#5. Readers, Reviews
and THANKS.
An author could never have too many reviews. I beg readers
for them, either at signings, in the back of my book, or when readers email
me—please post a review. But it seems most of the time, it doesn’t happen, still
I try. While sitting in on Penny’s workshop at RWA, she described a marketing campaign
for a new author who didn’t have a social media presence—nothing. No Facebook,
Twitter, etc.
Strategy one was to have the author write a short note of
heartfelt thanks to the readers for selecting her novel, then asked for them to
post a review with a link. Okay, so I need to add a ‘THANK YOU’ page at the end
of every novel—got it. That sounds reasonable. Next, Penny advised her client
to respond to every review—positive or negative—with “thanks for giving me a
try”, or something neutral. For some reason, that personal touch helped the
woman’s book reviews to soar in the hundreds. Of course, writing a good book
helps, but I thought, really? Who would have thought that a one-on-one with a
reader would make more readers buy the book and post? It’s worth a try. If I can
beg for reviews, then I ought to respond with a ‘THANK YOU’ to each and every
one of them. Okay, I’m on it, beginning with my July 2014 reviews and on.
Don’t miss #6. Covers, covers, covers. We hear this all the
time as authors that readers judge books by their covers, but in one workshop,
the speaker tweaked one thing and her sales improved almost immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment