It Still Takes A Great Book

I had several of my authors taking workshops in Denver, at the RWA Conference, on different marketing strategies for their books. Workshops like this are appearing everywhere - not only at

conferences, but in online workshops, blogposts, articles, and books. Authors, like many of you, quickly buy into these ideas as the ultimate way to achieve those dreams of publishing success. If that is the case, Doc Randall here has something to sell you that might also help.

Unfortunately, what many of these "experts" are missing, and what you as authors are missing is the real concept that will make that novel a success. These workshops leave off the fact that your story has to be amazing in the first place. The key to success of a novel has to start with the novel.

I also teach composition writing, and I too teach many of the students the things that they can do to enhance those grades. Fantastic formatting, graphic illustrations in the text, the use of things such as side-bars and so forth. We know that when an instructor picks up that paper, their mind immediately starts thinking that student put in a lot of time and effort into the project. Thinking that, the grade already is moving in a positive direction.

We know this is also the way with anyone seeing something for the first time. You have heard me use the expression from the Head and Shoulders Shampoo commercial here before: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." That is what the marketing people are pushing.

These workshops proclaim the use of graphic design programs to create incredible social media campaigns. They talk about strategies for newsletters, blog posts and the like. And yes, we know these work, but it is still going to come back to the book.

Let me explain it this way.

How do you discover new authors? How do you discover that next book you read. The odds are, it is coming from a recommendation from someone else who read the book. How many times have you told someone else, "I just finished this book and you HAVE to read it!"

The thing about book sales is that is revolves around word of mouth. We learn about how amazing the book is when a friend tells us about the book.

It is only AFTER you have gotten the readers hooked that this social media is going to work for you. Think of it this way. If you don't have followers on social media, how will they find your fantastic social media campaign. They have to know of you first and the odds are they are not going to just randomly stumble across you.

So, what can you do as an author? You have to get your friends to talk about your book. You need to talk about your book. Get those followers first, AND THEN, work on those campaigns.