Today I have a big message (and a small story) about marketing for authors. I was recently in a self-publishing boot camp. The dreaded MARKETING part of publishing came up and even across a Zoom screen I felt a wave of despair from my fellow authors. We were all muted and I swear I heard a collective moan.
I know that gut-twisting groan. I’ve made it in the past. I’ve felt that way about work I was doing. So I took some time to try and understand why I felt that way and why “selling” my writing (and my audiobooks) feels different.
Here’s my theory:
Writers believe that they will have to become something other than a writer to hawk their books. And most of the time, that something other embodies shame for them.
Maybe because sales as a profession has the connotation of being a dirty job. A job where someone convinces someone else that a product is worth buying. It’s also possible, based on personal experiences, to believe that selling is synonymous with aggressive practices like abuse or bullying.
Some writers believe a marketer is, at best, a nag. A pesterer. But what they fear on a deeper level is that they will have to become a shady used car salesman discounting a lemon. A sex worker offering up part of themselves. Or even a drug dealer romanticizing a first high.
Whatever the most shameful way to make a living would be for them, that’s what writers imagine selling their book will feel like. They don’t want to sell. They want to write! These examples may seem extreme, but the resistance to marketing can be HUGE.
When something feels that detestable to us, there’s usually a good reason.
Have you ever felt this way? Do you feel that way right now about selling your artistic endeavors?
Fellow Authors, here is the most delicious antidote to the poisonous fear of marketing:
LOVE YOUR BOOK
Love it so hard that you cannot wait to tell your audience about it; about the process of making it, and about the kind of people in the world who are going to be SO HAPPY to have it…And then find those people. Ask everyone you know for their help to find those people.
That is marketing: How can I find my people?
Because when you make a thing you love and want to share, it connects you to other people who love and want to share it too. And you get stellar reviews, aka, the best possible marketing.
Reviews like the ones Mia wrote today.
Mia contacted me out of the blue via a LinkedIn chat. I’m not particularly active on LinkedIn, I don’t market things there very often, and I don’t know Mia personally, but she had a very short message for me that every author needs to hear:
Your h2g2 tour/guide is perfection. thanks for doing it.
I was shocked, but grateful to be able to thank her for buying my map. Because her love for Douglas Adams’ London was so clearly real, and she was so clearly my audience, the simplest ask felt very natural:
And please write a review, if you’re so inclined, to help other fans find it.
That’s the whole ask: Since you told me you enjoyed the thing I made, please share.
Fellow Authors, when fans have the opportunity to tell you (and other fans) how they feel, you will experience so much genuine connection, love, and gratitude, that your life (and the lives of everyone you touch) will be immeasurably better.
Step 1: Love. Your. Book. (art, job, vocation, etc.)
Step 2: Find the other people who love it too, and ask for their help.
I’m lucky to already be cosmically connected to every possible fan of my work via both the infinite improbability drive and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Since I’ve got that going for me, I might as well jump on the back of a Perfectly Normal Beast and hold on tight: enjoying the ride—-finding my people in any way I can.
What is your improbability drive? What is your Perfectly Normal Beast?
Find it, and enjoy the ride.
What do you think?