Word-of-Mouth: The "Incredible" Challenge
Monday, July 19, 2010 
Guest Post by Irene Watson
Incredible: (adjective) amazing, extraordinary, beyond usual, remarkable, unique.
Have you said or thought of one of these sentences?
I know have an incredible book but nobody seems to be interested in it.
My incredible book has been on the market for the past year and I've only sold 47 books.
I don't see why I need a website, the incredible book should just sell on its own.
Everybody should read my incredible book.
Wa wa wa wa wa. Sounds like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons. In reality, your book probably isn't incredible and not very many people care if you've written it.
I know this isn't something you are happy to hear, but I need you be rationally open to what I have to say especially if you haven't sold over 1000 books in the first year. (According to Publishers Marketplace the average sales for self-published, subsidy, or small publishers is 200 books - total - lifetime of book. And, those are usually purchased by friends and relatives.)
As I've said before, if you haven't had high sales your book is just not moving the dial on the who-gives-a-crap meter. I'm not being insensitive or heartless, I just want you to get into the mode of making some changes for your own benefit.
Historically speaking marketing, publicity, advertising, and promotion:
1. is doing the same thing that worked 20 years ago
2. is using a communication style of buy-me or ad-speak
3. isn't incredible because the book isn't incredible either
4. doesn't net any book sales.
Great publicists know how to create a story that shows not tells about your book. They also understand your target audience. These are the publicists that create huge sales for the authors.
However, what I'm finding is that many authors that are attempting to do their own marketing and publicity don't know how to show, they just tell, and they don't know their target audience so they end up imitating something they see done by someone else.
You Can't be Incredible by Mocking Someone Else
No, imitation, replication, or reproduction doesn't work regardless if you've been told it does. Besides, your efforts are not going to come through as authentic and will look like you are trying to copy another author. You have to recognize who you are speaking to - your target market - and how they read and buy. (Fiction and nonfiction.) And, you have to share something in your marketing venue that is incredible.
Writing your own "show" marketing content will move you from being boring to being ahead of others in the same genre.
Planning for Word-of-Mouth - Moving the Dial
Recently, just to see what is going on in the industry, I've been following some blog tours and listening to podcasts. You are about to guess...no they didn't move the dial on my who-gives-a-crap meter! I found a lot of same-old, same-old questions:
How long did it take you the write the book?
Was it hard to get published?
What type of marketing are you doing?
Are you writing any more books?
Huh? Who cares??? I can guarantee you if you went to your local book store and polled readers none of them would care if it was hard to get your book published or that it took 15 years to write the book. Sure you can concentrate on talking about your writing, but, that's not good enough. It will not sell your book!
What you want is for the reader to be delighted to read such an incredible book and refer all their friends and family to read it. Incredible doesn't mean incredible to you, it means incredible to the reader. Repeat...incredible to the reader. (And, it's NOT Mom, Uncle Buzz, or your next door neighbor.)
Triggering Word-of-Mouth
You've been waiting for this, right? I can give you some pointers but unless you move your own dial it's not going to work. Huh? Didn't make much sense did it? Read on.
First of all , I want you to think of the recent few times you participated in word-of-mouth about a book you read. (Please don't tell me you don't read.) The book either exceeded your expectations or fell flat. Either way, your word-of-mouth was a result of:
Relevancy - the story or information was or was not pertinent to you, current times/social issues, or currently popular.
Writing - well written, good plot line, informative or had editing issues and/or poor character development.
Uniqueness - the plot or information was nothing that you've read before, or it was the same thing others have said.
The more incredible the book was, the stronger your word-of-mouth was. Right? Or, the other way around. If you didn't like the book, you made sure and told others you didn't.
No different than you, other readers are triggered by the same things. So, that means you have to figure out what triggers your readers.
Connect with Your Readers
You need to be proactive to create a word-of-mouth experience for your readers. Rather than telling them it took 4 years to write your book, tell them what is relevant to them. Connect with your readers on their level on a level playing field. Be transparent. Give them what they want, not what you think they want.
