The Right Way to Build Author Loyalty

Amazing photo by David Olsson

                   Last week Nathan Bransford posted what was supposed to be a humorous pitch about his book only to be booed by many faithful followers.It always amazes me how many nay-sayers there are in an industry that depends on networking and loyalty. And yet if I stop to think about it, what people are more volatile, passionate and willing to voice our opinion than writers! I just hate to see it happen to someone whose given us so much.

              If you've read his blog (do it. You'll be better for it.) then you know the state of the publishing industry these days and how vitally needful self-promotion is. This is nothing new of course, but with blogging, facebook and twitter, readers are expecting more from authors than ever before. What authors are failing to recognize is what really snags a reader into buying their book and why they can't follow the same methods that the big names do.

              Selling a book is as much about selling yourself as your work. Whenever I read any hype about a book I am most curious about the author first. I look up his/her blog and in the first few minutes I either have seen enough to know I'm not interested in the book, jot down the title to see if it's in the library or know this is a blog I'll be adding to my bookmarks and will buy the book. With authors like James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, Josh Grisham, even Amanda Hocking now, I already know all about them, they are too big to get to know personally so I am not offended when their blog consists mostly of reviews, interviews, where their book is sold and their tour information. Their books have garnered enough attention for me to form a bias about them that will either cause me to buy their book hot off the press or know I can just click past their latest advertisement and onto something else. But when you're a fledgling hopeful or newer author you can't play that game. 

                  What makes me want to buy a book is not how many times the title can be squeezed into each post, how available the links are to purchase it or flagrant "buy me" posts. There are subtler ways to enhancing readers that also build author loyalty which is really the goal of self-promotion. (Remember, I'm not talking about authors who already have an established reader base and many books already on the market). Many of these ways don't involve pushing the book at all. The books I’ve bought from reading author blogs are all because I felt I was friends with the author and wanted to support him/her, photos of their publicity tour made me feel like the book was worth buying and reading reviews on OTHER blogs (like the authors' friends or crit partners) saying how good the book was. It was months before I bought Kiersten White's Paranormalcy because I didn't read YA at the time but after reading her blog everyday (seeing "Paranormalcy" all the time and growing loyal to her as an author) and seeing the hype other author friends were giving the book I finally had to go out and do it. (It was as good as they said!).

                   Many of these sources of self-promotion were in posts but not the main topic and links to buy the book or find reviews are on the side bars not the center. People read author blogs to find out more about an author, to gain advice, to see what the book is about before buying it. If we like it, we’ll find reviews, other work they've published, and the cheapest site to buy the book on our own. The trick is to make us want to find it by engaging our loyalty, our interest in their writing style or there is so much hype from other sources about the book we have to buy it. 

                  Does this mean that as an author you should never put a "You can buy this at amazon here" or "I'm so excited my book is coming out in __ days!" No. A little of that never hurt anybody and of course you should make your readers aware of what's going on with your book and where to buy it. It's just my personal opinion that authors can be more subtle than they think they have to be. When Nathan's book first came out I knew I'd want to buy it because I felt loyalty to him for all he's given me from his blog and I wanted to give something back. And I knew he would be a good writer from reading his blog. Maybe this kind of thinking is just me..in which case thank you for reading purely opinionated post thus far you poor soul :)

                   Many aspiring authors want to help fellow writers but no one likes feeling pressure to do so. If you write well, have a good following of people who are rooting for YOU, and make them feel a part of what you’re doing then you don’t ever have to feel bad for self-promotion, it will happen on it’s own.

Do you agree? Or am I way off base?