I was exposed to an interesting phenomenon this morning. Tawna Fenske is asking people to preoder her book ‘Making Waves’ from Amazon or any of the other fine booksellers who are offering it for preorder. Which I suspect is very difficult to do because no one wants to be the artist who sells their work by nagging their friends.
I don’t hold it against her. I read her blog because she’s entertaining. Which is also why I went and bought her book, in a genre I don’t read. Because I suspect it will reflect the same voice I enjoy online. And when I love it, I’ll recommend it to my friends, my family…probably not my coworkers but only because they’re all guys and may not appreciate the story for what it is. But I will recommend it to their wives.
That was the first bit of the phenomenon I recognized. This is something I’ve only just recently started doing. Buying these books from these witty, entertaining, intelligent bloggers-who-are-also-writers.
The second bit I recognized was that a lot of you have already figured this out and have a similar habit. Because if you scroll down on the Amazon page, you can see “people who bought this book also bought…” and they’re all books by writers who fit a similar profile.
So I started analyzing this, because that’s what I do. I analyze things and draw conclusions from my observations. At first I was skeptical, because what it said to me is we’re the people buying our books. Big deal, said the cynical part of me. I have 150 followers, I say I have a book out and maybe if I’m lucky, 10% of them go buy a copy. Yay, right? That’s 15 people. Not exactly a screaming success.
Except…if my books read the way my blog does – voicewise – and they read my blog because they like that voice…then with any luck they like the book. If they like the book, with any luck they tell the people they know, the same way they would with a movie, or a good TV episode. “Hey, check this out…this Tawna Fenske woman is epic funny. No, really. Give it a read.”
And suddenly, your name is out there.
I went through this thought process all this morning, and then went and got coffee and wondered if I would ever wake up. But that’s not the point. The point is, until today I was skeptical of building platform and audience through blogging. No, really, I was. I adore the people who read and comment, and even those who read and don’t comment. I don’t so much adore the people who don’t read, but they don’t know that because..they’re not reading 😛
But I didn’t think it was really a means of selling books. It was more of a community/bonding experience. Except now I’ve recognized this new habit in myself and in the rest of you. What better way to get reading recommondations? I know, you’ve already all figured this out, but I’m slow on the uptake.
So, support an author today. Tell them you love them and why. And rest-assured that if you’re genuine (and I know you all are), it’ll all come back to kiss you on the cheek when you’re looking for the same ^_^
What was the last book you bought because you read the author’s blog and loved the way they talked?