Every author wants to be discovered, and yet nobody wants to be the person who won’t stop tweeting about their new release. Today we’ll tackle a paradox that sits at the center of every book launch. Bragging is unattractive, but authors still need somebody to talk about their work.
Why doesn’t self-promotion work?
Thomas: When can you promote yourself?
Jim: You need promotion for book sales, but should you promote yourself, or should somebody else promote you?
This goes back to sales and marketing 101. If I’m selling a product and I come up to you and say, “Thomas, this is the most fantastic cleaner you’ve ever heard of, you have got to try this,” you fold your arms and think, well, maybe I’ll check it out because we’re friends, but you know I’m going to make money off the deal. It’s benefiting me.
But if you get a call from your brother out of the blue who says, “I just tried this product, unbelievable cleaning power,” which one are you going to believe? You’re going to believe your brother.
Thomas: We have a staff meeting every week at Author Media where we share what we’re thankful for. One of the guys who works with us is newly married, and he said, “We got new laundry detergent this week, and our clothes smell so much fresher.” We joked that there must be a hidden camera somewhere, or a sponsorship. But he was legitimately excited about how his clothes smelled, and that carries so much more weight than a commercial telling me my clothes will smell better.
That’s why you have so many celebrity endorsements. It’s anchoring.
Jim: You’re anchoring your product to a celebrity people like, so if the celebrity likes it, it must be okay, and companies use that to sidestep the credibility problem. That’s just how we’re wired.
There’s a verse in the Old Testament that says let another’s mouth praise you, and not your own. I think that’s ancient wisdom we need to figure out how to apply to our own marketing.
Most of you listening are probably part of an email loop, or on Goodreads, Facebook, or Twitter. Think about the authors who are always promoting their books. You’re probably thinking about them the way I think about them, which is that I’m not thinking about them at all. I just delete, I go right by, because I know it’s another pitch, and it annoys me.
That’s some evidence for why we shouldn’t be promoting ourselves. So how do we do it?
What is the best way to promote your book?
Thomas: How do we promote the book if promoting ourselves isn’t effective? Bragging is unattractive, and it’s probably more acceptable in some other countries than in the United States, but even there it isn’t very attractive. Try it in most countries, and people will look at you sideways.
But if you say, “Here’s a cure for a problem you’re having,” people listen. It’s harder to hear “I’m this amazing author, and you should read my book.” Even stronger is a third party who says, “Here’s a cure for a problem you’re having,” because that gives it credibility.
Jim: We talked a few episodes ago about education, entertainment, and escape. If we say this book will help you escape the horrible week you had, that has more validity than, “My book’s on sale now for $2.99, and you need to get it.”
Thomas: People aren’t that price sensitive. I’d much rather read an interesting book for $10 than a boring book for $5. There’s an unlimited number of bad books out there.
How do I find someone to promote my book?
Jim: This idea comes from my friend Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads. He wrote a blog post on it, and I expanded on it. Essentially, you need a vamp.
A vamp is a short introductory musical passage, often repeated several times, that came out of the vaudeville era, before a solo. Somebody goes on before the big star comes out and gives the intro, and then the star does his thing.
If you look at the most successful people in American history, you’ll see they had a vamp. For example, Elvis Presley had vamp named Colonel Parker, who went before him, set up the gigs, and sold Elvis into all these venues so he could break out.
Another example was Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy was a nobody until he had a very influential vamp.
Thomas: The president of the United States holds up his book and says, “You all need to read this,” and everyone says, “Yes, Mr. President.”
Jim: That’s right. Ronald Reagan stood up and said, “Nancy, see this book? You need to read this book.” That’s when Clancy took off. He wasn’t selling much until Reagan said this is a great book, and then it took off.
Frank Peretti came out of nowhere and sold millions of copies of his debut novel, This Present Darkness. He wasn’t selling many copies until Amy Grant, on one of her concert tours, stopped in the middle of the show in every city and held up the book, saying it was an amazing book people had to read. Suddenly This Present Darkness hit the bestseller list. That was Frank’s vamp.
Billy Graham is another example. There were thousands of talented preachers out there. What made Graham rocket past all of them?