Use Reader Reviews as Word-of-Mouth
Reader reviews are one of the most imperative and powerful tools in your cache. But, not all reviews are created equal. Reviews must:
*Be honest. Any sense of a canned review or one that is extremely polished comes off as phony.
*Demonstrate the reader actually read the book and found it relevant. It must also show it filled a need.
*Have a credible name behind it. "A Reader" or "P.K" isn't credible. Neither is "X-Y-Z Blogger" with 3 followers.
Authors should significantly feature reviews that meet the above criteria.
Final Words for Creating Word-of-Mouth
Optimize your readers' experience by producing an incredible book (not your words, their words!) And, then, and only then, concentrate on spreading the word. If your reader doesn't experience your book as being incredible and you try to tell him or her it is or it doesn't match your marketing hype, you'll get burned. Be real! Offer relevancy and credibility. If you do, you'll have an incredible book with word-of-mouth buzz.
Do you use word-of-mouth to tell others about books you've read? What moves your dial when you read a book? Please leave me your comments.
Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.
Reader Comments (7)
Well said! Whether running a political campaign or a sales campaign - or, now, selling my books, I apply the scientific principle of asking myself, "SO WHAT!" tfot every great feature/advantage/benefit I come up with. Good exercise!
Excellent article. I target my audience by traveling to where they gather. My two books are about a Welsh family that immigrated to America to work the coalmines in the early 1900's. There are Welsh clubs and conventions all over. I have also traveled to the UK and sold books through WH Smith. I carry my books with me everywhere and have to date sold around 1,500. Not too bad for a self published author. My first book Mourning Redemption was such a hit I wrote its sequel, Morgan's Crossing which is well on its way even though it was just released. Thank you Irene for addressing the issues that make a difference.
Irene,
This is brilliant. I could not agree with you more. And to further enhance what you are saying it is critical to put a cover on the book that captures the attention of a passerby. They might say "Don't judge a book by it's cover." But people do! There is an entire marketing strategy about color schemes, layouts, tones, fonts, etc. If you want your books to sell - hire someone who knows what they are doing to do the art work on the cover!
I belong to a bookaholics group on CafeMom . We have booklogs where we keep track of what books we have read and we can ask each other about a particular book and get a review. here is the url:
http://www.cafemom.com/group/45811/forums/159700/50_BOOK_CHALLENGE_BOOK_LOGS
I really enjoy a book when the characters seem true to life. I'll even miss them when I finish the book so I'm always glad when there is a series. I often am drawn to a book by it's cover, but then I'll read the caption on the front or back to see if it is the type of story that I like.
I love reading your posts, they are brutally and sometimes painfully honest and to the point. My first book is almost to print. I self published. If you were to read the bio on my site, you would see I went into this with eyes open and no illusions. I didn't write the greatest work of the 21st century, or am I the greatest author that ever lived, I'm just someone with a story that needed to be told, nothing more nothing less.
The only question I have is, what is "credible" and who sets the standard, and why? Just because a person reads a lot of books and has an opinion on what a book should be, and a group of people agree, does that really make their opinion worth more than a person with a blog with three followers who purchased, read and enjoyed the book?
From a dollar standpoint I guess it does, but does that make it right?
Thanks again for a great post, I find the information valuable and thought provoking
Thank you for sharing this information. This is a nice post. It will really help a person become an incredible writer. I agree that word of mouth is the key that separates a poor written text from excellent one.
I love your honesty and your being able to tell it the way it is, in the same manner as Larry Winget, author of You're Broke Because You Want to Be (I love that title)
I actually posted on my Redroom blog about this post with a link back to it.
See at WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING IS STILL THE BEST PROMOTION FOR BOOKS.
Unfortunately, most people in this world do not like honesty and would rather hear falsehoods that reinforce their false beliefs and behaviors that keep them in their ruts in life.
Ernie Zelinski
Author of the Bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)