La Bene Vita

Reaching an Audience

If you don't know, MTMS   applied for a grant from Chase and LivingSocial.  . We have 213 votes out of 250 need for grant eligibility with Chase. I'm starting to think we may actually get there, though it's been an uphill battle. I've literally had to privately message almost every one of my 600+ Facebook friends, send emails to friends, and walk customers through the steps (sometimes on my own laptop) in the school lobby. Everyone is delighted to do it, including customers in the lobby, which amazes me - first, because customers care about our success, but second, because I can't believe they haven't somehow already seen the plea. We've been talking about almost nothing else for a week.

But then I think, I only really posted the plea for votes on Facebook and a few private emails. I realize that communicating with people is hard work. And isn't that what we're always talking about as writers? How to reach an audience? I'm here to tell ya that as more and more methods of communication appear, each one is less and less effective, because they're washed out in the flood. I used to complain that I couldn't reach our teenage employees by email and had to rely on Facebook; but now they rarely even get on Facebook. Text is the communication method of choice.

Just to prove the point: I created a fake Facebook account awhile back. I listed a WDC connection in my profile and friended a few WDC'ers. It took less than a dozen friends before the list of "suggested" friends - all authors, only a small percentage of whom have WDC accounts - started to grow. I friended writers like friending was going out of style. (Actually, it IS going out of style, as my teenage employee communication dilemma demonstrates, but I digress.) In a couple months, my fake Facebook account had more friends than my real Facebook account, which has been accumulating friends for years. I legitimately know every single one of my real-account friends. I know almost zero of my fake-account friends.

So in this fake account, I see all kinds of activity. The typical forwarded visuals like captioned photos and funny or thoughtful quotes. The complaints about boredom and lack of sleep and illness. The photos of babies and grandbabies and graduates. But I also see articles about the publishing industry. Book launches. Trailers. Author and book pages to "Like" (which, I do, every single time someone asks, just to build trust among my "friends.")

I have not read - let alone purchased - a single book from this network. Not one.

So what good is a huge network of authors to an author? I'm not sure, except that the graders like marketinggrader.com and klout.com like the huge number of friends and interactions. I created a Twitter account, of course, and use it to follow agents and publishers, so I suppose I at least keep up with the industry. But if I posted a plea on that Facebook account asking my "friends" to vote for my business grant application, would I get a single vote? I'm pretty sure I'd get as many votes as books I've read from this network.

But I might get someone to vote if I sent a personal message. "Hey - I saw your book just launched, that's great! Congratulations. By the way, will you vote for my business?" Personal interaction goes a long way. When I ask someone in the school lobby to help me out, they are delighted to do so. They sincerely tell me they hope we win, and they ask me to let them know whether we do. I'm talking about customers I've barely met, customers who are brand new, customers whom I never see because their lesson time conflicts with my work schedule. Here are the steps I take to garner lobby votes: (1) Make eye contact. (2) Smile and ask, have you voted for us yet? (3) They smile and shake their head, so I ask, "Would you like to?" (4) They say, "Sure, what's it for?" So I explain that we could win $250,000 to open new locations and employ more staff. And they practically hand me their phones and say, "Show me what to do."

Of course, you can't sell thousands - or tens of thousands - or hundreds of thousands - of books using personal interaction. In my business, we have repeat customers who come back every week, so it's easy to develop relationships with these people, and we do so liberally. But we've been tracking the success of our marketing tactics, and you want to know our top three sources for new customers? In this order:
1. Our thirty-foot sign facing a major road.
2. Word-of-mouth referrals.
3. Google.

I'm working on bumping Google up the ladder, but notice that paid advertising didn't make the top three. We pay hundreds of dollars for a single ad placement in a newspaper, coupon book, or postcard-style mailer. Each. And. Every. Single. Time. Advertising is very expensive. And it doesn't even make the top three, whereas #1 cost a one-time up-front investment that has long since paid for itself, #2 is free, and #3 costs nothing but the cost of maintaining a good website (we pay more, but it could be as little as $20 per year.)

Word-of-mouth referrals are free, and I bet they work for books, too. I haven't studied the publishing market as extensively as I've studied my market, but I can tell you this: I have rarely ever read a book that someone didn't recommend to me. When I was a teen, I read A LOT, and I volunteered in a library. I did bring home books by the bagful every week, and those I selected by the cover art and back-cover synopsis, so those are important, too. But overwhelmingly, throughout my life, my book choices have been driven by word-of mouth referrals.

Now, let's say you work your tail off referring your book to everyone you know - not your network of writer "friends," but people you actually KNOW. Let's say they love your book and talk about it to their friends. Let's say said friends buy the book and talk about it to their friends. Next thing you know, you're struggling to meet buyer demand, and wouldn't THAT be a sweet problem to have?

So, who do I KNOW? The majority of friends on my "real" Facebook account are people I actually know, people whom I felt comfortable enough begging for votes in private messages and believing they would actually vote. And you know what? Out of 600+ friends, 200+ have actually voted. Considering I've sent the messages in the last few days, it's possible some of my friends haven't been online or on FB, so let's be generous and say another 50 come back and vote later (which would ROCK, by the way.) That's still less than 50% of the people I asked. And it took HOURS to private message all those people. I'm not exaggerating. And that's not counting the time it's taken to grow and cultivate a list of friends who sincerely care about me, not just my association with their network. Meaning, my fake account "friends" only care that I'm a writer, I may be of some use, I may be a potential audience, and I boost their friends number. Those "friends" don't care about ME any more than I care about THEM. My real friends, conversely, care about me because I care about them in return. It takes a lot of time and effort to care about 600+ people - routine, everyday effort.

Reaching an audience is hard work, and it should be an integral part of any book marketing strategy. Set aside time for it. Maintain real friendships with people. Support their efforts and dreams and goals. They will be happy to return the favor when you're ready to launch your book. If the book is good, they'll read it and love it, because it's good and because it's you. Your network will grow as word-of-mouth referrals grow, and it will be even bigger when you're ready to launch the second book.

Just remember to pick your niche and stick to it at that point, so you don't let down the audience you've worked so hard to grow. But that's a topic for another day. Happy networking!