Take time now to improve your online presence and marketing assets
The bad news: the online space, if you haven’t noticed, is getting saturated. You could fill every lunch hour and evening with book clubs and book festivals and live readings and more. And even if you do offer a creative and enticing online event, it’s hard to sell when so much content right now is available for free.
We suggested in our April 1 issue that now is a good time to focus on long-term literary citizenship, audience development, and platform foundation-building so that you can come out stronger in whatever new normal arrives. Consider what role you are uniquely suited for in your own corner of the writing and publishing community. With that in mind, here are worthwhile ideas and best practices to help you on your way.
Don’t have a book video yet? Now’s an excellent time to make one. In a session hosted by the Authors Guild, author Amy Stewart recently discussed her success making book videos for marketing and promotion. These aren’t trailers per se (that would imply high production values and expense), but videos you can do sitting at home with the equipment and software you already have, like your smartphone and iMovie. Stewart says a book video should offer insight not already found on the back cover, marketing copy, or Amazon description. Don’t do your bio, don’t summarize the plot, and don’t make it a sales pitch. Instead, as the author, offer something that no one else can, such as behind-the-scenes information not discussed anywhere else. “Consider those weird backstories,” she says.
The point of the book video is not to get lots of traffic or attention. Rather, Stewart says, a video is one more tool for marketing your book. You can simply upload it to YouTube and Facebook and embed it on your author website. That alone gives a lot of different people an opportunity to encounter the video. Stewart’s publisher uses the videos at sales conferences, and they’ve changed how salespeople think about and pitch the book. For that reason, it’s best to make these videos before the book comes out, before it is introduced to the sales team. Publicists can also use the video to pitch long-lead publications in the lead-up to launch.
If your book is already out, though, it can still be beneficial to create a video. Book clubs, bookstores, and others who might invite you to speak appreciate them; it helps them understand what you might be like as a guest or how you’d fit into an existing event. To learn how to make your own book video, here’s Amy Stewart’s free tutorial.
Improve what online events you offer. Don’t feel bad—nearly no one in book publishing (or even education, for that matter) has been taught how to host or deliver a great online event. We’re all learning as we go, in real time, out of necessity. While many of the first-order concerns tend to be technical (what platform to use, what microphone to use, etc.), once those basics are in place, the most important questions arise: What sort of event structure is best? How do you engage the audience and avoid boredom?
Fortunately, there is help to be found. Event designer and producer Jess Sousa has starting recommendations. Also, ACM has put together a free and comprehensive guide to step you through both small and large event considerations—from early planning to social interaction. While it’s geared toward academic events, any event organizer will find it full of valuable insights.
Like all social media, Pinterest is seeing increased engagement—and the most engagement ever in its history. If you’ve been neglecting your account or need a reason to start one, now’s the time to dive in. Searches are way up for working from home with kids (including lunch recipes), bread recipes, home haircuts, family movies, victory gardens, Mother’s Day at home, and virtual graduation parties. Looking ahead, Pinterest searches may move toward budgeting, cutting costs, affordability, and starting a business. Check out Pinterest’s trends tool.
More ideas:
- At a recent IBPA webinar—a gathering of small independent publishers and authors—one publisher in South Carolina mentioned strong results from an advertising campaign in his local newspaper. He focused on advertising his backlist, particularly nonfiction titles of use to people right now during stay-at-home orders.
- Libraries are shifting their funds from print to digital resources. If your books aren’t yet available through libraries, it’s time to remedy that. Independent authors can use Smashwords and Draft2Digital to make their ebook available in libraries. We will cover this more extensively in a future issue.
- Publishers Weekly continues to round up initiatives from the children’s publishing community, which include not only the usual live video entertainment at lunchtime, virtual book festivals, and podcasts, but also an innovative choose-your-own-adventure game played via Instagram or Twitter.
- You might get inspired by Airbnb’s online experiences, including gardening lessons, writing workshops, and (of course) storytimes.
- Mitch Albom is writing and publishing a serialized novel at his site over the next eight weeks, free to all. Readers are encouraged to donate to SAY Detroit.
Bottom line: In the long run, authors and publishers will have to prepare for how readers’ tastes will inevitably change. The books that were acquired and planned for release for much of this year may not resonate in the same way and could feel out of step with where we eventually end up. A lengthy post at the Author Media site speculates (greatly) on how the coronavirus will change what readers read and offers tips on adapting. Ultimately, even the most innovative marketing in the world won’t be able to sell something that readers don’t want to read.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
