I’ve contended that word of mouth is the greatest marketing
tool available to authors. Word of mouth includes book clubs, online recommendations
at sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing, reader reviews, and good ol’
fashioned face-to-face conversation. Word of mouth does not include anything
the author says, including social media leavings that come from gallivanting
around cyberspace. Potent word of mouth comes unexpectedly from a trusted
source. Every author’s marketing strategy must focus on generating positive
word of mouth.
Recently, I had confirmation of this axiom. In the first of August,
I ran a discount promotion for a couple of days for the e-book version of The Shopkeeper. I don’t believe in
offering free e-books because there is no lasting effect beyond a couple days. Many
people gather up free books and never bother to read them. I’ve discovered that
there is an entirely different dynamic for 99¢
e-books. Evidently this tiny fee motivates people to read the book.
I decided to use a brief
99¢ price for the
first novel in the Steve Dancy Tales
to give a boost to the entire series. It worked far better than I expected. Not
only did The Shopkeeper sell almost two thousand copies, all the other books in
the series showed accelerated sales. Actually, it has been over a month since
the promotion and all five books in the series still sell at more than double
the pace of sales prior to the promotion. Free e-books have no legs, but 99¢ e-books seem to have a
long tail.
None of this was news to me. But I did make an observation
about this promotion that had previously eluded me. If a promotion goes well
and readers like the book, then word of mouth accelerates sales in other
formats and for other books by the same author. I never track audio sales
because they’re small compared to other formats. I kept an eye on them
this time, and I noticed a major surge in sales about a week or so after the promotion.
Print sales also surprisingly increased, and sales of my other books grew
significantly. The additional sales could only come from word of mouth because
none of these other books or formats were discounted or promoted beyond my
normal feeble efforts. People who liked The Shopkeeper told other people about my books. Some marketing gurus tell you to
make fans out of your readers. Good advice, but if you really want to sell lots
of books, turn your readers into your own personal sales force.
How? Write an engaging story that never jerks your reader
out of the story. This means you need to keep the story moving forward, avoid unnecessary
plot detours, and have it all professionally packaged. If you enthrall your
readers, they’ll tell their friends, family, and neighbors about this great new
author they found. After you have a large and growing sales force, you can
concentrate on what you really love to do—write.
