PICK ME...CHOOSE ME...LOVE ME - MARKETING AS AN AUTHOR

The other day, I gave a talk about marketing to my author group here in the land of swaying palm trees and iguanas. I approached the conversation like I did hundreds of presentations I’ve made in my life, from corporate boardrooms to classrooms. I made sure to have a little treat to start the discussion. (Yes, there were SunRumbrellas at nine o’clock in the morning, and by the end of the talk, we needed a few more.)?I had humor to tell the hard, cold facts, lots of props for visual needs, and a bit of razzle-dazzle to keep everyone engaged.

The figures are pretty daunting.?Three million books?(that’s a three followed by six zeros) are published annually, and the number will be closer to four million by the end of 2023. This means the day that I release my book, a day I have carefully selected, sweated and cussed over, neglected the hubster and Elvis over, pushed myself too hard over…that day...eight thousand?other books are now magically available to the world of readers. Let me break it down further…in the?one minute?it’s taken you to read these two paragraphs,?six books?were published.?BOOM!?(Excuse me, I need to find a paper bag to breathe into.)?

But hey, who doesn’t love a good, scary story to make your hair stand on end? Remember that horror movie? You thought the maniac was dead, but the girl opened the door to find the real killer standing there holding the murder weapon. In the world of being an author, I just opened the door, and twenty violinists are plucking their strings as tense staccato notes pour out. The book market has flooded to ten times its size in twenty years, yet revenues?REMAIN THE SAME. (Gasp...Sorry, I’ll be back in a few minutes. I need to hide under a blanket for a minute, gulp some wine, and breathe into my paper bag again.)

Writing a great book is not enough anymore. Oh sure, you wrote it. You designed the cover, praying it fits your target audience (unless you are lucky enough to have a publisher who handles this for you). You edit until your eyes are swimming and the pads of your fingers are raw before sending it to a professional editor. And while it is in their hands, you vacillate between terror that the book is so horrible the editor is feeding it to their shredder and composing a note to say, “Perhaps you should think about something else,” or you lay in a hammock daydreaming about the champagne corks that will pop at your book launch and the thousands of people that will stop what they are doing to sit down and read your book.?

It’s in this window of time that some hard truths begin peppering you like sleet in a windstorm. You should have been marketing your book for months, even years before you released it. How many followers do you have? Do you have a website? What are your brand colors? Do you have a font family? (A font family? I can barely keep up with the human ones.)

Market research, and social media posts, and pages, oh my! Publicity, and Digital Ads, and Websites, Oh My! SEOs, AND KEYWORDS, AND HASHTAGS, OH MY!… Lions, and tigers, and bears are less scary than these words. Reading them, I get sweaty, my pulse races, and I do that thing where I walk a circle around the house while beating my wrists against my thigh. I just want to write, and that’s hard enough to do with writer’s block, creating unforgettable characters and exciting plots, researching, and sprinkling in fresh, pithy dialog, but now I have to dive off the high dive into the marketing pool? What if my bathing suit goes to the bottom? What if I belly-flop? (Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.)

I’m not alone on this walk. Every author, every small business owner: the guy who does your pest control, the place you take Buffy for her grooming, the mom-and-pop gift shop, and the bar around the corner your friend owns—we’re all going down this yellow brick road full of potholes to the Emerald City. Some approach the path like a horse on derby day: bumping against the gate, frantic to get out and run, legs furiously pumping, muscling others out of the way. And then there are those of us who trip and faceplant. We’re not sure what we are doing, and we keep praying that we somehow connect with our customers.

Could you do something for me this week? No…I take that back. I know you guys. Do it TODAY. In fact, do it as soon as you finish reading this blog post. On second thought, STOP READING and do it NOW. I want you to take thirty seconds and find the Facebook and Instagram pages of the small businesses you use. Find their websites. You know where they are because you use it to find their phone number when you need something. Like them, leave a review, comment on their post, and share their page.

Remember when you forgot to make Buffy’s appointment with the groomer, and she looked like Phyllis Diller? The groomer graciously squeezed Buffy in (although with that hair, it was a challenge), and Buffy, while still a bit miffed at the experience, pranced and paraded down the sidewalk while your neighbors looked on, appreciating Buffy’s combed locks. The groomer squeezed you in because she values your patronage and hopes you’ll recommend her. When your tire started making that slump-thump noise on the way home, you stopped at the tire shop just as the guy was closing, but he rolled up the bay door and plugged your tire, allowing you to get home safely. Did you give him a shout-out for that service? What about the company that makes sure that Buffy’s, ahem, business, is not in the yard for your mother-in-law’s shoe to slide across? (Trust me, if this happens, the withering glare you are getting is the least of your troubles.)

Did you realize that in addition to maintaining their business, they are also finding ways to say PICK ME, CHOOSE ME, LOVE ME! Don’t just do it on Small Business Saturday to make yourself feel good and check the box. If it’s a book you bought, post a review or leave a star (or five if it's one of mine) where you bought it. If it’s a small business, do a shout-out on your social media page and tag them.?

You may not realize this, but the five seconds you took to like their page, leave a comment, share, or post a review, those are the things that whisper, “Hey, you’re doing it, and I believe in you…keep going.”

See you in two weeks! MJ Mac