Marketing Yourself. Or Not.
Sometime last year I joined a group then called the Digital Publishing Group. Now it's called the Publishing Point, and it's essentially a group of publishing professionals who are interested in the future of the industry in the digital world. About once a month there's a brown-bag lunch on a variety of topics, with a guest speaker. We heard Seth Godin last fall, and yesterday I went to a session called "Market Yourself, and Books While You're At It." The guests were Max Kalehoff of Clickable and Stephen Baker, a journalist and author, formerly of BusinessWeek magazine. (If you want to read some of the tweets, including mine, head over to Twitter and search the hashtag: #pubpt.)
As you all know, I've kind of thrown myself into the digital world pretty heavily over the last year. I read tech blogs, I made friends with the thought leaders. (My best friend is one of them, which gives me an inside track.) On the the business end, we've tackled it full-force from majorly upgrading the agency website to a fabulous platform, to growing a Twitter following, to doing all kinds of interesting marketing for CANDOR, especially the podcast.
And you also know that I've been looking for the answer to, "What next?" How do I capitalize on these efforts and growth and convert that to sales?
What I got yesterday was a little more of the reiteration of today's conventional wisdom about internet marketing and becoming an influencer. Let me bullet point some of it for you, pretending I haven't done so several times in the past:
- BE YOUR OWN BRAND: Trust in corporations is dropping, and workers have to become free agents (and be visible) to maintain some job security. Individuals need to develop themselves into a brand. Authors need to be more involved in their own promotion. The goal is eventually to get people to follow YOU and not just what you're covering but this takes time.
- ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE: To sell something, you have to listen to the marketplace, and find the people who are interested in the content you are providing. Then you have to actively engage them. Example, you can search for your book title on Twitter and start following anyone who is talking about you and your book. This creates a relationship, and gets people invested in you.
- BUILD TRUST: Consumers and audiences like to know they are getting something more than just what they're paying for. Give away things for free. Offer something on top of the ticket price of your product. Get them talking, get them loyal. And make them like you. Have some personality, be a real person. People like connections. And free stuff, of course. That keeps people coming back to actually buy the product.
The trick on all of this is that is just takes time, and you have to be proactive about it. And dedicated for the long-haul. I blogged about this last week. Sure, I have nearly 2000 Twitter followers (by the way, a query critique or a free book/galley goes to lucky follower #2000), but it took me a year to get there. And I will keep building, cultivating, and gardening, as actively as I can. My authors should hopefully be doing the same thing now too. Welcome to Elana Roth: The Brand. Enjoy your stay!
In any case, back to the starting point... While the session was a bit 101 for me, it probably is important information to repeat here. And I was able to get in touch with Max Kalehoff (through Twitter, of course) afterward, in hopes of keeping the conversation going and learning some more advanced tips and tricks.
I'll let you know what I turn up.
Elana Roth, Industry internet, marketing, personal brands, social media, trust, twitter
Reader Comments (8)
I truly believe everything in American society is a business... and it keeps morphing and we all have to be held accountable to keep up. I've often said even the content of my courses amounts to a sales pitch. If I pitch the content well, the students respond with good attendance and grades. If I pitch it poorly, ummmm... yeah.
Same with my blog. Same thing with twitter. Same thing with facebook etc. When I write a post that gets a lot of comments then I write similar posts! I recently realized that twitter was a blessing and a curse, and that we all need to "twitter softly and carry a big pen." (Which I thought was clever and then tweeted and then saw it get re-tweeted)
So, in this world of writers and agents, editors and publishing houses... why would we not want to be on the cutting edge of the industry? Tomorrow that edge will be dull and we'll have to be ready to hop on what's next.
Great post!
Thanks for breaking down the main tenets of promotion into manageable hunks, and for emphasizing that it takes time and effort. Kind of like training for a marathon. You work over time to build a strong base, then move out from there.
Thanks for repeating info that is necessary for writers looking to self-promote.
I've just read some great posts here http://michaelhyatt.com/ about this very topic. Patience is key and sometimes you'll fall down, but it's important to keep building a platform and promoting your brand. I'm new to this, but I'm passionate about what I do. The evidence is overwhelming and I spend hours attempting to showcase what I do. Writing good blog stories takes time and commitment, and finding the right balance for clients, writing, and family is sometimes difficult. I think the trick to marketing is to be yourself, be sincere, honest, and enthusiastic about your product/brand. Let the market evolve around the brand and don't force the brand into a market.
Writers touch hearts, we create dreams that can be revisited, and we must be able to gain and deserve trust. Relationships are hard work and I'd like this one to last.
You look tired, Simon.
Great info., Elana!
Great post. I'm attending a conference this week (today will be day two) and it's with the author of The Social Media Bible. It's been a fantastic experience. Sure, I'm learning it for my job (I will do all their social media and marketing), but I can apply nearly ALL of the information to my writing career as well. Thanks for the post. Have a great weekend.
Twitter is amazing, especially for networking. Writers are very kind.
I find your twitter stream very interesting. I miss NYC, and feel restored from reading your tweets. : )
We, as writers, need to support other debut authors' books. We know what it's like to dream of being published, oftentimes since childhood. Let's make it a point to support those authors who've arrived ahead of us. We, more than most, can understand the significance and the hard work that goes into the novel we eventually hold in our hands.
Perhaps a hashtag should be devoted to new, debut authors on Twitter: #buyadebutauthor. Let's make it a movement!
You might get a great novel, you might not, but hopefully one day people will do the same for yours. We need to keep each other selling.
If the novel is great, keep it. If not, donate it to a hospital, a library, etc.
At the end of the day, it's all good.
(P.S. Love your hair -- bold move! P.P.S. I've never seen a galley in person -- wow -- so, holding off to try to be follower 2000!)
I now subscribe to the theory that if it can't be found on the internet, it must not exist... I apply the same theory to people unless they are under 8 or over 80.