Market Research
The soft sell...
I got an email invitation to Homecoming functions at William & Mary’s English Department, my alma mater. One of the things they asked of all published graduates is to bring their books for display at Tucker Hall, the department’s epicenter, and where I spent a good portion of my college years. In lieu of physically bringing your books though, you could also just forward them for display. Since I couldn’t make it to Homecoming, I boxed up a stack and sent them. A couple of my earlier novels are already on display at Tucker Hall (or were, once upon a time), but I thought I’d send them all again anyway, figuring the worst thing that happens is they end up on someone’s desk, or taken home to be read.
I saw this as a marketing opportunity, a chance to put my books in front of hundreds of visitors over the Homecoming weekend. Will it work? Who knows. The harsh reality is I suck at actively marketing myself and my books. Some of it is trained; as a federal agent, I rarely talked about myself or the things I did, a natural reticence built up over time by the job and the locales I worked. The other part is ingrained; I just hate trying to “sell” me and my work.
While some might argue marketing or selling is not my job—it’s my publishers or agents or whoever—the reality is that it is 100 percent part of a creative professional’s job nowadays, and an important one. To borrow some legal parlance, you have to be a zealous advocate for yourself and your work, and look for opportunities (large and small) to get your name out there.
I’ve been asked to blurb quite a few books over the last few years, and although the blurbing conundrum (highs and lows and value) probably necessitates a post all its own, I always view blurbs as a chance to not only support books that I like and authors I believe in, but a surreptitious way to market my own books, as well. While my motives are primarily altruistic, they’re also strategic.
No different than book events, conferences, podcasts, whatever; there are plenty of ways to “guerilla market” your work, without the hard sales pitch. You just got to find ‘em and take advantage when you do.
As always, feel free to—