and over. But did it manage to drive sales? That's the frustrating thing about marketing: no one can say for sure.

So I'm curious: has a book trailer ever compelled you to purchase a book that you might not have picked up otherwise? And what are the best (and hey, why not: worst) book trailers you've ever seen?

The Great Reveal

by Michelle Gagnon

Lately, there's been a lot of "reveals" in Young Adult fiction. One of my favorites was what they did for bestselling author Cassandra Clare's next release, CLOCKWORK PRINCESS. They let fans control the cover reveal; initially the cover was hidden behind a "veil" that only tweeting readers could remove.
And it was a huge success. Within two hours, over 30,000 tweets resulted in a full display of the cover. But it didn't end there: #ClockworkPrincess trended worldwide that day, and the tweet tally rapidly approached and passed the 150,000 mark.
Which was astonishing, and definitely eye-opening for a lot of publishers. There's always a question as to how social networks can be used to promote a book, and this was a clear success story.


My publisher has decided to try to do something similar with my YA debut DON'T TURN AROUND. Starting today, clicking on this link will reveal book chapters on Facebook: the more "Likes" the page gets, the more of the book will be "unlocked." By the end, if all goes as planned, the first five chapters of the book will have been made available (which is a fairly significant chunk of it!) I think it's a cool idea, and an interesting way to get people engaged with the story early.

We'll also be debuting the book trailer on Entertainment Weekly's "Books" page in a few weeks - I haven't seen it yet myself, and am excited to check it out!


So what do you all think? Is this too gimmicky for you, or do you like the idea of fan participation being part of a reveal?