I’m a big believer in authors building their audiences one reader at a time. Yes, it’s time consuming, and yes, it’s challenging. But once you have a fan, chances are you have that fan for life. And if that fan becomes a super-fan, they become a marketing force to be reckoned with. The best possible promotion any book can get is when one person tells a friend, “You have got to read this book!” You simply can’t buy that kind of advertising. This article by Sarah Bolme, Director of Christian Indie Publishers Association, offers some great insight into engaging readers as part of your overall book marketing strategy.
“They say 90% of the promotion of a book comes through word of mouth. But you’ve somehow got to get your book into the hands of those mouths first!” Claudia Osmond’s quote sums up the struggle all authors and publishers face. The first step is getting your books into the hands of people who would love to talk about them. The next step is amplifying those word-of-mouth messages. The more people who are talking about your books, the more noise they make and the more other readers take notice. However, if you are one of those authors who has not yet developed a large following of readers, the noise your reader’s word-of-mouth makes is more like a whisper. Your challenge is to take that whisper and amplify it so that it becomes louder and more people hear it. This is where the strategy of engaging your readers to help you market your book comes into play. As an author, you can use the following three strategies to engage your readers in your marketing efforts.
Read the full article here!