by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Obsessive Marketing Disorder (OMD)

Sheesh! With over 4,000,000 books (mostly indie) published last year, how the ever-loving heckfire does an author hope to get noticed, let alone make any lettuce at this gig?

I recall two historical events converging at around the same time—the explosive growth of Twitter and the eruption of indie publishing via Amazon. I got in on both around the same time, and I remember a number of writers who had the idea that millions and millions of people would see their tweets, so the best strategy was repetitive messaging that was a variation on buy my book, really buy my book, really buy my book right nowI

That quickly grew stale. It didn’t take long to discover that social media is not a direct marketing tool. So authors began to use Twitter as part of their brand-building enterprise, which for many included several other platforms. That takes a lot of time and mental energy away from the writing, and can result in an affliction I call Obsessive Marketing Disorder (OMD).

To avoid this malady, let me offer my personal take on where to focus your energies. I invite your take in the comments.

Your primary marketing tool is your books, written with the best craft and care you can bring to them. Because word-of-mouth has always been the most effective way to sell books over the long-term. So spend most of your time doing what you do—producing pages and getting better at your craft.

Set up a website, of course. A full treatment of this subject is beyond the scope of this post, so start off by reading the advice of industry expert Jane Friedman.

Next in importance is the email list. By going direct to a growing base of satisfied readers, you build a career. But how, you may ask, does a newbie create such a list? Well, first, satisfy readers with your books! (See above). Then offer a reader magnet, a healthy chunk of free content in return for an email address. I use BookFunnel for this ($10 a month) offering a free novella.

Now, how do you interact with your list? With pleasant to read emails. What I mean is, offer your list something they’ll enjoy reading on its own merits, not just a sales pitch. One author who does this well, IMO, is a guy who is bound to break out soon. His name is Dean Koontz. One recent email “From the Desk of Dean” begins:

Dear Readers,

It’s been a month of chaos here, with real life intruding into Koontzland in ways that I simply refuse to tolerate. In my frustration, I was dismayed to discover there is no Bureau of Real Life Control to which we can turn. More than one officious federal bureaucrat, hearing my complaints during multiple phone calls (I do not give up easily) said, “You’re on your own, you idiot.”

I was further dismayed to discover there is no Bureau, Office, Agency, or Department that will soundly thrash bureaucrats who call model citizens like me an “idiot,” and will not even teleport them to a retraining facility on the moon, which I’d be willing to help fund. It seems that if I am to maintain my quality of life in Koontzland—with its sugar-cake buildings, candy-bearing trees, and herds of unicorns—I will have to take extreme measures, which I am still formulating.

He goes on for a couple of paragraphs, then deftly drops in his pitch:

I am smiling now with true delight when I tell you that the first three Jane Hawk novels—The Silent Corner, The Whispering Room, and The Crooked Staircase will be reissued for the first time in trade paperback by Bantam Books in June and can be preordered as soon as you’re wise enough to do so. The fourth and fifth Janes are coming in September. They all have dazzling new covers.

He finishes off with:

To calm myself, I will go running now in the company of unicorns through the vast meadows of wild orchids here in Koontzland, through the forest of muffin trees, to the great Fountain of Longevity. One drink of that fountain’s flow of cherry cola grants another century of life. It’s another century in real life, but I’m counting on a world run by benign robots that will spare us from the problems and annoyances that now plague us. How could they not?

Warmest regards from everyone here in Koontzland,

Dean Koontz

To see more of Dean’s mailers, go here. Please note, don’t try to imitate Mr. Koontz. It’s his tone. Find your own, one that would be welcome at a party, which means don’t become just another boorish ranter. We have way too many of those now.

As for frequency of mailing, I’d advise once a month. What might you talk about?

• Your WIP
• Your process
• Your research
• Early look at chapters
• Cover reveals
• New deals

If you enjoy writing about a certain subject, you might consider a newsletter. I have one of these via Substack, which you can sample here.

As for paid advertising, I’ve never cracked the CPC or CPM code, and trying to figure it all out while shelling out dough can induce OMD all on its own. I have had some success with promotional services like BookBub and Written Word Media.

My bottom line is, don’t stress about marketing. Keep the main thing the main thing—producing quality fiction. Set up an email list. Move outward from there, watching for signs of OMD as you do. If you feel it coming on, go outside, take a deep breath, come back in and write another chapter.

Comments welcome.