by Kimber An
How can authors make that vital love connection with their readers?
I write Futuristic Romance and spend a significant amount of time educating myself on this business. One thing I’ve learned through maintaining my own humble blog is that word-of-mouth works like nothing else in recruiting new readers. I’ve read that blogs and websites don’t affect the increase of readership. This has not been my experience!
Readers are afraid to try something new. It’s scary. They don’t know if they’ll be let down by a hero who turns into a mass murderer by the end of the story when they really need a Happily-Ever-After. It’s even scarier to spend money on something they have no idea about.
Readers of a certain subgenre may have no one to discuss their favorite books with in Real Life, especially if it’s new and still growing. I’ve found my fellow readers of Futuristic Romance all on-line. These same readers may have no way of ever attending a book signing or conference. No way to connect with you, the Author.
I suggest authors consider adding a message board with separate forums for each of their novels or at least a blog with an open invitation for questions, discussions, and even debates. You make time for book signings in real life. Checking a message board or blog each day achieves the same goal – making a love connection with readers. I do Tuesday Speed-Read on my blog. The purpose of it is to introduce good books, regardless of genre, to readers who might be hesitant to try something new. Authors have checked in when their novels were reviewed – commenting, answering questions, and telling about past and future novels. The readers loved it!
I frequent several blogs by authors. The most popular authors are those who respond to their commenters at least once per entry. If you don’t respond, the reader thinks you couldn’t care less. They go away, never to return. If you can get a dialogue going between yourself and the readers and between the readers themselves, you’ve struck gold.
Being able to discuss a favorite book with other readers is exciting. Discussing it with readers and the author who wrote it is like falling in love. Even if only writers visit your blog or website, those writers are also readers and they have lots of friends. I love getting my friends excited about new books. Once a reader falls in love with one of your books, they will want to read your whole booklist. And they’ll want to tell their friends all about it too.
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I’m a bloghopper, so I do appreciate an author who updates their or has that line of communication open. I like to know how an author’s mind works. It’s frustrating to me when you go looking for info on an author and/or their books and you find a small blurb at the publisher’s website – that’s it. I want to know more.
OF course there do seem to be exceptions to this – Linda Howard doesn’t have a website, I don’t think some of my old faves like Jude Deveraux or Judith McNaught do either (I haven’t looked in awhile). But I read these authors way before I started surfing the ‘net, before I knew better. Still, I’d like to go to a website about them and find out about any current releases, upcoming news, etc.
Oops that should say updates their “website”.
When I do Tuesday Speed-Read (like today,) I post the entry and then I track down the authors around the Blogosphere to email them. I let them know I’m featuring their books. I could find almost nothing on a few lesser known authors. No email address anywhere. Could have emailed their publishers, but there’s no telling if anyone would read that or when.:roll:
Blogs are not just for established authors.
Many of my business writing buddies prebuild their audiences with blog and article contributions.
Marketing guru Seth Godin ( http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ ) in his infamous Advice For Authors post states that the best time to start promoting a book is three years before it launches.
I don’t know if that holds for fiction authors but hey, it couldn’t hurt.
Well this is a great way to start off my morning! I just finished reading your Tuesday Speed Read and I come over here and I get a double dose of Kimber An! How cool is that?
Great post, Kimber An. I know that I want it to be a place where I can hang out and chat with on-line friends about romance and current events. I also want to use the space to introduce other authors. So I decided to interview one authro a month. I love the connections that I’ve made so far. It is time consuming. But it’s worth it.
Gwyneth
I don’t blog, but I do have a website. I put it up in October and Ihave 6000 hits already. It also helps with my freelancing to simply refer folks to my website to see an example of my work. I think having an internet presence has helped my book sales tremendously. However, I’ve been online for about 10 years now, and ‘know’ a lot of people from the various message boards I post on. It was easy to build up an email list from people who showed an interest when I started talking about my book. So I feel very fortunate. I don’t think you can just put up a blog and expect people to show up. You have to go out there and talk to people on other blogs. And not just about your book, though certainly you can do that. But people turn off when they think you’re trying to sell them something. Much better to discuss whatever’s being discussed, then if your book comes up or someone sees the link they can follow it to your website or blog.
Talking with readers is fun, but talking about your book with them is very rewarding, yes. When you get a reader who has really paid attention, who asks great questions or who notices the little things, it’s enough to make you want to adopt them.
I answer all of my emails, pop in on two boards, and now run one group blog and contribute to several — it’s been a great way of making contact with readers and writers, and it’s just fun.
What I’ve enjoyed the most is discovering that my readers are some very interesting people who I like and enjoy getting to know over time, which blogs in particular seem to facilitate. I’ve found on blogs in particular, if you respond often, you do learn a lot about each other, and it becomes a close group, and a nice social connection since writing can often be so isolating.
Sam
Whilst the benefits might not always be instantaneous, I don’t believe that it can anything but beneficial to engage with your readers this way. But I agree, Kimber – the connection has to be genuine. A blog put up as a transparent marketing tool is unlikely to be as successful as the genuine thing.
I love blog-hopping, and I love when I get the chance to converse with romance authors and my fellow readers about books and things.
I love going to my favourite authors’ blogs, especially those who do interact in their comments. I like the interspersing of personal and promotional. Sometimes I feel like I have a bit of insight into why they wrote XYZ . It has also got me interested in books I would have otherwise not read.
Great post. Your advice is wonderful.
I’m a blogger and blog hopper. But to be honest, I’ve always considered a forum kind of a waste. Unless I get ‘big’ I don’t see the point. I rarely visit an author’s forum if they have them, mainly because I know that it won’t have much activity in it. The exception would be the big author’s who have a huge following and conversation can get lively.
Sometimes I reply to a blogger’s comments in the comments section, but usually in the next post I make or I’ll visit their blog and reply in their comments. When I do blog hop, I don’t usually go back to see if someone replied to my comment.
But you’ve inspired me to reply to people more often in my comments section! I think I just overdosed on the word comments.:lol:
It always gives me a jolt when someone leaves a comment on my blog, or one of my readers e-mails me. I have a ‘I have READERS?’ moment. It’s nice to reply to someone who’s actually read something of mine (and liked it:smile:)
I blog hop, but don’t always leave comments – but after seeing this, I think I’ll have to remedy that!
I should’ve also added that I try to keep my blog updated as often as possible, especially if I’m working on a new book. And I don’t keep it strictly to writing – I’ve yapped about everything from my husband’s recent surgery to an argument I’d gotten into with someone on another blog. Sometimes it helps when I get bogged down in whatever I’m working on.
Kim
Interestingly enough, Karen Traviss — the writer who convinced me I should have a Live Journal — has shut down her Live Journal. Her bolg — like mine — was as much about life in general than it was about writing. She does still appear regularly on the webpage her publisher maintains for her. (No, I don’t have a publisher who does that for me. Yet.)
I’ve met several interesting people through their Live Journals and other blogs. (Some are too interesting. I have to limit my blog reading time.) As a writer I particularly enjoy the blogs of agents and editors, but there are some reader/reviewers’ sites where I lurk regularly. There is no way I would have access to these people without their blogs — and I have discovered dozens of new and exciting books through following their recommendations that I would never have read otherwise.
So keep blogging, everyone.
I love when people comment on my blog or reply to the comments I leave on their blogs. Between writing and little kids, it’s my version of breaktime water cooler conversations.