Over at the Book Publicity blog, Yen takes up the question of Internet publicity (via SF Signal):
Yesterday I spoke at an AAR / Association of Authors’ Representatives panel together with Connor Raus (who runs digital advertising agency CRKWD) about understanding social media and how to use it effectively — as you know, a favorite topic of mine here on The Book Publicity Blog. I don’t have time to summarize the entire panel here (and you don’t have time to read a summary of the entire panel), but I did want to tackle the issue of timing, a common question among book publicists, authors, agents and others in the publishing industry, and one that we discussed last night: in order to most effectively promote a book, when do you begin setting up social networking profiles / blogs / websites?
He goes on to make an analogy to training for a marathon, and suggests the ideal time frame is 2-6 months before publication. That’s a time period long enough for effective promotion, and short enough to avoid burnout: “realistically, given the vast number of personal and professional commitments we all have, most authors probably will end up tapering their online activities after a few months.”
As someone who has spent a great deal of time in blogdom, here’s my alternative suggestion about starting blogs/social networking for book promotion: Don’t.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t start a blog. By all means, start one. But not because you think it will help you sell books. Or, worse yet, because you think you have to have a blog to sell books.
Start a blog because you think you have something to say to the rest of the world. Or because you want to practice writing for different audiences. Or because you read a lot of blogs, and want to be part of the conversation. Or any of a dozen other positive reasons.
But don’t start a blog out of crass commercialism, or a sense of obligation. You probably won’t enjoy it, the handful of people who read it almost certainly won’t enjoy it, and you’ll abandon it after a few months with a deep feeling of frustration over the whole enterprise, having sold approximately zero more books than you would’ve sold without it.
If you must make an analogy to marathon running, don’t think of the web as training for some other race– it’s a race unto itself. You’re not going to just sign up for social networking sites one day, and sell thousands of books a month later any more than you can just join a road race that’s about to start and expect to win. You might come out at a sprint and lead for a couple of blocks, but you’ll flame out in a hurry, and the race will continue long after you’ve collapsed on the sidewalk.
Building the kind of web presence you need to effectively sell books is a slow process, and takes more than a few months. It’s not something that happens automatically when you sign up for Facebook and Twitter, and the effort required to do it well is considerable. And the likely rewards in terms of book sales probably aren’t worth the time you would spend on it.
Which, again, is not to say that blogs and social media are not rewarding. Just that the rewards are more experiential than financial. If you want to start a blog or join Facebook for its own sake, that can be a Good Thing. But don’t dive into social media just because you’re looking to sell books (or CD’s, or art objects, or any other sort of product)– all you’ll end up doing is adding another skeleton of a dead promotional blog to the millions already cluttering the web, and nobody needs that.
Amen! Very nicely said, and bookmarked for future reference.
Interesting. You’re absolutely right of course, there’s far too many publishers and marketing types who presume that Twitter+Facebook=InstaFame, and they’re entirely wrong. In fact, very often in an annoying and alienating way. People using the internet are becoming more and more savvy to astroturfing and it can backfire. (To be honest I thought twice about posting this comment because I run a blog covering science books, and this post could just be seen as annoying spam!)
What’s needed is some imagination. I dislike advertising on principle, but recognise that it’s a necessary evil. Sometimes though, just sometimes, you see a brilliant piece of advertising that’s entertaining in its own right. Some of the old Guinness ads for example, or the classic “Blackcurrant Tango” ad. What can be done with books? I’d suggest setting up Facebook pages belonging to your main characters to give a little backstory, or as Doctor Who has done rather successfully,entire fake websites for fictional organisations….they can even be “hackable” to give a little puzzle with a reward at the end.
Social network style advertising has its place, but yes, it does need far more work and thought than currently goes into 99% of it.
Thanks for an entertaining blog by the way 🙂
This is what I always tell people when they ask me.
But some publishers are forcing their writers to blog. I know of one specific case where a writer was told “you have to do either a blog or a book tour”. This isn’t good for anyone.
i agree. writing a blog is a big commitment with a small (often nonexistent) financial reward. but as a venue for practicing one’s writing, for exploring one’s ideas about a particular topic or field, i cannot imagine a better way to do this than to write a blog.
No more blogs 😉 (nonsensical of course ;))
Whether its an entire website or just a blog, both are HUGE time and money commitments. They aren’t for the faint of heart or those that aren’t willing to devote your last dollar and 27 hours a day.