Thomas: A little old lady wrote a note to the owner of half the newspapers in the country, telling him Billy Graham was the greatest thing. He sent a note to all his papers that said, push Graham. Suddenly the press all over the country was talking about Billy Graham all the time, and it put him on the map. Soon he was praying at inaugurations.
Jim: Exactly. That was William Randolph Hearst, who owned many of the newspapers in the country at the time. That would be like owning Google today.
The Beatles had Brian Epstein, their manager, who believed in them when nobody else did. Decca turned them down, but Epstein got them into suits, cut their hair shorter, and put them on the map.
Thomas: Jesus hadJohn the Baptist.
Jim: John the Baptist was out there saying, he’s coming, he’s coming. He was playing the intro for Jesus to come up.
How do you find your own vamp?
Coauthor
Thomas: One suggestion is to get a co-author. The nice thing about a co-author is that you can give them the credit, so it doesn’t sound like self-promotion. You can say, “I did a little on this book, but my co-author Jim did a great job,” and cross-promote each other.
You can double your platform overnight by having a co-author.
Develop a Tribe
Jim: Seth Godin made this term famous with his book Tribes, but you need to develop a tribe. Some authors can find one person with enough influence and fame that all they need is that one vamp, but most of us don’t have that person, so we need a lot of smaller influencers.
That’s developing a tribe, a list of maybe 25 to 50 people who will go out and brag about your book when it comes out, on Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts.
Thomas: We wouldn’t call these vamps, that term is a little dated for me. My generation calls them hype men. It’s the guy who goes on before the rapper to hype up the crowd.
How do we motivate the tribe?
Jim: Some of it comes from already being an established author, but for my latest release I just went on my Facebook page and said, “I’ve got 50 slots, who wants to help me promote the book?” People came out of the woodwork.
We send them a free book, give them behind-the-scenes trivia no one else knows, and give them bonuses. A lot of people are in it because there’s something in it for them.
Thomas: Backstage access, essentially.
Jim: Exactly, a backstage pass. Some people are in it because they believe in what you’re doing and just want to help.
Does a better book attract more promoters?
Thomas: The better your book is, the more of that you’ll get, because if your book is kind of good, no one wants to vamp it, but if it’s amazing, people come out of the woodwork wanting to promote it.
Don’t panic if your first book doesn’t attract many vamps, because most people’s first book isn’t very good. I was talking with a New York Times bestselling author about her career, and she said it takes about a million published words before you find your voice. Her first bestselling book landed right around the million-word mark.
Keep practicing and getting the work to a higher quality.
Should authors promote each other’s books?
Jim: Something I’m developing for some upcoming books, since I haven’t seen much of it done, is authors interviewing each other, rather than being interviewed by interviewers, where you get on and talk about each other’s books.
That’s the same situation Thomas mentioned with co-authoring. I can get on with Susie May Warren and say, “Susie, I’m not even a romance reader, and your book absolutely rocked my world.” And, as a listener, you’d believe that.
That takes it one step beyond an endorsement, which can help, though sometimes it doesn’t help that much. This takes it further. You develop relationships with other authors.
Thomas: The place I see this done most often is in marketing books. Marketing gurus review each other’s books on their blogs and sell them really well. Seth Godin will talk about a Malcolm Gladwell book on his blog, and what they’re doing is building a community where they all succeed together.
They’re not recommending the book because it’s by a friend, they’re recommending it because they’re genuinely excited and have actually read it. You know when Godin recommends a book, he’s read it. It’s not, “She’s a friend, I’m sure it’s good.” It has to be heartfelt, because if it’s not, people can tell.
How can you be a vamp for others?
Thomas: I’d like to leave you with one final encouragement: vamp unto others as you would have them vamp unto you. Everyone wants to find someone to promote their work, but they’re not willing to go out and promote other people’s work.
The reality is the pie can be as big as we want it to be. Our primary competition isn’t other authors, it’s television. If everyone watched a few hours less TV, the number of books sold in this country would double.
So don’t be afraid to promote competing books, especially ones similar to yours in your genre, because the more the genre grows, the higher the tide rises for everyone’s boat.
Jim: That’s right, because you can only write so many books a year, maybe two if you’re incredibly fast, but more realistically it takes nine to 12 months. If readers like your books, send them to other authors who write books like yours. Like Thomas said, the tide rises together.
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